[OSGeo-UK] IMPORTANT: announcement about OSGeo:UK

Fri Mar 18 11:02:33 PDT 2016

Dear All,

It's close of play on Friday and we've had no negative comments about
OSGeo:UK becoming an unincorporated organisation, so at this point we'll
adopt the constitution. We have the formal appointment to get a bank
account next week.

Thanks

Jo

On Thu, Mar 17, 2016 at 6:08 PM, Suchith Anand <
Suchith.Anand at nottingham.ac.uk> wrote:

> +1  Important first step to help building strong foundations in place for
> OSGeo:UK
>
> Suchith
>
> ------------------------------
>
> On 17 March 2016 at 16:21, Mike Saunt <mikesaunt at astuntechnology.com>
> wrote:
>
>> Jo
>>
>> Sounds great - seems like a good evolution & structured way forward.
>>
>> Kind regards
>> Mike
>>
>> On Wed, 16 Mar 2016 at 14:17 Jo Cook <jocook at astuntechnology.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Dear List,
>>>
>>> I have an important announcement to make!
>>>
>>> OSGeo:UK has previously muddled along happily as an informal group of
>>> like-minded people but with no formal definition. For reasons that I will
>>> outline below, we find it necessary to become a legal unincorporated
>>> organisation, with an officially elected committee, and a constitution
>>> outlining our aims and objectives.
>>>
>>> Our main reason for doing this is to allow us to set up a business bank
>>> account, and this needs to happen extremely quickly in order to allow us to
>>> process payments/accept sponsorship for the FOSS4GUK 2016 event in June.
>>> Our previous banking arrangement is no longer available to us, due to
>>> circumstances beyond our control.
>>>
>>> Due to the need to get the constitution adopted and a committee in place
>>> before we start the business of opening a bank account, we're not holding
>>> elections at this stage for the committee positions. I (Jo Cook) will be
>>> the initial Chair, Steven Feldman will be the Treasurer, and Antony Scott
>>> has kindly agreed to act as Secretary. These positions will be put up for
>>> election at our first official AGM, which will be within 12 calendar months
>>> of the adoption of the constitution.
>>>
>>> We have put together a constitution (attached as a pdf) that we feel
>>> sets out the aims and powers of OSGeo:UK. It's based on a standard legal
>>> template so there should be no concerns about wording. The aims are taken
>>> from our initial aims that the group was recognised under by OSGeo. The
>>> powers are worded to be as light touch as possible- these can be amended at
>>> some later date by calling a Special General Meeting. The guidance we used
>>> putting this together can be found here:
>>> http://www.netlawman.co.uk/ia/unincorporated-associations and see also
>>> https://www.gov.uk/business-legal-structures/unincorporated-association
>>> and
>>> http://www.valonline.org.uk/setting-community-group/write-your-constitution,
>>> which contains a link to the template we used, and others.
>>>
>>> The eagle-eyed amongst you will notice that, amongst the powers listed
>>> in the constitution, we reserve the right to charge membership fees for
>>> both individuals and organisations to join the local chapter. Don't be
>>> alarmed by this- we are not proposing to turn this into a closed group, we
>>> will maintain this mailing list as our informal list of members, and most
>>> importantly the method by which every day decisions about what we do are
>>> made. However, becoming an organisation and having a bank account brings
>>> some running costs and responsibilities, and as such we will have a second
>>> category of member called a Voting Member, for which a small membership fee
>>> will be applied. The job of Voting Members will be to vote on
>>> constitutional matters, and only Voting Members will have the power to call
>>> General Meetings. The additional benefits of becoming a Voting Member, and
>>> the fee structure, will be announced in due course- but I emphasise it will
>>> be a small fee.
>>>
>>> Since there is an urgent need to get this constitution adopted so we can
>>> get the bank account in place, we're setting a deadline for
>>> comments/objections of close of play on Friday. Please do comment if you
>>> have any concerns, and feel free to contact me on or off list to discuss.
>>>
>>> If you're happy with everything set out here, then there's no need to
>>> respond. Silence will be considered acceptance.
>>>
>>> All the best
>>>
>>> Jo
>>>
>>> --
>>> *Jo Cook*
>>> t:+44 7930 524 155/twitter:@archaeogeek
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> Astun Technology Ltd, The Coach House, 17 West Street, Epsom, Surrey,
>>> KT18 7RL, UK
>>> t:+44 1372 744 009 w: astuntechnology.com twitter:@astuntech
>>> <https://twitter.com/astuntech>
>>>
>>> iShare - enterprise geographic intelligence platform
>>> <https://astuntechnology.com/ishare/>
>>> GeoServer, PostGIS and QGIS training
>>> <https://astuntechnology.com/services/#training>
>>> Helpdesk and customer portal
>>> <http://support.astuntechnology.com/support/login>
>>>
>>> Company registration no. 5410695. Registered in England and Wales.
>>> Registered office: 120 Manor Green Road, Epsom, Surrey, KT19 8LN VAT no.
>>> 864201149.
>>>
>>> ------------------------------
>>> <https://astuntechnology.com/astun-user-group-conference-2016/>
>>> Astun User Group - Conference 2016
>>> <https://astuntechnology.com/astun-user-group-conference-2016/>
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> UK mailing list
>>> UK at lists.osgeo.org
>>> http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/uk
>>
>>
>> --
>> Astun Technology Ltd, The Coach House, 17 West Street, Epsom, Surrey,
>> KT18 7RL, UK
>> t:+44 1372 744 009 w: astuntechnology.com twitter:@astuntech
>> <https://twitter.com/astuntech>
>>
>> iShare - enterprise geographic intelligence platform
>> <https://astuntechnology.com/ishare/>
>> GeoServer, PostGIS and QGIS training
>> <https://astuntechnology.com/services/#training>
>> Helpdesk and customer portal
>> <http://support.astuntechnology.com/support/login>
>>
>> Company registration no. 5410695. Registered in England and Wales.
>> Registered office: 120 Manor Green Road, Epsom, Surrey, KT19 8LN VAT no.
>> 864201149.
>>
>> ------------------------------
>> <https://astuntechnology.com/astun-user-group-conference-2016/>
>> Astun User Group - Conference 2016
>> <https://astuntechnology.com/astun-user-group-conference-2016/>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> UK mailing list
>> UK at lists.osgeo.org
>> http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/uk
>>
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-- 
*Jo Cook*
t:+44 7930 524 155/twitter:@archaeogeek

-- 
--
Astun Technology Ltd, The Coach House, 17 West Street, Epsom, Surrey, KT18 
7RL, UK 
t:+44 1372 744 009 w: astuntechnology.com twitter:@astuntech 
<https://twitter.com/astuntech>

iShare - enterprise geographic intelligence platform 
<https://astuntechnology.com/ishare/>
GeoServer, PostGIS and QGIS training 
<https://astuntechnology.com/services/#training>
Helpdesk and customer portal 
<http://support.astuntechnology.com/support/login>

Company registration no. 5410695. Registered in England and Wales. 
Registered office: 120 Manor Green Road, Epsom, Surrey, KT19 8LN VAT no. 
864201149.

------------------------------
<https://astuntechnology.com/astun-user-group-conference-2016/>
Astun User Group - Conference 2016 
<https://astuntechnology.com/astun-user-group-conference-2016/>

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