[talk-au] Being a local chapter...

[Henk Hoff]

Just reading this item on the mailinglist. And I cannot resist the urge to
place a few comments.

First of all: It's great to see the Australian community growing and getting
more involved with the OpenStreetMap project. We all benefit from this.

That being said: also the Foundation wants to make it as easy as possible
for local chapters (LC). Let me clarify that a bit via the following
subjects.

Membership
The Foundation prefers that members of a LC are automatically member of the
Foundation. This results in no extra work with membership registration of
the LC. A LC can opt for a different scheme (e.g. where you have LC-members
and LC+OSMF-members), however that would mean you would need to make the
membership registration a little more complex. But then that is the choice
of the LC.

Membership fee
The current idea is that an LC should pay a fee based on the amount of
members they have on the Jan 1st each year (or another date based on the
fiscal year of the LC). This way, every individual does NOT have to hassle
with international money transfers for their individual OSMF membership, and
the LC does only have ONE international transaction a year.

So yes, also the Foundation wants to keep the administrative stuff as
minimal as possible for the LC and the individual members.

About the taxation issues
I wonder how organisations like the Red Cross, Rotary, Round Table, etc are
dealing with this. They also transfer money to (mother-)organisations
abroad.

Privacy issues
The membership list of the Foundation is not public. The Foundation is also
bound to privacy law and there are also members who prefer that their
membership is not known to the public.

Just to be clear:
The comments above are NOT meant to slow down your process of setting up a
local entity. On the contrary.
They are only to give a little more background info.

Good luck with setting up a local entity.

Cheers,
Henk Hoff


2010/1/7 John Smith <deltafoxtrot256 at gmail.com>

> There is a couple of points of contention that OSM-F would like local
> chapters to be/do on their behalf.
>
> * Have all members automatically become an OSM-F member
> * Have the local org charge their local membership fee + the OSM-F on
> top and then send the OSM-F portion to OSM-F, even if just once a
> year.
>
> To me this is adding middle men into OSM-F's process for no benefit to
> the local chapter, but would greatly simplify things for OSM-F, in
> other words it simply shifts the burden from users/OSM-F to volunteers
> of another organisation.
>
> When you also add in the fact that no one has indicated they would be
> willing to do more than absolutely necessary, even if they do want a
> local entity to exist.
>
> There is also privacy issues about handing over data en mass to
> non-members, and making sure people become blatantly aware that your
> information would be sent to OSM-F.
>
> There is also taxation issues, if we can get tax deducible status
> there is strict limits on who we could collect money for, usually only
> other non-profits in Australia with tax deductible status, something
> OSM-F doesn't have.
>
> Also I don't see a local chapter agreement existing any time soon, I'm
> not blaming anyone just pointing out the obvious, that this has been
> dragging on for a very long time.
>
> All up, I don't see any point in waiting for these issues to be
> solved, they will in time I'm sure, but there is a lot of reasons for
> an entity to exist and if no one has a problem I'll get one registered
> in NSW.
>
> Is anyone willing to fill any of the following positions:
>
> Chairman
> Vice Chairman
> Secretary
> Treasurer
> 3xOrdinary Members
>
> If the treasurer role can't be filed I think I can get it taken care
> of by an accountant.
>
> Also were there any further comments on the proposed association rules?
>
>
> https://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0AZf0jIYShBc0ZGNicXR6OXZfMGdoOGsycGZi&hl=en
>
> OOo format:
> http://119.161.80.210/data/OpenStreetMap_Oceania_Inc_Association_Rules.odt
>
> _______________________________________________
> Talk-au mailing list
> Talk-au at openstreetmap.org
> http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-au
>



-- 
Henk Hoff

Boardmember
OpenStreetMap Foundation
+31 6 4808 8925
henk.hoff at osmfoundation.org

Name & Registered Office:
Openstreetmap Foundation
132 Maney Hill Road
Sutton Coldfield
B72 1JU
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