[Talk-GB] Next UK chapter concall

Tue Jan 26 20:02:57 UTC 2016

Hi Stuart
Taking a step back, perhaps we don’t need an “organisation”
membership class.  It might be easier to manage with just one class of membership.  It would however mean
there would be no “formal” representation of organisations so it might not be
compatible with encouraging organisations to contribute their data etc.  

I might be wrong but if I was an employee of an organisation
representing them I would expect to do this in their time and for the
organisation to pay my expenses to attend meetings etc.  My concern would therefore be that “organisation”
members could end up holding all the posts on the committee as they would be
better resourced to do this.  

There may well be other ways of ensuring there is a balance
of representation on the committee apart from excluding “organisation” members.  Perhaps there could be a dedicated post/s to
represent “organisation” members for example.

I’m not so concerned about general votes and “organisation”
membership as the barrier to someone joining and voting will “only” be the
membership fee.  Finding the time and
resources to participate in the committee is a much greater issue when it comes
to ensuring balanced participation/representation. 

I see no reason why you couldn't chose the type of membership in the situation you describe.
I may be a in a minority of one on the above.  It would be good to know what other people think as we are quite a diverse "group".

Kind Regards
Dudley

From: stuart at travelinesoutheast.org.uk
To: dudleyibbett at hotmail.com
CC: bprangle at gmail.com; talk-gb at openstreetmap.org
Subject: Re: [Talk-GB] Next UK chapter concall
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 2016 09:12:33 +0000

Hi Dudley,

Why?

If an organisation wants to be a member, why shouldn’t it have a say in how OSM UK is run, including being nominated for and electing members to committees. I’m quite comfortable with requiring an individual to be nominated, which we can consider
 not allowing to be delegated, and if you wanted to protect the rights of non-org members then you could have two groups and allocate 51% of the votes to the individuals and 49% of the votes to the orgs. It’s slightly more complicated than votes only to individuals,
 but you don’t disenfranchise anyone then.

At the end of the day, we want to promote editing. We want to encourage orgs to contribute their data. And we want to encourage orgs to use OSM in their systems and products. That is much less likely to happen if you remove voting rights from
 orgs.

Incidentally, you can also have a problem of definitions, too. I’m here because traveline south east & anglia uses OSM, and that’s the email address I use to post here. But I am a consultant to them, and I have a wider interest now beyond just
 traveline. So I’m an individual. But then again my consultancy is a company, with me as a director. Not unusual, there. So am I an organisation, or am I an individual? You could argue the former, but I’d be rather hacked off if you wilfully excluded me - I’d
 rather choose my level of participation myself between zero and full rather than have it decided for me!

Regards,
Stuart

On 26 Jan 2016, at 07:33, Dudley Ibbett <dudleyibbett at hotmail.com> wrote:

Hi Brian

I think we should have "ordinary" members with full voting rights.  Another class of membership should be for "organisations".  They should be required to nominate an individual to represent them.  Their voting rights should be limited so they
 cannot vote for committee membership or stand on the committee.

At this time I would also suggest we set a minimum age for any type of membership to 18. I believe this would simplify issues when it come to complying with child protection legislation.

Apart form the initial cost of setting up any organisation.  I would guess the main annual cost will be insurance and auditor fees for the accounts.  This assumes that we won't be paying the committee expenses!   I'm aware of a couple of organisations that
 seem to do this for an annual fee of £25-£35 for ordinary membership.  Any "organisation" type of membership would need to be excluded from the insurance unless we got down an affiliate model along the lines of mountaineering clubs that affiliate to the BMC
 for example.

Kind Regards

Dudley

Sent from my iPad

On 25 Jan 2016, at 18:36, Brian Prangle <bprangle at gmail.com> wrote:

Hi everyone

Don't forget this is scheduled for 8pm Wed this week 27 January

0800 22 90 900  Pass code 33224

We'll pick up on Rob's summary email i.e objectives;legal stucture; constitution

If we can I'd like to start discussing:

Name (not what it will be - but a mechanism for choosing one)

Membership classes, rights and costs

On objectives:the ensuing silence since draft 2 I'm not sure to take as indifference or approval, but let's use the text as a starting point:

1.To increase the size, skills, toolsets and cohesion of the OpenStreetMap community in the UK.
2.To promote and facilitate the use of OpenStreetMap data by organisations in the UK.
3.To promote and facilitate the release by organisations in the UK of OpenData  that is suitable for use in OpenStreetMap.

On legal structures, please read Rob's excellent summary before the concall. I've read it and my conclusion so far, and I'm still not clear on some things, is that we shouldn't go for unincorporated society (unlimited
 liablity for officers) or charity (we don't have a charitable purpose and the legal strictures are a bit more complex than we'd want). From the rest I think company limited by guarantee (that's what OSMF chose) suits us best. Not sure yet whether CIO or CIC,
 given that we'd be non-profit, are worth considering.

Look forward to "seeing" you Wed

Regards

Brian

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