Hi all,
A draft agenda was recently circulated for the GA meeting with a deadline of 1 October for any changes.
As one of the fellowship representatives, I have put forward a number of proposed motions that attempt to gain consensus on some of the issues discussed on FSFE mailing lists recently.
Does anybody have any topics they would explicitly like to draw attention to for the GA agenda?
Would people like to see the agenda available publicly, possibly on the wiki? The minutes of past meetings are already public[1]
Regards,
Daniel
Hello Daniel,
On Mittwoch, 27. September 2017 11:24:36 CEST Daniel Pocock wrote:
Does anybody have any topics they would explicitly like to draw attention to for the GA agenda?
I don't know if it fits the GA, but I'd like to have some decision on the licensing questions [1] that were recently posted on wikicaretakers@…
[1] https://lists.fsfe.org/pipermail/wikicaretakers/2017-August/000140.html
Would people like to see the agenda available publicly, possibly on the wiki?
My gut reaction is: yes, of course! OTOH, looking at the last agenda most (if not all) topics to the agenda are organisational:
1. Greeting 2. Determination of resolutionability 3. Adoption of the agenda 4. Approval of minutes of general assembly held in Bucharest, Romania, on September 15th 2015 5. Welcome of elected Fellowship representative 6. Membership confirmation of new members 7. Report of Executive Council 8. Miscellaneous 9. Closing
If the misc. topic had sub-topics, they are probably of most interest to the ordinary fellow...
The minutes of past meetings are already public[1]
Nice!
Cheers, Johannes
On 27/09/17 20:28, Johannes Zarl-Zierl wrote:
Hello Daniel,
On Mittwoch, 27. September 2017 11:24:36 CEST Daniel Pocock wrote:
Does anybody have any topics they would explicitly like to draw attention to for the GA agenda?
I don't know if it fits the GA, but I'd like to have some decision on the licensing questions [1] that were recently posted on wikicaretakers@…
[1] https://lists.fsfe.org/pipermail/wikicaretakers/2017-August/000140.html
Would people like to see the agenda available publicly, possibly on the wiki?
My gut reaction is: yes, of course! OTOH, looking at the last agenda most (if not all) topics to the agenda are organisational:
This year the draft agenda includes a far more controversial topic, I'm surprised it hasn't been made public already.
As the organization is mostly run by the activity of volunteers, the GA can't exactly order people to do things. However, it does have significant influence in passing resolutions on matters such as:
- the relationship between volunteers and the organization
- financial decisions (notice the accounts are growing every year...)
- making broad statements and resolutions that try to capture the will of the community or help the organization going off course
Regards,
Daniel
Hi Daniel,
This year the draft agenda includes a far more controversial topic, I'm surprised it hasn't been made public already.
I don't know which controversial topic you refer to, but to be clear, aside from the common topics, this years agenda, so far, include:
- Creation of an explicit financial reserve ("Rücklage") of 100.000 Euro (a matter which is largely a matter of book keeping, it doesn't influence our activities or work in any way). - FSFE to join EDRi as member organisation (proposal from the Policy team) - Adopting our Code of Conduct (which has been circulated here before)
The first is purely administrative. The latter two are proposals from our working teams, where the approval by the GA I feel is merely a formality. The decision on whether to join EDRi, for instance, really belongs with the people involved in FSFE's policy work.
Then there are two additional points, which aren't decisions about any particular course of action, but are decisions about whether the Exectives should be directed to work on particular topics. These two are:
- Whether the executives should be asked to identify strategies for more diversity inside the FSFE community and the GA, for next year, and - Whether the executives should be asked to prepare a review, alteration, or removal of the Fellowship seats.
The latter is owing to an earlier decision in the core team to not consider the Fellowship as a separate entity from the FSFE, which has too often been the case before, but to consider our Fellows as an integral part of the FSFE, and then as Supporters of our work. So some change is needed to our constitution regardless, but that change can and will not be taken at this General Assembly.
Rather, the point here is whether the executives should be tasked with preparing a change to the constitution. This could then lead to increasing the number of seats, just changing the name of them, or something else.
Best regards,
On 28/09/17 11:31, Jonas Oberg wrote:
Hi Daniel,
This year the draft agenda includes a far more controversial topic, I'm surprised it hasn't been made public already.
I don't know which controversial topic you refer to, but to be clear, aside from the common topics, this years agenda, so far, include:
<snip> - Whether the executives should be asked to prepare a review, alteration, or removal of the Fellowship seats.
The latter is owing to an earlier decision in the core team to not consider the Fellowship as a separate entity from the FSFE, which has too often been the case before, but to consider our Fellows as an integral part of the FSFE, and then as Supporters of our work. So some change is needed to our constitution regardless, but that change can and will not be taken at this General Assembly.
Rather, the point here is whether the executives should be tasked with preparing a change to the constitution. This could then lead to increasing the number of seats, just changing the name of them, or something else.
When it is written like that, it appears a lot less controversial than the original proposal that was in the agenda circulated on 29 August:
"Several members proposed to remove the Fellowship seats from the constitution. Reach decision if the executive should prepare a constitution change to remove or alter them."
Notice that in that proposal, the word "remove" is the only possibility in the first sentence and the word "remove" is the leading option in the second sentence.
In any case, I think we need to see a specific motion, "review, alteration or removal" sounds like a topic for discussion, not a yes/no decision that people can vote on. I would also like to see motions like this with the names of at least one person proposing the motion.
I am not in favour of the "remove" option if there is not some simultaneous effort to replace it or improve upon the current system and this is why I feel it is controversial. If people don't have time to document those alternatives before the GA meeting and discuss them with the whole community, then I don't feel we could be ready to make a decision and the whole thing could be postponed for another year so we could spend time on other topics.
Regards,
Daniel
Hi Daniel,
Notice that in that proposal, the word "remove" is the only possibility in the first sentence and the word "remove" is the leading option in the second sentence.
So we can ask Matthias to rephrase that perhaps. It's factually true some members have proposed to remove the Fellowship seats. Other's have stated they would like to see an update of the wording to reflect reality. And yet others have expressed a wish to review the structure as part of altering the Fellowship seats.
Since this really is intended as a yes/no point, I do think Matthias might rephrase that to clarify the intent. (This is the official agenda, during which most topics should have a clear yes/no option).
We will need to discuss structural questions as well, but I don't believe there's support from the members to do that now. As you know, we're currently in a process to review and renew our committment to our organisational identity and self perception. When we decided to engage in that work, we also made a timeline for when certain discussions can reasonably happen.
Discussions around reviewing our organisational structure is on that timeline, and the thinking is to work towards having those at the end of 2018 and into 2019. The process of working through the structure is a significant committment, and will take time. I don't envision us doing that with taking less than a year for it.
Having a renewed comittment to an organisational identity prior to this is one of the keys to making sure we can succesfully discuss the structure.
On 28/09/17 14:06, Jonas Oberg wrote:
Hi Daniel,
Notice that in that proposal, the word "remove" is the only possibility in the first sentence and the word "remove" is the leading option in the second sentence.
So we can ask Matthias to rephrase that perhaps. It's factually true some members have proposed to remove the Fellowship seats. Other's have stated they would like to see an update of the wording to reflect reality. And yet others have expressed a wish to review the structure as part of altering the Fellowship seats.
Since this really is intended as a yes/no point, I do think Matthias might rephrase that to clarify the intent. (This is the official agenda, during which most topics should have a clear yes/no option).
We will need to discuss structural questions as well, but I don't believe there's support from the members to do that now. As you know, we're currently in a process to review and renew our committment to our organisational identity and self perception. When we decided to engage in that work, we also made a timeline for when certain discussions can reasonably happen.
Discussions around reviewing our organisational structure is on that timeline, and the thinking is to work towards having those at the end of 2018 and into 2019. The process of working through the structure is a significant committment, and will take time. I don't envision us doing that with taking less than a year for it.
Having a renewed comittment to an organisational identity prior to this is one of the keys to making sure we can succesfully discuss the structure.
A simple way forward, changing it to a yes/no question, may be asking the GA to vote on the motion "The constitution is amended to rename the Fellowship Representative to Community Representative"
Would anybody else like to propose a name other than "Community Representative"?
Everything else in this topic could be deferred, unless somebody wants to formally propose a motion to remove the position.
Regards,
Daniel
Hi Daniel,
In the interest of a structured debate, I'll let others chime in as well after this, but quickly on point:
A simple way forward, changing it to a yes/no question, may be asking the GA to vote on the motion "The constitution is amended to rename the Fellowship Representative to Community Representative"
It's not as simple as that. If we were to rename it simply, then the name would likely need to be "Supporter Representative", as the voting body are those we now call supporters. A "Community representative" implies something more than that, so it would need to be coupled with an understanding of who is a part of the community, who can vote, and so on.
On 09/28/2017 02:22 PM, Jonas Oberg wrote:
Hi Daniel,
In the interest of a structured debate, I'll let others chime in as well after this, but quickly on point:
A simple way forward, changing it to a yes/no question, may be asking the GA to vote on the motion "The constitution is amended to rename the Fellowship Representative to Community Representative"
It's not as simple as that. If we were to rename it simply, then the name would likely need to be "Supporter Representative", as the voting body are those we now call supporters. A "Community representative" implies something more than that, so it would need to be coupled with an understanding of who is a part of the community, who can vote, and so on.
In practice I think it would be fair to say that the (previous) Fellows or (current) Supporters *are* the community - specifically, the paying part of the community, those who identify enough with the FSFE to invest an annual amount.
The community as such of coure also includes employees, the GA and people who "only" volunteer, but as I've experienced the FSFE it actually does make sense to identify the Fellows as the community - and in that sense, to call the Fellowship Representative the Community Representative.
If that sounds of more than a "Supporter Representative", I think that can only be a good thing.
Best Carsten
Hi Carsten,
In practice I think it would be fair to say that the (previous) Fellows or (current) Supporters *are* the community - specifically, the paying part of the community, those who identify enough with the FSFE to invest an annual amount.
Thanks for weighing in. We've always tried to make clear to people that as a non-profit, we value the time people put into our activities, more than we value financial contributions. We also have many volunteers from countries where an annual 60 Euro contribution is actually a lot of money. So I'd be hesitant to not count them as part of our community, in this sense.
But counting them as part of the community is on the other hand more difficult. Unless we simply accept everyone who's subscribed to any FSFE mailing list as eligible to vote, which is certainly possible.
(As long as they know and are informed when they sign up to the mailing list that this implies them getting mails not only related to the mailing list but also for votes for community representation).
On 29/09/17 12:00, Jonas Oberg wrote:
Hi Carsten,
In practice I think it would be fair to say that the (previous) Fellows or (current) Supporters *are* the community - specifically, the paying part of the community, those who identify enough with the FSFE to invest an annual amount.
Thanks for weighing in. We've always tried to make clear to people that as a non-profit, we value the time people put into our activities, more than we value financial contributions. We also have many volunteers from countries where an annual 60 Euro contribution is actually a lot of money. So I'd be hesitant to not count them as part of our community, in this sense.
But counting them as part of the community is on the other hand more difficult. Unless we simply accept everyone who's subscribed to any FSFE mailing list as eligible to vote, which is certainly possible.
(As long as they know and are informed when they sign up to the mailing list that this implies them getting mails not only related to the mailing list but also for votes for community representation).
This particular point is tangential to the question of renaming though: renaming the Fellowship Representative will not in any way change how the position is elected or who votes. It is only renaming. While I suggested "Community Representative", I have no objection to other possible names.
Improving representation for the wider community, including those who don't make a financial contribution, is something I also believe in, but it is a separate topic.
Regards,
Daniel