Re: [Fsfe-uk] Re: AFFS

[John¹]

On Monday 02 March 2009 12:17:50 Ian Lynch wrote:
> If I ever was membership secretary I never took membership
> subscriptions. IIRC that was an automated process and I certainly didn't
> see any money. I was a committee member in the early days mainly to help
> give advice on education and make up the numbers to get things started
> but 2003 is a long time ago and the last e-mail I have related to any
> physical meeting is dated May 2004.  AFAIK I'm not a member anymore and
> I can't remember any of the details years back. If you are the only
> member, only you can have any official capacity. If you get together
> enough people to do whatever it takes to satisfy the constitution, you
> can then get a mandate to do whatever you think needs doing and do it.
> Once you get a mandate you can change the constitution and start afresh.
> I doubt an inquisition will be helpful in that process since instead of
> cooperation you are going to breed antagonism.

From the AFFS web site, now thanks to Adam bower back up,

Executive Committee of the Association For Free Software

Day-to-day running is coordinated by a committee elected annually by the 
members. This committee consists of five people at present (1 July 2005). 
The members and current roles are:

    * Adam Bower, 2003-
    * Alex Hudson, 2002-
    * Ian Lynch, membership secretary, 2003-
    * Chris Croughton, 2005-
    * Mark Hymers, 2005-

Perhaps now you can see the problems that I am having, information provided 
or available 'seems' to unreliable, for instance you write that " 2003 is a 
long time ago and the last e-mail I have related to any physical meeting 
is dated May 2004", differs considerably from that published on the AFFS 
web site. When I ask a direct question, I'm given an answer along the 
lines of "I doubt an inquisition will be helpful in that process since 
instead of cooperation you are going to breed antagonism", which so far is 
all I have been getting from some of those who 'appear' to have been 
members of the "committee... of five people at present (1 July 2005)", If 
you were to see some of the answers addressed to me personally, in 
addition to those on the list, they can be characterised as being evasive, 
obstructive, or as I wrote earlier, " over defensive posturing". Now one 
or more people, and I'm not attributing malicious motives, as I said 
earlier this morning, just walked away from the AFFS, without winding it 
up or notifying the members. I have also had messages from those whose 
membership has been terminated, these seem to for the most part, be asking 
the same questions I am, but in some case in stronger terms. I can 
understand that admitting involvement with the administration of a failed 
association will not look impressive to those seeking the services of you 
company. However constant re-iterations along the lines of 'bo-ho you're 
being nasty to us', are also being read by the others on the list who you 
might wish to consider, may hold a position diametrically opposed to 
yours! 
-- 
John Seago
GNU/Linux Registered User No. #219566 http://counter.li.org/