Re: [Fsfe-uk] Membership, Executive membership and a suggestion

[John¹]

On Monday 02 March 2009 16:31:03 Sam Liddicott wrote:
> I suggest one slight alternative;
>
> Those who have since resigned may have done so on the understanding that
> the intervening years did actually happen and that the AFFS was in fact
> non-operational.
>
> It might be easier to reboot the AFFS if those members whose resignation
> was not processed by the AFFS could claim that their resigniation was a
> misunderstanding due to them not being aware of the fiction that would
> now be perpetrated, and thus retain their membership.
>
> It might be easier to reboot with a larger membership; and there is a
> cause to argue that those who cancelled were actually more aware of what
> was going on than those who didn't.
>
> But I was never a member....
>
> Sam
>
> * Jason Clifford wrote, On 02/03/09 16:16:
> > Having read through some, but not all, of the posts here in recent
> > days and having just read through the constitution of AFFS I'd like to
> > ask whether any members actually had their membership terminated by
> > the Executive or not following the apparent break down in the
> > operation of AFFS?
> >
> > My reading of the constitution leaves me with the understanding that
> > unless members have actually resigned their membership or had it
> > terminated by the executive they may still be members, albeit members
> > who owe AFFS membership subscription money.
> >
> > Further to this the constitution states that members of the Executive
> > may only serve for a maximum of 4 continuous years. As there have been
> > no elections for more than 4 years - the 2005 AGM didn't happen due to
> > a lack of a quorum - it may well be that for AFFS to exist now
> > requires that the membership and Executive choose to accept as true
> > the fiction that the intervening time has simply not happened -
> > otherwise there seems to be no valid means of even calling an AGM to
> > try and resolve the status of AFFS at all.
> >
> > I'd like to suggest that we do exactly that. We simply reboot AFFS
> > upon the basis that it is as it existed at or after 15th Aug 2005,
> > excepting those members who actually did resign their membership.
> >
> > This would allow for there to be a meeting at which it can be decided
> > whether or not AFFS should continue to exist at all and how to move
> > forward from that decision.
> >
> > I know this is a contentious suggestion however it strikes me that no
> > possible way forward exists that complies with the constitution and
> > allows the membership to have a real say in the matter.
> >
I have answered so many messages this evening that I can't remember if I've 
already answered this one, but I'll just point out for this one point, as 
far as can be discovered, I am the membership, and I'm looking forward to 
having a real say in this matter. However the noise to signal ration at 
the moment is not really leaving me time to find out what happened, why, 
and what can be done to put it right. a few, a very few are being helpful, 
some are being overly defensive, some aren't, nor have they ever been 
members. If you can tell me who the paid up current members are please do, 
then we can have a meeting and decide what future if any the AFFS has.

-- 
John Seago
GNU/Linux Registered User No. #219566 http://counter.li.org/