HI guys.... taking a breather from work so will offer some (personal) opinions... I'll say personal as although I'm a member of that last failed board, I am in no way suggesting I speak for anyone other than myself. (And I'd be surprised if they weren't all still reading this discussion on auug-talk.)<br>
<br>AUUG, as it was, is dead. Has been for some time. At the last succesful election some of us campaigned vigorously for the incorporated body to be wound up and and for those with an interest to do something informal in any of various proposed forms. What was clear to us was that AUUGs incorporated nature needs to be dealt with. For lots of reasons.<br>
<br>To do that a bunch of things need to happen. In spite of the fact that this list is full of closet lawyers, advice to me was that for the most part so long as we can show good faith and that nothing fraudulent was done we can do that in pretty much any way we like (i.e. disbursing funds to like groups, dealing with the Lions award and so on), except that the last board was given no such mandate and hence had its hands tied.<br>
<br>On the AUUG activities front, you'll note that publishing AUUGNs has become fairly pointless. The sterling efforts of recent editors and the few remaining contributors notwithstanding (and for the record I'm in awe of how long they kept it all going) it had little to compel it to be read and yet consumed so much of those peoples time.<br>
<br>Similarly conferences. A lot of work to organise, beating the bushes for speakers, trying to assemble a useful deal... and then lately attendees are still outnumbered by presenters. And frankly in a world with LISA and LCA and the many more targetted special interest groups, all of which attract more names and more quality presentations, the AUUG conference presents poor value and has for some time.<br>
<br>So, that left us with the question of what to actually do. No ideas sprang forth. Local parts of AUUG have been run in an essentially autonomous manner from the start and can and will do so regardless of the state of the central body. Its clear that member support (in sufficient numbers) of the conference and newsletter was at an end. We flirted with the notion of becoming a hosting body for other peoples conferences (i.e. putting our hand up to host Australian instances of the various things that circle round AsiaPac like SANS, BSDcon, Apachecon and the like) but once again lack of energy has stymied that.<br>
<br>So, I think the old board, absent a real election is essentially still in command and frankly I also think remains happy to act out the will of the membership. That may be to simply hold a fresh election so that those with vision and enthusiasm to continue can be handed the reins in a defensible manner or perhaps something else?<br>
<br>And on to the comment that prompted this....<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Sun, Nov 2, 2008 at 5:22 PM, steve jenkin <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:sjenkin@canb.auug.org.au">sjenkin@canb.auug.org.au</a>></span> wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;"><br><div class="Ih2E3d">> Peter can't appoint a member to fill a vacancy by himself. This needs<br>
> to be done by the Board, however it can't meet without a quorum, which<br>
> is five members, and as only one person was elected, it can't meet at<br>
> all, and so it can't act.<br>
<br>
</div>Whilst your 'technical point' appears to be correct, we have entered<br>
territory not covered under the constitution... So does the constitution<br>
still strictly apply?? If not, what Rules apply?<br>
<br>
At this point, playing "Devil's Advocate" doesn't move anything *forward*.<br>
[Not to lessen that you've a) contributed a lot and b) are correct in a<br>
strict sense]<br>
<br>
What is necessary now in ALL communications about moving AUUG forward is<br>
*constructive* suggestions - especially if you have what looks like<br>
Really Bad News (such as this).<br>
</blockquote><div><br><br>I'd like to second this. Whilst I believe we must keep sight of the rules, both those of AUUG itself and any larger state legal framework it exists under, I also believe that we will achieve much more at this point by observing the spirit of the law if not every last letter. In the end, I was told that absent outright fraud the Victorian Corporate affairs people would let a lot slide through so long as we could show it was the will of the membership and absent (and listen carefully here guys) absent formal complaint by members. The parlous state of AUUG-talk debate makes that last bit seem very hard.<br>
<br><br>I guess that's enough for now...<br><br>Enno.<br><br><br></div></div><br>