[AUUG-Talk]: Any progress on continuing as an unincorporated organisation

[Peter Wishart]

Steve,

I am now in the process of taking over from Chris Vance as the Treasurer 
for the AUUG Board.   My thanks to Chris for his efforts as Treasurer.  
It seems to have become one of the more onerous board roles since we 
lost our paid Secretariat function.

I was also an officer of the Canberra chapter of AUUG (CAUUG) when this 
transaction you reference took place.  I was probably Secretary or 
President.  It was a while ago and we swapped roles around occasionally 
in CAUUG.

My observations on this transaction are:
1. There hasn't been any CAUUG activity and no chapter committee in many 
years (probably 4 or possibly more).
2. The money was generated by AUUG Canberra activities in the name of 
AUUG.   Monies were always technically owned by AUUG, even before CAUUG 
became a formal chapter of AUUG.
3. When CAUUG handed the money to the AUUG Board it had been sitting in 
a bank account doing nothing for sometime.  CAUUG didn't need it and had 
no proposals to use it.
4. The ABN/BAS issue was a symptom of a broader emerging problem about 
the workload in trying to run CAUUG as a separate financial entity.  
5. The agreement with the AUUG Board of the time was that if CAUUG 
wanted money to support AUUG activities in Canberra we could access 
it.   CAUUG never requested any money.
6. I do not believe there was ever an agreement that CAUUG would get the 
money back unconditionally so it could effectively park it somewhere 
again. 

So I absolutely dispute that the AUUG board spent money it had no right 
to use. 

And now CAUUG effectively doesn't exist, so it certainly doesn't have 
any proposals to use any monies to further either CAUUG or AUUG aims.

I think we should just close the discussion on this issue and move on.

We need to redirect our energies to the important issue of 
re-establishing AUUG activities to sustain the organisation.

steve jenkin said the following on 17 Jan 2008 10:47:44:
> Christopher Vance wrote on 17/1/08 10:26 AM:
>> > On Thu, Jan 17, 2008 at 09:57:28AM +1100, steve jenkin wrote:
>>     
>>> >> The agreement with the board at the time was that CAUUG would have
>>> >> access to these funds if it wanted to use them.
>>> >> As the AUUG Board never rescinded this agreement, that undertaking could
>>> >> probably still be enforced.
>>>       
>> >
>> > Leaving the Lions Award out of it, I think you'll find AUUG does not
>> > have that amount left.
>> >
>>     
> But that doesn't answer the question about CAUUG & the honouring of 
> the original agreement. [We would've dealt with the ABN/BAS question 
> if the guarantee hadn't have been given] It definitely raises 
> Governance issues about the AUUG Board spending money it didn't have 
> the rights to. Comments other than 'Whoops, too bad'? 
-- 
Peter Wishart
Peter.Wishart at canb.auug.org.au