[AUUG-Talk]: Facts - current status of AUUG

[Enno Davids]

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.)

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

And on to the comment that prompted this....

On Sun, Nov 2, 2008 at 5:22 PM, steve jenkin <sjenkin at canb.auug.org.au>wrote:

>
> > Peter can't appoint a member to fill a vacancy by himself.  This needs
> > to be done by the Board, however it can't meet without a quorum, which
> > is five members, and as only one person was elected, it can't meet at
> > all, and so it can't act.
>
> Whilst your 'technical point' appears to be correct, we have entered
> territory not covered under the constitution... So does the constitution
> still strictly apply?? If not, what Rules apply?
>
> At this point, playing "Devil's Advocate" doesn't move anything *forward*.
> [Not to lessen that you've a) contributed a lot and b) are correct in a
> strict sense]
>
> What is necessary now in ALL communications about moving AUUG forward is
> *constructive* suggestions - especially if you have what looks like
> Really Bad News (such as this).
>


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.


I guess that's enough for now...

Enno.
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