Re: It's time to talk by-laws again...

[Star]

There's too much on this whole list to quote from.  It's a great sign for the amount of passion in this!

My thoughts on this may be over simplistic, but it's possible to use an existing structure and formalize it for the purpose of chartering and laying the ground work:

Currently, there are a number of groups all over the state that make up the loved-blob of GNHLUG, and for each of those groups, there is typically one person that each group looks to for organization of each chapter.  That person (in my opinion) has a marvelous standing to by ~my~ representative in a provisional start up governance.  Once this council is set, each of those members get to choose the X-number (to make it odd) of "At Large" members to the council pooling from those members who (we all know) contribute that something-extra to GNHLUG (The Teds, Eds, Bens, MDs, and countless others who's names I sadly can't pull out of my brain at the moment).  Even those like me who don't always contribute the time to be an everyday LUGger know those names and can't complain (too loudly ;-) )

Groups that come into existence and wish to join the GNHLUG umbrella can form and attend these council meetings.  Once the group is established and has a record or regular meetings, for argument, over a 6 month time period is then extended an invitation to have ~voting~ representation within that council.  At-large members can be adjusted and added to accordingly to keep the numbers odd, or, as I saw mentioned, have a voting rule that a tie vote is a lose.

As for the balance, we are all technologically capable enough to enact a quorum via the mail-list.  We're back to that "one-vote/one-person" issue, on this one, however.  This quorum can be enacted and recorded at the LUG level and filtered upwards to the council to keep it manageable.  Not very timely, but manageable.

All I can consider for ensuring each person gets one vote is going to be a manual process.  If I wish to register to be a voting member in my specific local LUG (MerriLUG in my case) I'd need to register, provide correct and confirmable information and receive a confirmed identifier with which to use in recognition of that vote (a gnhlug.org e-mail address or some such token).  If someone is not a local member (point to the other hemisphere), I don't necessarily need to declare a LUG to be a member of, but I get a quorum vote without getting a LUG vote.  The mechanics of the confirmation are probably going to need to be manual, and a person should be selected and/or approved by counsil to take on this role (for what it's worth, I'll volunteer for the first go).  All information utilized for this process is 100% private, owned by the registering user, and cannot be used for any other purpose (that's the libertarian in me).  Registrations will need to be renewed for the sake of keeping an accurate number of active voters, so to speak.

With that said, that's just my idea on the mechanics of getting the provisional governing body together, and it looks strikingly similar to what is already in place.  I can't see that stamping that into formal existence will cause any kind of waves.  Any number used in those paragraphs should be taken as variable to fit the realistic outlook.

As to the Organization Goals:  We educate and advocate on the uses and capabilities of software, with a direct focus on Free and Open Sourced Software.  I think that we really only need a wordsmith to state just that in a very verbose charter.

As to the representation.  No person or persons can state that they represent GNHLUG without direct approval from the council by majority vote.  However, anyone can say that they are a ~member~ of GNHLUG so long as they don't misrepresent that membership to reflect direct representation or direct approval.  (I think I've been reading too many city ordinance).

All of this is opinion and is just begging to be critiqued!!!

~ Star