Insurance for office bearers is something I think is important and
something I seriously consider when taking responsibility.
While I enjoy giving a lot of my time to something I believe in, I don't
want to put my house on the line in case I make a stupid decision.
In taking my role as FOSS4G2009 committee chair, I first confirmed that
I have no legal rights to approve finances (since I have no insurance).
This is not a desirable situation.
Frank Warmerdam wrote:
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
Some Local Chapters are going through this process currently, e.g.
OSGeo-AustNZ.
We will need to incorporate as a non profit within Australia with its
overheads of audits, annual fees etc.
One potential upside is that we may get some protection by way of
Directors Insurance for people making decisions on behalf of OSGeo
(or the local chapter).
Bruce,
Are you suggesting that the local chapter would be taking out directors
insurance? At the OSGeo global level I believe we don't yet have
directors
insurance though we are looking into getting it (or perhaps we just
got it
recently). But that would not apply to local chapters which we make some
effort to treat as separate entities to avoid cross-liability. For
instance,
we recently clarified that OSGeo local chapter representatives are not
automatically OSGeo officers at the global level.
So, my point is that local chapters should not assume that being an
official chapter gives them any sort of insurance protection
automatically.
During the recent FOSS4G-2009 work, several of us were left high and
dry with no protection from the parent body. This situation is not
acceptable.
Well, people need to judge acceptable risk, and act accordingly. In the
past FOSS4G organizers have accepted the potential liability that comes
with the role, with the exception that we generally have venue insurance
for problems that occur on site during the conference (slip and fall,
etc).
Best regards,
--
Cameron Shorter
Geospatial Systems Architect
Tel: +61 (0)2 8570 5050
Mob: +61 (0)419 142 254
Think Globally, Fix Locally
Commercial Support for Geospatial Open Source Solutions
http://www.lisasoft.com/LISAsoft/SupportedProducts.html
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