John H. Robinson, IV said: > Reformatted to meet 72 line limit (someone's MUA is doing odd > wrapping) > > I could have trimmed better, I think. > > Neil Schneider wrote: >> Gregory K. Ruiz-Ade said: >> > On Monday 09 May 2005 04:34 pm, Lan Barnes wrote: >> >> Now I'm just trying to make sure I'm on the same page here, but >> our >> >> goal is to make it possible for them to leave with as little >> >> friction as possible, right? I mean, they're gonna go, and there >> >> will be a new SDCS no matter what, so we should all just try to >> get >> >> through the birthing process (making sure it's all legal and >> >> kosher), right? >> > >> > Well, I thought that was the point. I mean, at the last SDCS >> board >> > meeting, all the SDMUG people present were bitching about how they >> > really weren't so keen on pulling double-duty for both the SDMUG >> > board and the SDCS board. I don't see why they'd have a problem >> > with other SDCS members stepping up and offering to replace them >> in >> > the next SDCS general elections (from which, I firmly believe, >> SDMUG >> > should be excluded.*) >> >> I agree, they have voted to secede, how can they then expect to vote >> on the people to run the organization that you just decided to >> divorce? > > I do not agree, yet. When was the separation effective of? If it has > not > occurred yet, then they are all still SDCS members. If they are still > SDCS members, then they are eligible to maintain their board seats > too.
OK, then when do you think they are no longer members? When the SDCS Board votes to accept their secession? 24 hours later? 1 Month later? > I do not think the by-laws and SIG agreements cover this situation. I > will read over the whole thing, and give you my non-lawyer opinion > later. OK, so what do you do if it's not covered in the bylaws? Do you let the Board decided? >> I don't have a problem with them leaving. What I do have a problem >> with, is them continuing to sit on the Board, since they no longer >> have any loyalty to SDCS (assuming they ever did have). > > The vote for officers and half the directors-at-large is overdue. > I have attached the message from a year ago where Neil describes the > coup. The message is dated 2004-05-06, the coup occurred on > 2004-05-05. Thanks for looking that up. So are they still officers? Can they continue to run SDCS while they are in violation of the bylaws by failing to call an annual election? >> From the bylaws: >> >> <quote> >> >> ARTICLE V, Section B. Requirements >> >> 2. Officers must be voting members of SDCS for at least 6 months at >> the time of their election and maintain voting membership status >> throughout their term. >> >> </quote> >> >> Are they now members, since the voted to separate from SDCS? > > If the separation is not effective yet, absolutely. If they have not, > possibly. > >> The current Board has over stayed their election: >> >> <quote> >> ARTICLE V, Section C. Election of Officers. >> >> 1. The President, Vice President, Secretary, Treasurer and four >> Directors at Large shall be elected at each annual meeting of >> members. They shall take office at the end of the meeting, and >> shall serve until their successors take office, or until removed by >> resignation, death or two-thirds action of the Board. >> >> 2. The President, Vice President, Secretary, and Treasurer shall >> hold office and serve for one year. >> >> </quote> >> >> The current board of directors was elected in either May or June of >> 2004. They should all have to run for re-election. And the election >> is >> overdue! > > 2004-05-05. That was five days and a year ago. OK. I'm glad you found the date. Should we allow them to call an election at SDMUG, in June? Or, should we insist that the meeting be called in another venue? > >> <quote> >> ARTICLE VI, Section A. Annual Meeting >> >> The annual meeting of the members of the SDCS shall be held at the >> regularly scheduled meeting of the largest affiliated SIG. This is >> typically during the May regular business meeting of each year. >> Notice >> of said meeting shall conform to the standard defined for SDCS Board >> elections, with notice of the meeting's time and place sent by email >> to the current SDCS membership. >> </quote> >> >> Since SDMUG has voted to secede, they no longer qualify as the >> largest >> affiliate SIG, in my opinion. > > Depends upon when it is effective of. Plus this whole in-person voting > stinks. This needs to be re-written, and take electronic votes (via > email > or something). Of course, we need a good list of email addresses. > > We can still do an in-person vote, but it would have to be by paper > ballots. More thought about this later. Not right now. Well first there has to be an announcement, then an election can be held. The bylaws cannot be changed without a vote of the membership, so the in-person voting is the rule, until it is changed, by an in-person vote. >> Which leaves either KPLUG or SDPCUG. While SDPCUG has a larger >> membership, according to my conversation with Lance Dohe, they >> couldn't get a quorom at a meeting, to hold an election. While they >> have about 100 members, only about 12 show up for their meetings on >> any given month. I CC'ed Lance this message, so he can correct me if >> I'm wrong. > > If SDPCUG is larger, then it would have to be there regardless of > turnout. Assuming that the SDMUG separation is effective before said > meeting. No, it has to be held where there is a quorom. No quorom, no vote. If it's held at SDPCUG and there isn't a quorom, we can't have a vote. >> <quote> >> ARTICLE VI, Section E. Quorum >> >> A quorum at a meeting of members is the lesser of twenty percent of >> the members entitled to vote or 100 members. >> >> </quote> >> >> I don't know what the current membership is, but here are some >> estimates. >> >> San Diego PC User Group ~ 100 members >> Kernel-Panic Linux User Group ~ 36 Members >> San Diego OS/2 User Group ~ 10 members >> >> That is all there is to SDCS these days, without counting SDMUG. >> >> According to those numbers a quorom requires about 30 members, >> assuming we don't count SDMUG. (146 * 20% = 29.2) > > Do we have a list of said members? We only had 36 people pay dues? The > whole ``you have to pay for the largest attendance'' is kinda crap if > our > meetings are (by law!) open to the public. Anyway, that is a different > topic for a different day. Yes, different topic. We have a list of members of KPLUG, we don't have a list of members of any other SIG. I got the estimates from speaking to the presidents of the other SIGs. >> > * Why? Well, the SDMUG SIG has essentially given KPLUG the ol' >> > heave-ho by voting to succeed from SDCS and form their own >> > corporation as SDMUG. Having decided they no longer wish to have >> > any part in SDCS, I feel they no longer have the right to decide >> in >> > SDCS matters (excluding standing board members, since, well, >> they're >> > board members.) Hence, my opinion that the non-SDCS board members >> of >> > SDMUG should not be allowed to vote in any forthcoming SDCS >> > elections. By the same token, SDCS board members _should_ be >> > allowed to vote in SDCS board elections, as they are still >> > interested parties in SDCS until such time as they are relieved of >> > or resigned from their SDCS duties. >> >> I downloaded from SDCS website. http://www.sdcs.org/bylaws/ the >> Bylaws >> quoted above. I agree for all the reasons I stated above. They are >> no >> longer legal officers, because they failed to hold an election >> according to the Bylaws. Since SDMUG has stated their intention to >> leave SDCS, they no longer have a right, in my opinion, to make >> decsision regarding SDCS. > > Do the bylaws cover the case of a missed election? We have not had the > May SDCS General meeting yet, have we? Hmm, possibly the election was > supposed to be done at the secession vote. I believe SDMUG has already had their May meeting. As it stands, until SDCS accepts their resignation, they are the largest SIG. > In the past when a board election was missed, (due to whatever reason) > it was not too seriously looked at. I do not think that it would be > wise > or in anyones best interest to hit the current board harder that the > harder of 1) past boards have been hit 2) the current board has hit > any > SIG for breakage of any rules/regulations/agreements. You seem to be questioning my logic. Have you an alternative scenario? Do we really want the current board, with their divivde loyalties, continuing to run the organization they have shown they want to leave? > There has been a lot of non-professionalism in past boards. This is > going to take awhile to turn around, if we desire it to happen. It > will > also take a lot of effort. The current SDCS is a mess. It can be > fixed, > if people are willing to work at it. So what's your solution? So far I only see a critique of my reasoning. How do we solve this situation? I don't think that we can tolerate the SDCS board deciding issues that really don't effect them, since they have voted to secede. >> > Did that make sense? >> >> I think it did, and I think it's time for the rest of SDCS to "take >> the bull by the horns" and retake our organization. The current >> board >> has shown their loyalties are with SDMUG, which is fine. However I >> question their loyalty to SDCS, based upon the reports from their >> last >> meeting I received. They need either to resign, or be removed from >> the >> Board. >> >> My $.02 > > There needs to be an election soon. That should take care of the > problem. I have a hard time posting to the sdcs-chat list (or whatever > it is called on Yahoo Groups) if someone would like to gently and > politely point out that the SDCS board elections were missed. > > Gently and politely! > >> P.S. I received a response from the UCHUG president and I'll try to >> phone him tommorrow. Perhaps once the dust settles, we can get UCHUG >> back into SDCS. I'm not overly optimistic though. > > Tell them we have money for them! That is always a good motivator! We'll see if they are really interested in the money. I suspect they are not. -- Neil Schneider pacneil_at_linuxgeek_dot_net http://www.paccomp.com Key fingerprint = 67F0 E493 FCC0 0A8C 769B 8209 32D7 1DB1 8460 C47D The nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, but he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them. -- George Orwell -- [email protected] http://www.kernel-panic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/kplug-steer
