--- On Wed, 12/8/09, Matt White <mattwh...@iinet.com.au> wrote: > I'd be keen to do something local chapter-wise, just not > actually sure > what. I've never set up a non-profit association type > entity before, and > no doubt the various applicable laws will provide us with > endless joy, > but the concept of a formal AU umbrella organisation > certainly appeals.
It's generally straight forward, there is a set of "model" rules put out but most/all state govts, however these would need to be adapted to adhere to OSMF policies, secondly most rules leave out the sections needed to be tax exempt and the only other thing I can think of is a public disclosure clause for people that work for public mapping companies to reduce any undisclosed conflict of interest. While an associations are usually easy to setup and run, they usually don't get DGR (deductible gift recipients) status with the ATO, DGRs are the ones that state any donations over $2 is tax deductible. Also to be in line with OSMF's policies we need about 20 people willing to become financial members of such an organisation, by default the annual fee in model rules for membership is $10, however since the model rules are changing we can set this to be lower/higher or leave it unchanged. http://www.dft.nsw.gov.au/pdfs/About_us/Publications/ft119.pdf http://www.dft.nsw.gov.au/Cooperatives_and_associations/Associations.html > But it's a lot of organisation/hassle etc so whoever is > taking charge > will need a fair bit of time. However, there's nothing Apart from the exact wording on the rules submitted to the DFT or other state body, all it takes is about $110 and about 10-30 minutes in line at the local DFT office. > stopping us from > creating a local OSM organisation with or without the > consent of Mum and > Dad (OSM/OSMF) I realise this, but it's advantageous if we do, there is branding and so on that would gain credibility and in return everything is more or less under the same umbrella so OSM itself benefits. > As delta foxtrot says, it does make negotiation with local > government, > business etc far easier, and there are all manner of grants > and the like > for non-profits available if we had grand plans, especially > for > rural/regional Australia. I hadn't considered that side of things, but yes that's a possibility but those things take a LOT of time and money to prepare and so forth. > I do like the concept of getting schools involved - it's an > excellent > way to get all the little towns in AU mapped, and it's the > kind of thing > (locally focused, global benefit) that would appeal to not > just schools > in small towns but a lot of other entities in those towns. Actually I was talking to a teacher yesterday about this, their words were "It's not worth all the paper work to take kids off school grounds unless it's an annual event" However, we could line things up to coincide with school trips to get away with this still. Also this problem would probably be dealt with better from targetting depts of education in the states rather than directly with schools, but to do this we need an entity. _______________________________________________ Talk-au mailing list Talk-au@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-au
