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Grex > Coop > #337: proposal to open the membership | |
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jep
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proposal to open the membership
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Feb 10 19:25 UTC 2013 |
Proposal: Open the membership, to allow all users who can be validated
to be full members of Grex and for their votes to count in all elections.
Discussion: Dan Cross has suggested this in the agora conference. My
intention is to propose what he has suggested. If he suggests changes
to the wording of the proposal, I will almost surely them.
The justifications for requiring dues are that the corporation needed
the money to pay the bills, and that a financial contribution allowed
for verifying the identity of the member. Those things are not issues
any more. A few years ago, there was a proposal where the votes of
non-paying members were counted and meaningful (or was it an election).
It worked okay as I recall.
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| 43 responses total. |
kentn
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response 1 of 43:
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Feb 10 21:02 UTC 2013 |
What by-law changes do you propose?
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jep
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response 2 of 43:
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Feb 11 03:12 UTC 2013 |
I have not gone through the by-laws to list the ones that need to be
changed. Is there a definitive current set of the by-laws? If you
search the WWW page, you eventually can come to a set that refers to 7
Board members and membership fees of $60 per year.
Meanwhile, I hope it is okay to start the process with a general proposal.
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rcurl
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response 3 of 43:
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Feb 11 05:17 UTC 2013 |
"money to pay the bills" is not an issue anymore? Has Grex no costs? That's
great, if true, but doesn't that mean no hardware repairs or upgrades?
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kentn
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response 4 of 43:
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Feb 11 12:45 UTC 2013 |
We have bills to pay periodically. And there is always the chance that
some repair is needed, even in new hardware. At some point in the
future our situation might change. It would not be wise to let our bank
balance run down significantly just because we (mistakenly) believe we
have no expenses now.
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kentn
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response 5 of 43:
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Feb 11 12:49 UTC 2013 |
Re: bylaws, what URL are you using, jep? Here is what I see when I pull
up the bylaws on our web page (under Governance):
ARTICLE 3: BOARD OF DIRECTORS
a. The Board of Directors (BOD) shall consist of five individual
members of Grex, and shall include a chairperson, a secretary, and
a treasurer.
No SEVEN member board there.
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rcurl
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response 6 of 43:
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Feb 11 20:42 UTC 2013 |
In coop the previous bylaws (7 directors) is item 26 and the current bylaws
(5 directors) is item 325.
Both versions do not say how officers are chosen, although saying three
of the directors will be officers (chair, secy, treas). I suppose the
implication is that they are chosen among themselves. However members
can run for the Board with no intention of being officers. What happens
then (perhaps, literally, nothing, as we seems to be the case)? Somehow
the election process needs to ensure that there will be 3 potential
officer candidates among the nominees. An alterntive is to have the
Directors elect the officers from the membership, and not require that
they be elected directors. If that is chosen, then it needs to be
specified whether the officers do or do not have a vote on the Board
(and the Directors only need to choose a chair from among themselves).
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