From Greg.Lehey@auug.org.au Thu Sep 14 11:22:42 2006 Date: Thu, 14 Sep 2006 11:22:42 +0930 From: Greg 'groggy' Lehey To: AUUG Announcements List Cc: AUUG Board of Directors Subject: AUUG: Time to pull the plug? Message-ID: <20060914015242.GR25190@wantadilla.lemis.com> Mail-Followup-To: talk@auug.org.au Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/signed; micalg=pgp-sha1; protocol="application/pgp-signature"; boundary="++wZx+G9s/G3KJ/2" Content-Disposition: inline User-Agent: Mutt/1.4.2.1i Organization: AUUG: Australian UNIX and Open Systems User Group Phone: +61-8-8388-8286 Fax: +61-8-8388-8725 Mobile: +61-418-838-708 VoIP: sip:0871270137@sip.internode.on.net WWW-Home-Page: http://www.auug.org.au/ X-PGP-Fingerprint: 9A1B 8202 BCCE B846 F92F 09AC 22E6 F290 507A 4223 Status: RO Content-Length: 5382 Lines: 130 In four weeks' time, the AUUG 2006 conference should be in full swing. Traditionally the AGM is held on the Thursday of the conference, four weeks from today. According to Paragraph 15 of the constitution (http://www.auug.org.au/info/constitution.html), the Secretary should send written notice of such a meeting at least four weeks ahead of time, i.e. today. I have an agenda item, but I haven't seen notice of the meeting. In fact, there are a whole lot of things I haven't seen: - My membership renewal, due at the end of June. I have agreed to automatic renewal, so all the treasurer needs to do is to deduct the sum from my credit card. If my membership hasn't been renewed, whose has? - Details of the new board. The information on the web site is not up to date. It's not even from last year; it's from the year before (2004/2005). Who's our secretary? Adrian sent out a message (his only one since becoming president) with the names. Raymond Smith is the secretary, but I don't have an email address, and mail to secretary@auug.org.au bounces. - Information about sponsors of the conference. Part of the deal is to put these details up on the web site. Either we don't have any sponsors, or the conference committee has not fulfilled its obligation to them. - The final programme. Typically this should be sent out as a flyer registration forms months in advance. - Repeated mail messages to auug-announce with details of the conference and programme. - The opportunity for "early bird" registration if done 6 weeks before the conference. Clearly that's not going to happen. - Registration details. How do I register for this conference? - A reply to my message sen to the AUUG board last week asking about this, and whether it wouldn't be better to cancel the conference. I didn't even get official confirmation that the message was received, though one of the board members confirmed unofficially. - Anybody complaining on the mailing lists. Does anybody care? From what I can see from my vantage point, the conference is a non-starter. Last week the board could have possibly cancelled the event without owing the hotel too much money. That's one of the things I suggested in the message. Maybe it has happened; but one way or another, we need to know what is going on. So: it looks to me as if AUUG is dead and just doesn't know it. On the other hand, last time the treasurer presented a report, we had significant funds. Maybe it's time to do something else with them. Paragraph 33 of the constitution reads: DISSOLUTION OF THE AUUG 33. 1. Upon receipt of a petition requesting the dissolution of the AUUG from twenty or more members, or half the membership, whichever is less, the Secretary shall arrange for the question to be put to the membership by ballot no later than one month after the date that he receives the petition. 2. If three-quarters of the members voting agree, the AUUG shall be dissolved. 3. If upon the dissolution of the AUUG there remains after satisfaction of all its debts and liabilities any property whatsoever, the same shall be paid or applied by the Management Committee, according to a resolution of the membership at or before the time of dissolution, to any fund, institution or authority which, itself, is either a non profit company as defined by Section 3(1) of the Income Tax Act 1986 or is exempt from income tax. The first problem is: how many members does AUUG have? It appears that renewals for memberships expiring in December last year *were* sent out in January or early February. But who's a member? Are even the board members in good financial standing? Is there still a list of members? So, finally, my agenda item: I think that it's time to disband AUUG. Am I the only one? I'd like to see some discussion on this. I've set Mail-followup-to: to talk@auug.org.au, which is the obvious place to discuss it. If you're interested in the discussion, but you're not on the list, you can join via http://www.auug.org.au/mailman/listinfo. My questions at the moment: - Do enough members think that it's time to dissolve AUUG? - How many members do we have? - How do we know who the members are? At this stage, I'd say that the only proof is a receipt for payment of membership fees. - If we dissolve AUUG, what do we do with the funds? I can see a number of possibilities: - AUUG should merge with Linux Australia. I think it's pretty clear that Linux Australia is conceptually the successor organization. The problem I have (and that LA shares) is that there's no place there for users of proprietary UNIX. - Donate all the funds to the John Lions chair of computer science at UNSW. Greg -- See complete headers for address and phone numbers.