On Tue, Jan 20, 2009 at 12:41 PM, Florence Devouard <Anthere9(a)yahoo.com> wrote:
I don't
agree that that's necessarily the case. It's entirely within
the realm of possibility for a chapter (board) to appoint a
representative who can make decisions/vote on behalf of the chapter.
This should be checked by a lawyer, but imho, that's not correct, at
least in France. Of course, this would depend on which types of
decisions. If the decisions were completely operational and if the
chapter has an ED, and if the decision is within the range of the
strategy defined by the board, it's entirely okay that the ED makes the
decision.
This may indeed be different from legal system to legal system. German
law allows the board to appoint individuals who can represent the
chapter individually within a clearly defined subset of the board's
authority. I don't know French law but this may be something articles
of association/bylaws of your chapter may stipulate too.
However, in most other cases, I do not think
that's okay. The
responsability of the organisation is in the hands of the entire board.
Not one member. Even if the member receives the delegation to *vote* at
the meeting, I believe the decision can be cancelled afterwards if the
board is not in agreement.
If this were the case, establishing any sort of organization with
organizations as members and some sort of decision-making authority
would generally be close to impossible. If there is disagreement in
certain areas among the board, the representative's mandate should
just exlude that topic area. That means, he can participate in some
discussions in a binding way, in others only in an
advisory/consultative manner.
If we accept
some sort of democratic process as the premise of
decision making, open membership creates a range of problems fixed
membership does not. If, for example, each chapter gets two voting
representatives, it's easier to make up the rules that follow
regarding quorum and debate. It's much harder if every chapter can
bring as many as they want.
Sorry, I meant "open membership" but within the board pool (and probably
ED pool :-)). If 5/9 board members are present at the meeting, they
constitute a quorum and their decision is *legal*. Of course, the
chapter may have one or two votes within the entire group.
Sure. The question is one of fairness: is it fair for some chapters to
send five delegates (i.e. voices in discussion) when others can only
afford to send one?
Sebastian