On Tue, May 27, 2014 at 11:18 AM, Markus Glaser markus.glaser@wikimedia.dewrote:
Hi Nathan,
I put my answers inline.
Am 27.05.2014 16:18, schrieb Nathan:
The fees are the same for either type of member, 24 euros per year?
Yes.
Double the term length of the supervisory board,
A term length of one year is considered to be very short. At the board workshop in London, e.g., a term length of three years was recommended. It takes some time for a new board member to get familiar with their tasks.
permit them to be paid expenses,
To be clear about this: we do not have permission to be paid expenses. In order to do so, we would need another resolution by the general assembly, which we do not have and do not aim for. The change in the bylaws was proposed for taxation reasons. It is specially designed to prevent accidential risks to our tax exempt status.
make it much easier to hold a meeting at
which bylaws can be changed (by eliminating supporting members in calculating quorum),
This is about extraordinary assemblies. We do have regular general assemblies where bylaws can be changed twice a year. As we have more than 10000 members now (90% of them being supporting members), it is vitually impossible to reach the quorum for an extraordinary assembly. Please also note this change to the bylaws was proposed by a member, not by the board.
Were the changes enacted because supporting members largely don't attend
meetings or participate in chapter activities?
That is the nature of supporting members. Otherwise they'd change their status to be active. In the recent years, we have had a huge increase in the number of supporting members, shifting the ratio between active and supporting members. As I said, roughly 90% do have "supporting" status. The changes adapt the bylaws to this fact and strengthen the position of the active members.
What types of expenses do
you expect to reimburse, and are there caps already set up?
As I said before: There will be no changes in our expenses.
You wrote, you think these changes to be interesting. Is that still the case now? If so, could you be more specific?
Interesting, sure. But with your clarifications it all makes sense (with the exception that I don't really understand the reimbursement change, but accept that it will not result in any money changing hands). I did not realize WMDE had >1000 active members! I can imagine a quorum could be difficult to achieve under any circumstances. Thanks Markus.