[Wikimedia Kenya] Bylaws: ChapCom's Comments

[Limoke Oscar]

Abbas,
My concern was not discussing prior to responding to ChapCom.Rather I
am afraid all of us may start responding anyhow and it may appear like
we have different takes on the Bylaws as all of us have different and
personal interpretations.I suggest YOU and only YOU be responsible to
responding to ChapComs queries as the official WMKE take.
The rest of us can discuss and offer our take and opinion on the
mailing list so that whatever we agree on,you post/edit and respond to
Chapcom

==My Comments==
I would like too to agree with your take on the no. of terms Board
Members can serve.This is a vuluntary movement and as much we would
like to embrace the ideals of democracy,a few exceptions are
necessary.For instance not all of us dedicate as much effort to
WMKE.As such any board member should be allowed to run for as many
terms s/he wishes as long as his.her achievements and dedication speak
for them-self

About Members being in a position to remove board members and call for
a meeting,I think we should include it in and go with the ChapCom's
Suggestion of Qouram being able to call for a special
meeting/election.
About Electing the Board,members should be electing a position
based.i.e electing X for the post of Chairperson and so forth....
Regards,


On 7/13/11, Abbas Mahmood <abbasjnr at hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> I've posted some replies on the discussion page and made some amendments but
> Oscar/Stephen seem to be interested in a discussion prior to me making any
> necessary amendments. Let me just recap what ChapCom has said:
> 1. Most chapters have a minimum of 1 general meeting (exclusive of the AGM).
> 2. What happens if the members are unhappy about how the board is doing? It
> is in most chapters common that if x% of the members requires it, the board
> is forced to call an assembly. For example, if 10% of the members (also a
> quorum in this case) call for it.3. Is there a Special Resolution where
> members can remove a board member the whole Board?4.  For Board members,
> what does two consecutive terms mean? Is it two terms in the same position
> (chair, treasurer etc) or two terms on the board?5. how are the different
> functions in the board distributed? Are the board members elected in
> funcion? (i.e. the General Meeting determines who becomes chairperson) Or
> are they elected as board member and then the board members elect in a
> similar way in their first meeting the chair person etc?6. If someone just
> doesn't pay fees, when will he/she no longer be a member? Usually bylaws
> have a clause saying something along the lines "if you didn't pay your dues
> for more than a year, and two reminders have been sent the board may remove
> membership from you".7. Under amendments, the 2/3 being spoken of here, is
> that 2/3 of the full number of members or 2/3 of the votes casted? For
> example, if there are 100 members, and there are 30 present at the General
> Meeting. Would the 2/3 be 67 votes or 20? I assume it is the same as for the
> Special Resolution. 8. When can a member be removed when he/she is behind
> too much with their dues. You could impose a minimum term, and then choose
> later that you use a larger one in practice.9. Budget. I see no explanation
> in the bylaws how the budget works (planned expenses for next year) - who
> proposes the budget (the board/treasurer/chair?), who approves it (the
> General Meeting?). Some way of budget approval also gives the members a good
> opportunity to actually control the board and influence what direction the
> association is really taking.10. Auditing. Especially when budgets get
> higher, but also in the beginning, it is good to have a continuous control
> of how money has been spent. Generally there are to me two well known ways
> to do this: through a professional audit (expensive!) and through an Audit
> Committee (a group of non-board members who will check the financial
> statements and books thoroughly before they are approved by the members).
> Either would report directly to the General Meeting and then the General
> Meeting could decide to approve the financial report or not. It might be
> however that this is already part of the law, so in that case pointing to
> that would be sufficient.
> ==My comments==I've put some of my comments on the discussion page, and will
> put others as we discuss the above ten points. What I want to talk about
> here is regarding Chris' suggestion of imposing a maximum term on Board
> Members. While he strongly advocated for it, I frankly believe that there
> should be no such restriction since we stand a chance of losing good Board
> Members just because their terms have expired. And since we are relatively
> few, with some of the current members already leaving or some inactive (for
> whatever reason) -- proving how hard it is to recruit and retain volunteers
> in Africa. If this clause stays, there might come a time where there aren't
> enough volunteers willing to commit themselves for a whole year. From what
> I've seen in other chapters is that there are relatively minor changes in
> the Board. Year after year, I see the same faces, maybe with two or three
> new faces.
> SincerelyAbbas.
>
> From: abbasjnr at hotmail.com
> To: wikimediake at lists.wikimedia.org
> Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2011 08:09:05 +0000
> Subject: [Wikimedia Kenya] Bylaws: ChapCom's Comments
>
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> Greetings:
> Please see the bylaws here:
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Kenya/bylaws and CHapCom's
> questions: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimedia_Kenya/bylaws.
> Kindly respond.
> Abbas.  		 	   		
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikimediaKE mailing list
> WikimediaKE at lists.wikimedia.org
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediake 		 	   		


-- 
Limoke Oscar,
mayenge.blogspot.com
Freelancer,
GeoInformatics and GIScience Student