[plug] SLPWA General Meeting Sunday 11 August

[Leon Brooks]

On Fri, 9 Aug 2002 15:25, Bret Busby wrote:
> Only three clear days' notice of a General Meeting!

Er, IIRC, 3 days' reminder.

> Whether Anne and I are able to attend, is yet to be determined, given the
> lack of notice, and, other commitments.

You lack other committments? Lucky you.

> The item "Membership fees to be adopted", appears to take for granted,
> that the membership fees decided by the committee will be accepted
> without allowing any discussion or input from members, other than
> committee members, who are still able to attend.

I'd be surprised if more than about 5% objected.

> Have the PROPOSED membership fees been published, for consideration by
> members, with sufficient time before the meeting?

I don't know. Tell me how long it takes you to consider a list of three 
numbers, and I can probably tell you what adequate notice is, in seconds. If 
you don't think you've had enough notice, vote `no'. If you can't be there, 
tag a proxy to say `no' for you. If you make your wishes clear, I'll happily 
go proxy for you.

As I understand it, the purpose in having a committee is so that we don't have 
to have a Red-Sea-Crossing-sized gathering to discuss and resolve every 
little point that's raised. The purpose in having an AGM and putting the more 
important resolutions to vote there is so that if the general membership 
wildly disagree with a resolution, they can say so.

One of the features of organisations consisting of more than one person (-: 
and sometimes of even smaller organisations :-) is that not everyone in it is 
going to have their precise wishes granted, and certainly not every time. 
This would cause debate to drag on interminably over even minor points unless 
the entire membership (which now is scores, next year may be hundreds of 
people) are singularly well behaved. Sorry, wrong planet. Having a Committee 
reduces debate considerably. If you have a barrow to push over a non-GM 
issue, by all means lobby Committee members: that's what they're for.

Cheers; Leon

-- 
CyberKnights                 Modern tools, traditional dedication.
+61-409-655-359              http://www.cyberknights.com.au/
http://conf.linux.org.au/    22-25 January 2003 in Perth, be there!
NOTE: I post here as a SLPWA member, not for SLPWA or its Committee
      unless explicit statement to the contrary is made above.