[Lopsa-regional-project] Bylaws (aka "...the horror, the horror...")

[Martin Marcher]

Hi,

I'd like to see a very informal ruleset (or better guideline) on what  
LOPSA would like to see. At least one doesn't have to start from scratch  
this way.

On Mon, 23 Jun 2008 06:44:54 +0200, Travis <hcoyote at ghostar.ath.cx> wrote:
> What benefit does having bylaws and a mini-board bring to a local  
> chapter?

Documentation :).


In my time at the university I've been an somewhat active member of my  
universities students union (in AT). Since I went to a commercial
academy before going to university I had at least some basics about how to  
run and (in this case) shutdown a club (which has some legal requirements).

It wasn't fun, but the easiest way to get rid of a club that has been  
around for 8-10 years and effectively was only having cons (insurance  
payments and somesuch) was to set up all policies so that we had a point  
to refer to. To be (by law in AT) able to make decisions we had to have a  
board and set up a few rules. In essence those were (like this, can't  
remember the details right now):

  * the board meets once a month, usually first friday of a month
  * 70% of the board members have to participate to be able to make a  
decision
   * that one was to protect ourselves from internal problems like: "How  
could 2 people decide that 10 have to do X?"
  * The club does not have any membership fees
  * All cost until closing the club will be shared equally among board  
members
  * All decisions by the board are publicly viewable at  
http://example.com/decisions/
   * That was the most important one, we had a place to refer to for rules  
as well as a todo list, everybody knew where to find it and that it was  
_the_ authority.
   * If it isn't there it hasn't been decided


After setting this stuff up it was quite easy to get in touch with local  
authorities. It was clear to all of the participating people

  * what
  * when
  * how
  * who

regarding tasks and/or decisions.

> In Austin's case, we average about 9 people a meeting.  It's a very  
> informal group, "run" by people who happen to have the spare time and  
> resources
> available (read:  someone provides us a space for free).  Why should we
> waste our time in coming up with a set of bylaws to run the local chapter
> when we were certainly happy just to abide by the rules of the national
> group?

Informal doesn't mean there aren't any rules.

If you run for free on some hosting from a friend I'd start somewhat like  
this:

  * who can make decisions?
   * This doesn't necessarily need to be a list of names, think: local  
founder, cashier (if you have one), mini-"conferences", etc, yadda, yadda,
   * how many people are needed?
  * if the free? hosting goes down for some reason, who is to blame?
   * is there someone to blame?
  * do you meet regularly?
   * when?, where? (very nice for a homepage also to get in touch with more  
people)
  * if you decide on something, where can you read up on it?
   * if you have free hosting, take into account that if you only save it  
online you need a printout or some other backup

> At best, the only thing that LOPSA has provided the Austin group is a
> mailing list and the initial list of people in the Austin area to  
> contact.
> So, again, where's the ongoing benefit?

It's a "cover your arse" situtation. Something will go wrong. Someone will  
start making trouble. You can (as a last resort, it's not the nicest way)  
always point to something and say: "Hey look pal, we said on YYYY-MM-DD we  
will do X until, *you* raised hands. Now we bought K for EUR N and it's  
been lying around unused for M amount of time - you need to do something  
about it."


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