[Auugps] Incorporation

[Lawrie Brown]

Hi Chris & Stephen

On Mon, Oct 27, 2008 at 03:09:49PM +1100, Christopher Vance wrote:
> The only advantage I see in closing down the Victoria Inc and starting
> an ACT Inc is that you might escape the years of neglect of
> communication between AUUG and the relevant gov dept. Still, you may
> find they still insist on all those years of reports, not all

That is correct - see the link I posted to Incorporation FAQs on
AUUG-Talk recently. And Stephen, since you ARE one of the handful
of financial members, you are going to be caught up in that.

> I think a better choice might be finding an existing organization
> willing to take instructions from an AUUGPS member, and transfer the
> domain there. That way you can skip incorporating AUUGPS altogether.
> 
> It looks more and more that the only reason to kill off AUUG is that
> the membership fees are too high. If the existing board could be
> convinced to drop fees to $10/year or less, would some of you join the
> existing AUUG again? Would you be prepared to sit on the board long
> enough to clean up the constitution?

That is basically my view - noting that there is NOT correctly a
functioning board - we need to get one up in order to progress.

Turning to Stephens post ...

On Mon, Oct 27, 2008 at 02:59:46PM +1100, Stephen Rothwell wrote:
> Part of the problem would be having the required general meeting with a
> quorum in order for the required special resolution to be passed to
> alter the rules and objects of AUUG.

I don't think so - there's only 8 of us I believe, SURELY we can
work something out. And we don't have to do the constitution 
change immediately. What we DO need to do, as Chris noted, is
drop the membership fee, I'd suggest to $10 for ordinary members
(whocha re just those willing to help run the thing), and FREE
for Associate memners (whoch can be anyone on the relevant mailing
list). Then recruit some more people, and run the necdessary meeting
to make some changes to the rules (most importantly allowing 
electronic conduct of business!).

> Also, AUUG has financial assets which make the reporting much more
> onerous.  I have no intention of taking over those assets.

So we give them away, eg. to LCA, which is just what would have
happened if AUUG was folded (which does involve a fair amount
of legwork - keeping it running is really much easier).

If we want this option - what I see we need to do is:

1) get a functioning board, which means running a belated election

2) call an AGM whose main business is to drop the memebrship fee,
and to approve the audit

3) get said audit done, and necessary paperwork in train in time for AGM

4) and then look at donating away an assets above a fairly minimal
level to a suitable recipient org, eg LCA

5) and look at rewriting the rules to reflect AUUGs new operation
as more of a hostorical preservation society rather than active
operator.

What do people think?

Cheers
Lawrie