[Noisebridge-discuss] Bylaws committee
Christie Dudley
longobord at gmail.com
Thu Feb 25 04:54:18 UTC 2010
In order to remove the cognitive dissonance without changing the bylaws,
we'd have to more or less scrap most of our principles and entrust our
leaders with more authority. I am opposed to that.
If you'd rather change the way we do things to be more in line with our
bylaws, then you should form a different working group to come up with
processes for that. This will not be that working group. This will be a
group to work on changing the bylaws.
For those who are unaware, when Noisebridge was founded, there was a whole
lot of discussion on what the bylaws should be. Things were hashed out
multiple times, from my understanding. Then, when our founders went to talk
to a lawyer, they scrapped all that and went with more boilerplate bylaws to
make it easier for us to get the 501(c)(3).
We are operating with more or less "boilerplate" bylaws.
Now that we have that, it's more a matter of having the powers that be
approve the new bylaws rather than having them accept us as a public benefit
organization. The worst that can happen is they reject the new bylaws and
we have to go back and fix the bits they don't like. It'll be far less of a
challenge than our original public benefit request.
And once again, for reference, our bylaws are at the obviously named page:
https://www.noisebridge.net/wiki/Bylaws
Christie
_______
"The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom." -- W. Blake.
The outer bounds is only the beginning.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/genriel/sets/72157623376093724/
On Wed, Feb 24, 2010 at 9:55 AM, jim <jim at well.com> wrote:
>
> i'm hoping we can reduce or remove the
> cognitive dissonance by improving our
> community's shared values, expectations,
> and behavior rather than by changing the
> bylaws. reviewing the bylaws seems a good
> idea in that light. expressing them in
> simple English strikes me as a good early
> move.
> having just read them, i don't see
> anything that calls out for modification,
> but that's grist for the mill.
>
>
>
>
> On Wed, 2010-02-24 at 08:35 -0800, Christie Dudley wrote:
> > I am wanting to look at the entire set of bylaws. I'd like to go
> > through everything and see what we can do to eliminate the "cognitive
> > dissonance" that Shannon referred to.
> >
> > For example, were you aware that the bylaws included rules on how to
> > remove members? Remember that debate we had raging for so long and
> > how we never resolved it? As it turns out, we have always had a
> > legally binding method of doing so. The problem with the
> >
> >
> > I feel that if we do a good job of this, we'll only have to deal with
> > it once and we'll be done with it. I'm going to try to get as many
> > questions as I can "hallway answered" by the non-profit tax attorney
> > next door. I hope that can help guide us in constructing something
> > that's fairly inexpensive to review, if we have to pay at all.
> >
> >
> > Yes, I realize people feel that there's a lot better use for our
> > money. I can see the point, but it's my perspective that this is more
> > like insurance. It's pretty worthless... right up to the point where
> > there's a problem and then it's absolutely necessary.
> >
> >
> > Christie
> > _______
> > "The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom." -- W. Blake.
> >
> > The outer bounds is only the beginning.
> > http://www.flickr.com/photos/genriel/sets/72157623376093724/
> >
> >
> > On Wed, Feb 24, 2010 at 7:17 AM, jim <jim at well.com> wrote:
> >
> >
> > I think reviewing the bylaws makes sense, but I'm
> > leery of making any changes. The only specific
> > objection I heard at last night's meeting was that we
> > haven't produced an annual report. This does not seem
> > optional, given the interests of government audits of
> > our 501(c)3 status. Therefore, instead of changing
> > the bylaws, it seems to me we should change our
> > behavior so's to comply.
> > My offer to help write the report is sincere;
> > seems to me that it's a lonely job likely to be
> > undone without at least one other person willing to
> > participate, maybe bring pizza or do the typing or
> > make rude jokes while getting it done....
> > Jonathan's idea of creating an alternate set of
> > bylaws strikes me as useful if it's a simple English
> > interpretation that does not contradict the existing
> > bylaws.
> > Having a get-together seems like it could be fun,
> > though I don't see a need for anyone to be a header-
> > upper, though a coordinator role seems great.
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > On Wed, 2010-02-24 at 00:26 -0800, Christie Dudley wrote:
> > > So at the meeting today, the discussion topic I had
> > submitted got
> > > shuffled off to a committee. Since I am really interested
> > in seeing
> > > the bylaws change to better reflect the way we actually
> > operate, I'd
> > > like to head up this committee. I might pop a few questions
> > by my
> > > lawyerly neighbor who might have a few bits of advice to get
> > us
> > > started.
> > >
> > >
> > > Who else is interested in hacking away at the legalese to
> > bend it to
> > > the collective will of Noisebridge? I'm really flexible as
> > to
> > > available time, so we can work the meetings around
> > interested people's
> > > schedules. It should be fun! (In a rather pedantic sort of
> > way...)
> > >
> > >
> > > Christie
> > > _______
> > > "The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom." -- W.
> > Blake.
> > >
> > > The outer bounds is only the beginning.
> > > http://www.flickr.com/photos/genriel/sets/72157623376093724/
> >
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > Noisebridge-discuss mailing list
> > > Noisebridge-discuss at lists.noisebridge.net
> > >
> > https://www.noisebridge.net/mailman/listinfo/noisebridge-discuss
> >
> >
> >
>
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.noisebridge.net/pipermail/noisebridge-discuss/attachments/20100224/d71cad71/attachment-0003.html>
More information about the Noisebridge-discuss
mailing list