[Chapter-delegates] Affiliation Agreement - remarks from ISOC.DE

[Hans Peter Dittler]

Dear Anne,
dear all,

sorry for the long delay, here comes finally our list of remarks for the
draft affiliation statement:

after some longer internal considerations and discussions, we have seen the
following topics as potential obstacles in further processing and signing
the affiliation statement from ISOC.DE:

- We feel that the statements are biased in favor of ISOC global. Going
along somewhat the positions listed by Christopher Wilkinson we feel that
chapters should be clearly positioned and acknowledged in their role as part
of ISOC somewhere more prominently in the ISOC bylaws to counterweight the
requirements expected from chapters listed here.

- There are several clauses "the Chapter shall" which list exactly what is
expected from a chapter. Would it not be better to also augment the "The
Internet Society shall:" part with "support the chapters financing local
efforts", "support the chapters in financing and organizing their local
offices", "organizing local events together with chapters", "help chapters
to define a common position on local and/or regional Internet related
topics" and similar issues?

- The fixed Percentage of membership increase is not one of our primary
ISOC.DE goals. Even if we do not use our potential for the time being,
insisting on a fixed rate seems to be not acceptable for our chapter.

- Why is there a special termination clause needed from the global side
("The Internet Society may terminate this Agreement if the Chapter fails to
meet all of the minimum performance standards ...") - is it not enough to
use simply the other clause "Either party may terminate this Agreement for
any reason  at any time by providing ninety (90) days written notice to the
other party."  and listing only some reasons for ISOC to terminate?

- We cannot find a way how a contract signed by us (as leader of a German
Verein) can bind us to the future decisions of an yet undefined group of
people as defined in "a group that consists of Internet Society staff
members and representatives from the chapter community" - who selects those
and who controls?

- It must be made clear, that even if this agreement is terminated, the
entity, for example in our case the "Germany  Chapter", still exists and
continues to exist while losing all its "ISOC-privileges". A locally
incorporated "Verein" cannot cease to exist by an external contract or the
termination of it.


Hans Peter Dittler
Member of the board
ISOC.DE
Internet Society German Chapter e.V.