[Chapter-delegates] Comments on draft Affiliation Agreement - CW

Wed Sep 8 01:32:17 PDT 2010

  Dear Christopher,
Thank you for very important notes, especially points 2 and 3. In some 
cases for local NGO it is impossible to have an external management  
from a foreign board.
In such cases, it's better to see each Chapter as an independent NGO 
with local management, which accepts  "recommendations" or "requests for 
comments"
from ISOC.  Of course, in order to be in line with ISOC activity each 
NGO has to  accept  such recommendations. But in the worst case (e.g. 
conflict with local legislation)
it will be  possible not to accept these recommendations. Looks 
important  to reflect  this situation in bilateral exchange of letters 
between President of the Chapter and Chair of Board of Trustees.
  Grigori Saghyan
ISOC.AM

On 06.09.2010 23:08, Christopher Wilkinson wrote:
> Dear Anne Lord and colleagues:
>
> I wish to come back to the draft Affiliation agreement which you have 
> recently re-published.
> Admittedly, I have not followed this discussion closely in recent 
> months, not least because I had thought that the outstanding questions 
> had been adequately set out by ISOC Chennai last July.
> However, it would appear that the same issues persist, so please allow 
> me to make some additional comments.
>
> Let me say, up front, that all Internet Society members want the 
> Chapters to be effective, expanding and accountable, and that many of 
> the performance standards and other criteria mentioned in the draft 
> text are of great interest. The question is how best to achieve this:
>
> 1. Having re-read the ISOC Articles of Incorporation and Bylaws, I 
> find that  - surprisingly -  the category of membership of Internet 
> Society Chapters is not yet recognised. I would suggest that before we 
> go any further with this exercise, and particularly in the light of 
> the Board of Trustees' decisions to enhance the role of the Chapters 
> within the Internet Society, that we should begin with an appropriate 
> amendment to the Bylaws providing for and recognising Chapter 
> membership of ISOC.
>
> 2. The draft text presupposes an artificial dichotomy between ISOC and 
> individual Chapters. If the Chapters are an integral part of ISOC, 
> then one cannot reasonably ask them to enter into a formal agreement 
> with themselves. Recall that for most of our individual members, their 
> Chapter IS the Internet Society. Also, it is not clear who would 
> represent ISOC in such an agreement.
>
> 3. Most Chapters are incorporated under national Not-For-Profit, or 
> equivalent legislation. Before starting a process of negotiation aimed 
> at obtaining a number of such Affiliation Agreements, world-wide, I 
> would suggest that ISOC acquire information as to the scope for our 
> Chapters to enter into international private agreements of this kind. 
> Also, we should bear in mind that each Chapter's elected leadership is 
> primarily subject to the internal control and assent of its 
> membership. Accordingly it may not be wise to try and impose, 
> externally and contractually, such performance standards and criteria, 
> whatever their objective merits.
>
> Consequently I would recommend that the Spheres Labels group 
> investigate the alternative of transforming this draft Affiliation 
> Agreement into a bilateral exchange of letters between the President 
> of the Chapter concerned and the Chair of the Board of Trustees.
>
> 4. The draft agreement's excursion into Intellectual Property ("ISOC 
> IP") is bound to raise some questions. No doubt the Internet Society 
> would wish to restrain eventual abuse of our Logo (although I am not 
> aware of any such case). However, the "goodwill" associated with the 
> Internet Society largely pertains to our Chapters in their respective 
> geographical areas. It is not appropriate to suggest that such "IP" 
> automatically accrues to ISOC.
>
> 5. Implementation: The negotiation, monitoring and sanctioning of such 
> agreements world-wide could occupy significant staff resources over a 
> period of years. I am not sure that this is a priority for ISOC. I 
> would of course defer to the Board of Trustees in this particular matter.
>
> In any event, I would request that the deadline for additional 
> comments be extended from 16 September to 4 October, or thereafter, 
> following the INET and Chapters meetings in London.
>
> Regards,
>
> Christopher Wilkinson.
>
>
> -----------------------
> On 03 Sep 2010, at 07:12, Anne Lord wrote:
>
>> Dear Colleagues,
>>
>> I have previously posted to this list (see below) information and an 
>> invitation to contribute to the ongoing work in the Sphere Labels 
>> group. The group is helping to define a minimum set of expectations 
>> about what it means to be an Internet Society Chapter, which are 
>> captured in a draft Affiliation Agreement. This is one piece of the 
>> work to revise the Chapter Policies and Procedures.
>>
>> The draft Agreement has had review and feedback from members of the 
>> Sphere Labels discussion list, the Chapter Taskforce, the Lawyers and 
>> the ISOC Executive team.  All the project information (version 2 of 
>> the draft , a summary of feedback,  responses from the Taskforce and 
>> Lawyers and the next steps are available at 
>> http://wiki.chapters.isoc.org/tiki-index.php?page=Sphere+Project
>>
>> We would be very happy if you would like to comment on the revised 
>> draft Affiliation Agreement. To do so, please join the conversation 
>> on the sphere labels  mailing list. To join the list, simply send 
>> email to <chapter-support at isoc.org> or visit 
>> https://elists.isoc.org/mailman/listinfo/sphere-labels. The deadline 
>> for comments is 16th September.
>>
>> Sincere thanks to everyone who has contributed to this work so far.
>>
>> Kind regards,
>>
>> Anne (on behalf of the Chapter Taskforce).
>> --
>>
>> Begin forwarded message:
>>
>>> From: Anne Lord <lord at isoc.org <mailto:lord at isoc.org>>
>>> Date: 8 June 2010 2:15:48 PM
>>> To: Chapter Delegates <chapter-delegates at elists.isoc.org 
>>> <mailto:chapter-delegates at elists.isoc.org>>
>>> Subject: Invitation to join Sphere Labels group (draft Affiliation 
>>> Agreement discussion).
>>>
>>> Dear Colleagues,
>>>
>>> Many of you may be aware that work is underway in the Sphere Labels 
>>> group to review and revise the current Chapter Policies and 
>>> Procedures at: http://www.isoc.org/isoc/chapters/policy/.
>>> There have been a series of conversations about what it means to be 
>>> a successful Chapter, all of which are archived at: 
>>> http://wiki.chapters.isoc.org/tiki-index.php?page=Titles+Labels+Images&bl=y 
>>> <http://wiki.chapters.isoc.org/tiki-index.php?page=Titles+Labels+Images&bl=y>.
>>>
>>> The goal of the work in the Sphere labels group is to develop a 
>>> framework in the form of an Affiliation Agreement that shapes a 
>>> partnership between ISOC Global and the ISOC Chapters which ensures 
>>> a truly symbiotic exchange of value between both parties and makes a 
>>> meaningful contribution to the overarching mission of the 
>>> organization as a whole.
>>>
>>> If you are interested to join this discussion you are invited to 
>>> join the Sphere Labels group.  You can subscribe to the mailing list 
>>> by going to: https://elists.isoc.org/mailman/listinfo/sphere-labels 
>>> or simply email <chapter-support @ isoc.org>.
>>>
>>> Recent Activity:
>>>
>>> The group is currently discussing a draft "Affiliation Agreement" 
>>> which is the output of a face to face meeting of the Chapter 
>>> taskforce that met on April 27 and 28.  Comments are invited on the 
>>> document at: 
>>> http://wiki.chapters.isoc.org/tiki-view_blog.php?blogId=5 from until 
>>> June 30th.  If you would like to participate in this discussion, we 
>>> would invite you to join Sphere Labels.
>>>
>>> best wishes
>>> Anne
>>> (on behalf of the Sphere Labels group)
>>> ---
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
>> Anne Lord, Senior Manager <lord at isoc.org <mailto:lord at isoc.org>>
>> Chapter & Individual Memberships http://www.isoc.org
>> Internet Society (ISOC)                "The Internet is for everyone"
>> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>>
>>
>>
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