[Chapter-delegates] Announcement about the dissolution of ISOC-KH

Sun Nov 3 18:26:20 PST 2013

*Dear All,*

*On 26 October 2013, a meeting was held according to Article XII of the
Bylaws of the Cambodian Chapter of the Internet Society:*

*Article XII. - Dissolution of the Chapter*

1.  Dissolution of this Chapter by consent of the members shall consist of
unanimous agreement of all its officers together with a majority vote at a
meeting which has been publicized in advance to all members of the Chapter
for the purpose of taking this vote.

*2.  Should this Chapter be dissolved, its assets shall be transferred to
ISOC International Headquarters.*

The meeting had been called on 23 September 2013, stating:

“It is to propose – unless real and practical alternatives are identified
within the following month – to call a meeting of all members of our
Chapter for the purpose of taking a vote to dissolve the ISOC Cambodia
Chapter.”

*The meeting decided to dissolve the ISOC Cambodia Chapter; this decision
becomes effective after the present Announcement will have been sent out:*

   - - to all members of the ISOC Cambodia Chapter
   - - to the Chapter Delegates list of ISOC
   - - to the Chairperson of the Board of ISOC
   - - to the ISOC Senior Director, Membership & Services (You had written:
   “If the Cambodian Chapter wishes to rescind its ISOC chapter status, a
   letter so stating to the APAC Chapter Development manager is sufficient” -
   would you please forward it there – or also to other persons in ISOC beyond
   the APAC office who might want to know.)

This decision was taken drawing together the conclusions of the
correspondence with ISOC staff and ISOC Chapter leaders: we appreciate very
much the many encouraging comments from other Chapters, and we regret that
the expected correspondence from ISOC staff – regional and central – was
late, or not forthcoming at all, and not proposing real and practical steps
ahead.

*The following is to be more specific:*

In response to the “Interim Information: Serious considerations to dissolve
the Cambodia ISOC Chapter” which we had sent to you and to ISOC Chapter
leaders and ISOC staff on 16 Oct 2013, we received the following response
from Ted Mooney - ISOC Senior Director, Membership & Services – on 18
October 2013, under the Subject line “Communication and moving forward with
the ISOC Cambodia Chapter.”

I quote *the mail from Ted Mooney here in Italics*, to distinguish it from
comments from other Chapter leaders and from our own side.

*Dear Chantra Be,I've followed with great interest the responses from
Norbert Klein on the Chapter Delegates e-list.  I want you to know that I
and many of us at ISOC have thoroughly read your original email more than
once and the subsequent messages from Mr. Klein. I have researched the
claims made regarding the correspondences between ISOC Staff and the
Cambodian Chapter and the outreach attempts made on both sides.  It is
evident that Staff has a different interpretation of the data than has the
Chapter.  It is, in my opinion therefore, not constructive to dwell on the
past but to address the issues raised in your message, once again. *
Ted Mooney refers again to outreach attempts supposedly made by ISOC staff.

This is not the first time such claims are made, and therefore we had
responded:
- We do not know “what has been communicated to” the ISOC Senior Director,
Membership & Services in this respect – but the situation continues:
neither the Singapore based ISOC ASIA PACIFIC staff, nor the ISOC  Chapter
Development Manager, Asia-Pacific, nor the  ISOC Senior Director,
Membership & Services have responded to the detailed content in the mail
from our Secretary...
*- But if such mail was sent and we did not receive it for whatever reason
– it would be appropriate to share it here on the Chapters list.*

   -
- *Instead of using this opportunity to provide copies of such mail, we
   received again just the same baseless claims.*

More serious is that he says *“It is, in my opinion therefore, not
constructive to dwell on the past.”* - He had criticized our sharing of
concerns about the non-responsiveness of ISOC staff with other Chapters and
the Chairperson of the ISOC Board to be unprofessional. He is continuing to
refuse to deal with serious problems. I repeat again our mail which related
to one of the two staff at the Asia Pacific Regional Office:

= = =

*“ Dear Thip,**After having received your mail, rejecting our request to
serious discuss the crisis for our Chapter, created as a result of the
general situation and legal requirements in Cambodia in the meeting, and
the refusal to ISOC staff to positively pay attention to our situation, we
do not think it would be appropriate to cooperate, as a Chapter, with
organizing a meeting for your 1 - 2.5 hours event, for which you would like
to invite the Members of the Cambodia Chapter and other non-Chapter
members. To discuss fundamental problems within ISOC, affecting the whole
membership, only among officers, as you suggest (which has been tried in
vain by email so far) would not be in line with our history to promote and
practice open communication – high values regularly lifted up among the
goals of the Internet Society world wide and in its slogan: the Internet is
for everyone.*

*The situation and this response has been shared and discussed with the
Members of the Advisory Board of our Chapter and is unanimously
supported.Norbert KleinPresident, ISOC-KH*    The five members of our
Advisory Board at that time were (reflecting the stipulation of our Bylaws
“The Advisory Board of five members, from important sections of the ISOC
Cambodia Chapter membership”):

         - the Head of the IT in Education Section in the Ministry of
Education
         - the Editor in Chief of a leading Cambodian daily newspaper, who
is at the same time President of  the Club of Cambodian Journalists
         - the President and CEO of a major broadband providing ISP
         - a senior staff member in the office of the Council of Ministers
of the Government of Cambodia, and
         - one student.

= = =

We do not have much confidence in regional and central staff of ISOC that
has damaged the formerly good name of ISOC in Cambodian society, and no
word is seen from them to apologize publicly or to rectify this – but
instead it is considered that we are unprofessional to raise such unsolved
problems. We do not think it is acceptable that ISOC staff visits a
country, refuses to discuss the problems identified as important by a
Chapter, holds her own meeting to which she invited some people who said
they did not know an hour ago that ISOC exists – and she encourages them to
become members and run for leadership in the elections one month later. And
senior staff of ISOC just keeps silent.

The Documentation Center of Cambodia - www.dccam.org – has in every mail
originating from them the sentence:

*“...a society cannot know itself if it does not have an accurate memory of
its own history.”*

The Internet Society would do well to consider this also for itself, on its
way into a better future.

Ted Mooney continues:

*1. Chapter by-laws. From various correspondences and information sent to
the Cambodia Chapter, including examples of by-laws from other chapters and
stated flexibility to address the local needs dating back to 2011, I would
like to re-iterate the flexibility of the Chapter By-laws template to
assure that agreed Chapter By-laws account for all local laws and special
circumstances with respect to jurisdiction, foreign affiliation and
governance.*
What he calls flexibility seems more to be a situation of confusion in ISOC
operations. It is obvious from the correspondence on the Chapters list -
that not all Chapters have been made to accept what is now in our Bylaws –
but these problematic elements continue to be on the ISOC website as
“mandatory” elements. And while he informs us that we are free to flexibly
apply the Chapters Bylaws template, at the same time “Renewal Chapter
Charter letters” are going out to be signed and returned by 15 December
2013, including “chapter minimum standards” stating that if a Chapter does
not meet "one or more" a process of “rejuvenation” will be initiated.

One Chapter chair commented: “Somehow I miss all these in the ISOC by-laws,
but may be someone can enlighten us?”

There is obviously no clarity and broad agreement with Chapters at present
about the content and role of Chapter Bylaws, as some of the Chapter
Delegates mails show – with reference to a lot of time spent for nothing in
the past (*highlighting added* in our quoting):

*-------- Original Message -------- *

*Subject: Re: [Chapter-delegates] Fwd: Renewal Internet Society Chapter
CharterDate: Sat, 19 Oct 2013 15:44:09 +0200From: Klaus Birkenbihl
<Klaus.Birkenbihl at Isoc.de>Organization: Internet Society German Chapter
e.V. (ISOC.DE <http://ISOC.DE>)To: chapter-delegates at elists.isoc.org
<chapter-delegates at elists.isoc.org> <chapter-delegates at elists.isoc.org
<chapter-delegates at elists.isoc.org>>...I also don't foresee much change in
practice if we sign the letter. Nevertheless it is the wrong thing at the
wrong time. During the last years when chapters became more visible and
active we discussed so many beautiful things that could give support and
help to be more effective. E.g. Issue Trackers to identify issues and track
their resolution, Wikis to support collaboration and many other things the
Internet holds that other groups use to do better work. So next thing we
expected to see was some progress here.But instead of picking up e.g. the
prototype that was provided by Elena, we still lack reporting facilities
for projects and problems, collaboration tools, we stick to the old
work-intensive AMS to exchange our member data … But what we get is another
version of the Letter of Affiliation.Please keep in mind: it is effort,
money and time that is provided by chapters members that is used to do the
work.Financial support by ISOC is rather marginal. (Did you e.g ever manage
to organize an event for $2000? For our last event even the fee for the
room was higher.) Knowing that ISOC lacks the budget to pay them, chapters
- though complaining once and a while - continue to work on this base.The
Letter of Association says ISOC wants you to perform such and such, wants
to define a maximum number of terms for office holders [is this really a
mission related concern?], and you need ["we believe in numbers"] to have
that many individual members, [can it be summed-up with corporations? - AMS
still don't let me report corporate members] and so forth. Read this while
keeping in mind that its chapters time, chapters money, chapters effort.
Doesn't it annoy you?I don't say we should be against the Letters of
Association but given the situation as it is - they should be the result of
negotiations and not a headquarters dictatorship.Maybe the newly to be
created Chapters Advisory would be the group to develop a template that
fulfills 2 criteria:  - it is balanced in terms of responsibility and
control, benefit and achievements  - it allow**s*

* to be adjusted to needs of individual chapters (e.g. those with a
commercial branch, or with corporate members, or with a special focus like
accessibility ...)Such Letter of Association could have a real effect.Klaus*

*=*

*2. The Chapter Administrative Support Working Group is now meeting
regularly to discuss various ways to address Chapter issues regarding
operational resources. As you have noted from the discussion in this email
forum, there is a wide disparity of views and therefore, multiple solutions
may be piloted.It is regrettable that this has not come together as quickly
as the Cambodia Chapter has needed, so we hope that you will reconsider
your voluntary de-chartering until there are more widely available support
options for you to evaluate. Please do keep in mind that
local self-sufficiency will always be a key component of any operations
resource strategy.*
While local self-sufficiency is a broadly understandable principle, the way
this issue has been treated so far seems to have seen this as a financial
affair. We have not seen response to the much more complex situation, where
many people in Cambodia have, over the years and again recently, been
self-sufficient in providing their energy, their health, their freedom, and
in some cases their lives in the struggle for justice and in the struggle
to be free to communicate about it. A lot of public support, legal
assistance, and care for victims, is however not based on local finances,
but is provided by organizations and institutions extending external
solidarity funding support.

We have shared information that communication technology and information
networks are fairly well developed in Cambodia and there are working
groups, regular activities, IXPs, organized structures, Barcamps (the most
recent one a week ago with more than 2000 participants) – quite a number of
the ISOC Cambodia Chapter members provided leadership in these fields. Our
inquiry if ISOC could financially assist in setting up and initially
operating an office was clearly related to the specific government
regulations (*following the ISOC staff guided Bylaw: “The Chapter shall be
established as a non-profit organization under the laws of Cambodia”*).

If ISOC staff considers financial *“local self-sufficiency [...] always be
a key component of any operations resource strategy”* we are out for the
time being.

One comment on the Chapter list had said there is no need for us to defend
ourselves – ISOC staff may have to defend themselves instead. We leave this
open – but if anybody is interested in our context, you may find some more
information about local contributions at the Annex at the end of our
Documentation to be sent out separately. This material – voices from the
Chapters - may be of value for the work following a recent ISOC Board
decision that “acknowledged the right of Chapters to form an advisory
group.”

*3. We once again call upon the Cambodia Chapter to a) participate with
ISOC staff in a conference call to speak forthrightly about the issues you
raise, b) participate in the regularly scheduled Asia Chapter Webex calls
in which most other Asia chapters are now participating.  Regarding, a)
above, we have noted your concern that many Cambodia Chapter officers
cannot attend a call at one time for work-related and other obligations.
 We are very willing to have multiple calls to accommodate various
schedules and to be held at times that allow as many officers to attend as
possible.*
We did not participate lately in such conference calls or webinars as our
experience over the years is that such talks did not lead to much results.
Especially multiple sessions on the same subject ended up with open
questions: What was really discussed or decided? Email exchanges leave much
clearer records.

*On another note, there is currently a Chapter workshop in Bali ahead of
the IGF. I hope the Cambodian representative will take the opportunity to
speak to Naveed ul Haq, Chapter Development Manager for Asia, Joyce Dogniez
Director of Chapter Development and Raj Singh our Regional Bureau Director.
Such a conversation presents an additional opportunity to resolve timing
conflicts and help us all get to a resolution of the issues.*
Ted Mooney added:

*“This is unfortunate as there is a travel fellowship available for the
each Asia Chapter to attend in which expenses are covered. My assumption
was that surely you would take advantage of such funding from ISOC
particularly when your representative would have a forum with ISOC
executives in which to discuss your specific issue. Why did you chose not
to attend?”*
The fact that intensive communication on the Chapter list, with several
calls from various Chapter leaders calling on ISOC staff – central and
regional – to respond to the contents of our mail did not result in such
responses, was not an indication that to meet in Bali would provide the
practical and timely responses we were hoping for. We did not want to ask
for such international travel support for one person to talk to ISOC staff
traveling to Bali to talk about things for which the 90 ISOC staff and
advisors could not organize written responses in the months and weeks
before.

And finally, Ted Mooney said:

*“Also, I think we needn't burden Chapter Delegates with a lengthy and
hopefully fruitful conversation between us in email. I will no longer be
posting my responses to you to the entire list.” *
Here the ISOC Senior Director, Membership & Services, is obviously not in
line with the many Chapter leaders who were interested and did actively
participate in the related discussions on the Chapters list. As Ousmane
MOUSSA TESSA from the Niger Chapter wrote:

*Hi all,+1 Veni! [Bulgaria]In my previous mail I tried to share a quiet
simple idea of the "ecosystem" of ISOC. Veni summarized what this ecosystem
must be. I'm just thinking it just a global decentralized process, as
Chapters don't be considered as "subsidiaries" of company with an HQ and
Board of Trustees!BTW, I agree 200% with Veni about the fact, and keeping
in mind that "the strength of a chain is based on the quality of its
weakest link". Hence, let's support each other to move steadily and forward
a visible thread, so even the newcomers can jump easy in one the various
wagons of ISOC.Keep on talking, talking again, in the only aim to ... to
sharpen our current and future actions and overcome inherent difficulties
of our Global "institution".All the bestOusmaneNiger Chapter*
We continue to share our communication.

We are committed to the “basic values” for which many persons around the
world became members of the ISOC – and it is our assumption that many of
our present Chapter members may want to continue to be members of ISOC, for
which they had to sign up before being able to become members of a chapter.

Probably there will also be an informal fellowship of “Friends of the
Internet in Cambodia” - and there may be interest in the future to see how
the recent decisions of the ISOC Board that affirmed the role of chapters
in the governance and mission of the Internet Society will work out,
especially when a Chapters Advisory Group will have done its work and
hopefully the clarification of the role and relation of staff and chapters
may lead to a new start of ISOC.

Be Chantra

chantra.be at gmail.com

(still) Secretary of the ISOC Cambodia Chapter

until this announcement is sent out.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://elists.isoc.org/mailman/private/chapter-delegates/attachments/20131104/204d3e4b/attachment.htm>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: Documentation-1.pdf
Type: application/pdf
Size: 145737 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <https://elists.isoc.org/mailman/private/chapter-delegates/attachments/20131104/204d3e4b/attachment.pdf>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: Documentation-2.pdf
Type: application/pdf
Size: 219220 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <https://elists.isoc.org/mailman/private/chapter-delegates/attachments/20131104/204d3e4b/attachment-0001.pdf>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: Documentation-3.pdf
Type: application/pdf
Size: 117078 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <https://elists.isoc.org/mailman/private/chapter-delegates/attachments/20131104/204d3e4b/attachment-0002.pdf>