[Chapter-delegates] Announcement about the dissolution of ISOC-KH
Grigori Saghyan
gregor at arminco.com
Tue Nov 5 00:38:35 PST 2013
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Dear David, All,
you are right, it can have serious negative consequences. I think it
is a challenge, and ISOC have to make serious changes in its
organizational structure and cooperation principles. I think such
changes are possible, ISOC ideas are healthy, necessary to merge these
healthy ideology with healthy organizational structure.
Grigori Saghyan
ISOC.AM
On 05.11.2013 7:12, David Solomonoff wrote:
> This is tragic - both for Cambodia's netizens (past, present and
> future) and for ISOC.
>
> It will have long-term negative consequences for the global
> organization in ways that are hard to anticipate. But first and
> foremost will be the temptation for other Chapters to dissolve or
> dissociate whenever there is disagreement.
>
> If other Chapters follow a similar path, the credibility - and even
> the viability - of ISOC will be severely damaged.
>
> The ISOC staff who allowed this to happen have made a grievous
> error.
>
> Sincerely,
>
> David
>
> On 11/03/2013 09:26 PM, Chantra Be wrote:
>> *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 -------- *
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
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>>
>>
>>
>> *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:
>>
>>
>>
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>>
>> *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.
>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________ As an Internet
>> Society Chapter Officer you are automatically subscribed to this
>> list, which is regularly synchronized with the Internet Society
>> Chapter Portal (AMS): https://portal.isoc.org
>
>
> -- David Solomonoff, President Internet Society of New York
> president at isoc-ny.org isoc-ny.org
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________ As an Internet
> Society Chapter Officer you are automatically subscribed to this
> list, which is regularly synchronized with the Internet Society
> Chapter Portal (AMS): https://portal.isoc.org
>
- --
Grigori Saghyan
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