[Chapter-delegates] Announcement about the dissolution of ISOC-KH
Janvier Ngnoulaye
j.ngnoulaye at afrinic.net
Thu Nov 7 11:28:57 PST 2013
What a bad news !!!
History will record that the current generation in Cambodia has left die
this Chapter, and published its death certificate.
I'm still hoping that another new generation will come out from the
Internet community of Cambodia to resurrect that ISOC Chapter.
Warm regards,
/Janvier
ISOC Cameroon Chapter
>
>
> On 11/03/13 21:26, 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 Klein
>> President, 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
>> <http://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 Charter
>> Date: Sat, 19 Oct 2013 15:44:09 +0200
>> From: 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
>> <mailto:chapter-delegates at elists.isoc.org>
>> <chapter-delegates at elists.isoc.org
>> <mailto: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 best
>>
>> Ousmane
>> Niger 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 <mailto: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
>
> --
>
> Best,
> Veni Markovski
> http://www.veni.com
> https://www.facebook.com/venimarkovski
> https://twitter.com/veni
>
> The opinions expressed above are those of the
> author, not of any organizations, associated
> with or related to him in any given way.
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> 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
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