[Chapter-delegates] Renewal Internet Society Chapter Charter
Dick Kalkman
d.h.kalkman at isoc.nl
Tue Oct 22 01:39:09 PDT 2013
Dear Borka, Klaus and Veni,
In The Netherlands we have much the same problems with the AMS system.
An estimated near thousand member records are lost and/or corrupted.
Maybe more, because who knows what happened before we recognized the
problems? There are simply no activity logs on membership database
mutations or just basic backups available to us.
We also have the same problem that all our roll back / recovery requests
to ISOC HQ only gave lots of tech talk but until now zero solutions.
Even our positive response to the proposal from ISOC HQ to switch of the
(for us useless) renewal function didn't result in any action.
The only (sad) advantage is that the number of complains from our
members on spamming by ISOC HQ are declining.
The second main problem is that there is still no compliance (read
compliance certification) to local law(-s). I'm very concerned with this
situation.
I hope that the new task force established to solve this, soon result in
some improvements and we all can go back to our core activities.
Best Regards,
Dick Kalkman
On 21-10-2013 7:06, borka at e5.ijs.si wrote:
> Veni and Klaus,
>
> I fully agree with all you have said.
> Instead on mission the HQ is planning how to
> "discipline" the chapters. I fully agree also
> what Klaus wrote regarding the funding and the AMS (clumsy, not effective,
> duplication of the administration etc.) A month ago cca 40 members of
> ISOC SI were deleted from AMS, because
> their renewal was not done on time!! When I asked the data to be
> recovered - the answer was that the data have been lost or somewhere
> in the data base (without possibility to be found).
> And we had to re-enter the data from our own administration records
> and lost some time to do this. The chapters was removed from
> the active chapters in the time between our re-entering the data.
> The worst was that there was no reminder message or warning that
> the renewal is expected. Some functions in the AMS do not work properly
> (e.g. editing). Is this the administration help for the chapters?
>
> The association is strong if the members are strong in doing work
> related to the organization mission and not with the administration
> procedures (introduced each few years as new "regime of administration
> and regulations"). It looks to me the
> vision in the approach for chapters cooperation in light of the
> expected mutual benefit is missing. Years lasting debate about that is
> an evidence that this vision never existed or was not on the table.
>
> With regards,
>
> Borka
>
> On Sat, 19 Oct 2013, Veni Markovski wrote:
>
>> Klaus, and all, I could sign this on behalf of isoc-bulgaria, without
>> even
>> thinking :)
>> Very well and precisely said. Perhaps ISOC HQ should really rethink all
>> this.
>>
>> On Saturday, October 19, 2013, Klaus Birkenbihl wrote:
>> +1 Christian (and sorry Christian for dubls).
>>
>> 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 LoA.
>>
>> 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 LoA 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 again LoAs 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 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 LoAs could have a real effect.
>>
>> Klaus
>>
>>
>> Christian de Larrinaga wrote on 13.10.2013 12:44:
>> > Veni
>> >
>> > I've done a quick analysis which has been forwarded on to the
>> ISOC UK E
>> > team. Without going into details until the local chapter has
>> had time to
>> > come to a considered view. My main concerns revolve around the
>> > boundaries of responsibilities and self governance in and
>> between ISOC
>> > and chapters.
>> >
>> > Therefore section 3 in particular apart from perhaps the first
>> point,
>> > needs careful appraisal.
>> >
>> > What is outlined is pretty specific model for chapter
>> governance which
>> > is then described as the "minimum standard". Even though there
>> is
>> > probably nothing binding about signing this letter I fear it
>> comes with
>> > a set of expectations of it having some contractual status at
>> ISOC which
>> > is likely to cause a lot of problems mainly due to confusion
>> of people
>> > speaking across each other in 2014.
>> >
>> > One further observation. It is interesting to note that ISOC
>> for its new
>> > bylaws has been careful to describe itself as a mission led
>> body not a
>> > membership one. However the model described does not see that
>> > possibility in chapters as well. The confusion as to the role
>> and status
>> > of ISOC individual members in ISOC has been resolved in its
>> internal
>> > governance but it continues for chapters.
>> >
>> > I'm not saying chapters don't want these people. The UK
>> chapter known in
>> > ISOC as ISOC UK England exists to get their voice and
>> interests engaged.
>> > But quite how best to structure that engagement within a
>> governance
>> > context really needs to be something for the local community
>> to deal with.
>> >
>> > Perhaps ISOC could have rephrased its approach to a more
>> sophisticated
>> > one? Something like ISOC invites its chapters to support and
>> engage with
>> > individual members, organisational members and participants in
>> IETF,
>> > Regional Internet Registries etc .... and then offer to work
>> with us to
>> > develop useful programs for each of those communities to make
>> practical
>> > and sustainable activities?
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > Christian
>> >
>> > Veni Markovski wrote:
>> >> Hi, guys.
>> >> I guess you have received similar letters?
>> >>
>> >> I already emailed Joyce that there are some issues with the
>> >> requirements, mainly in the responsibility of the chapters
>> ;-)
>> >> Seems like ISOC is not concerned too much about the EU
>> personal data
>> >> protection, or the fact that may be in some chapters you
>> cannot be a
>> >> member of the global ISOC, or that in some cases the
>> elections of the
>> >> Board may not take place every year, or every two years; or
>> that the
>> >> number of terms may not be limited; or that filing updates
>> with ISOC may
>> >> mean extra weight on the chapters to produce the documents
>> from the
>> >> General Assembly in English; or that sharing information with
>> the ISOC
>> >> staff may not be appropriate; or that promoting ISOC
>> strategic positions
>> >> could be considered very inappropriate (what? considering the
>> position
>> >> of a US-based non-profit???).
>> >>
>> >> Further than that, they are telling us that if do not meet
>> "one or more"
>> >> of the "minimum standards", a process of "rejuvenation" will
>> be initiated.
>> >>
>> >> Somehow I miss all these in the ISOC by-laws, but may be
>> someone can
>> >> enlightern us?
>> >>
>> >> thanks, and have a great Sunday!
>> >>
>> >> v.
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> -------- Original Message --------
>> >> Subject: Renewal Internet Society Chapter Charter
>> >> Date: Fri, 11 Oct 2013 14:42:56 +0000
>> >> From: Joyce Dogniez <dogniez at isoc.org>
>> >> To: albena.arnaudova at gmail.com <albena.arnaudova at gmail.com>,
>> >> mitko at mitko.com <mitko at mitko.com>, dgreve at isoc.bg
>> <dgreve at isoc.bg>,
>> >> veni at veni.com <ve--
>> Klaus Birkenbihl
>> http://www.klaus-birkenbihl.de
>>
>> --
>> Klaus Birkenbihl
>> Treasurer and Board member
>> Internet Society German Chapter e.V. (ISOC.DE)
>> c/o ict-Media GmbH
>> http://www.isoc.de/
>>
>> _______________________________________________
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>> Society
>> Chapter Portal (AMS): https://portal.isoc.org
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Best,
>> Veni
>> http://veni.com
>> https://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.
>> ***
>>
>>
>> == Sent from my phone, so any spelling mistakes are caused by the
>> touchscreen keyboard.
>>
>>
>>
>
>
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