[Chapter-delegates] Revised Chapter Agreement

[Satish Babu]

Hi Joyce,

Here is our response to the Chapter Charter document (called the
"Agreement" below) circulated earlier.

At the outset, we have the following general comments:

1. We understand and appreciate the need for Chapters to be harmonized with
Internet Society on different points (particularly on Objectives,
Governance and funds utilization). We further feel that the requirements
under the proposed Agreement are neither particularly onerous nor
unreasonable, and we would be happy to sign the Agreement once we have a
community consensus on it.

2. We also note that for existing Chapters that have locally-registered
status, in case there is a conflict between this Agreement and the existing
Charter/by-laws, the Registrar is likely to reject the Agreement (and not
the locally-approved by-laws). In other words, harmonizing existing by-laws
with this Agreement may require the non-trivial process of amending local
by-laws.

With these observations, we point out a few comments that we have on the
proposed Agreement:

1. "1. Purpose of the Chapter": There appears to be a slight inconsistency
here as the Purpose of the Chapter is usually articulated in the Chapter
Charter and/or By-laws and not in any other document. In this case, apart
from expressing an intent, this clause may have no impact.

2. In 2(a), there is a misplaced comma ("consistent, mechanism")

3. 2(a) and 2(b) refer to "Governance Documents" as a pre-requisite to
Chapter recognition (for new Chapters). Essentially, this implies that the
Chapter is first registered under local laws, and then its recognition in
Internet Society is sought. We have no issues with this, but would advise
strong guidance to the group in formulating its Charter under the local
laws (even though it would not be an Internet Society Chapter at that
time). Further, the fact that local registration comes first has
implications (see comments #5 and #8 below).

4. In 3(c), the membership criterion (that each Chapter member should be an
Internet Society individual member first) can be objected to by local
registrars as discriminatory and conflicting with the sovereignty of the
local law.

5. In 5(a), the format of the Chapter name is recommended as "Internet
Society--[Territory] Chapter". We note that in many larger countries, the
practice so far was to brand the chapter as "Internet Society--[Country]
[Territory] Chapter". Further, for new chapters, the name may have to be
frozen for registration in the local by-laws, even before the Chapter is
recognized (as local registration comes first, see Comment #3 above).

6. In 6 (Chapter Independence), it may be good to also mention the
ownership of assets of the Chapter.

7. In 8(a) there may be a need for a mention of possible amendments to the
Charter ('Amendments' is mentioned in Section 10, but there is no mention
of the process of adoption of the amendment. Sec 10 reads like it would be
imposed on Chapters, which is perhaps not the intention).

8. In 8(b), consistent with our comment #3 above, we would like to point
out that even if Internet Society terminates the Chapter Charter, the
Chapter will continue as a valid organization under local laws, retaining
and continuing with its name and local branding. Should there be a dispute,
as the name of the chapter (as registered under the local laws) precedes
its recognition by Internet Society, local courts will uphold the right of
the Chapter to continue using the name.

The main difficulty (which may be specific to our context) arises from the
fact that while local laws in many countries permit the creation of
autonomous, democratic, local organizations, they do not usually permit the
registration of "chapters" of another entity (which imply a lack of
autonomy since they are subject to the by-laws an external entity).

If the Chapter has a reasonable degree of internal cohesion and
flexibility, we believe these grey areas can be managed.

With kind regards,








satish

--
Satish Babu
ISOC-TRV




On Sun, Aug 13, 2017 at 4:44 AM, Winthrop Yu <w.yu at gmx.net> wrote:

>   In our case, we had notice well in advance of a Regional event, but
> coordination has been difficult given that Regional has quite a number of
> things on its plate. As the chapter has not actually been called-in to
> assist and we have not coordinated on tasking for the event. i'm doing what
> i can to help but have to be careful not to step all over their planning.
>
>   We're a big, diverse region and need more people at regional.
>
> WYn
> PH
>
>
>
> On 8/4/2017 5:30 AM, Alejandro Pisanty wrote:
>
>>
>> ... we would have welcomed advance coordination from HQ instead of them
>> parachuting into the country for us to bump into them ...
>> Yours,
>>
>> Alejandro Pisanty
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>>
> _______________________________________________
> As an Internet Society Chapter Officer you are automatically subscribed
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> Chapter Portal (AMS): https://portal.isoc.org
>
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