[Chapter-delegates] Revised Chapter Agreement

Wed Sep 6 02:04:02 PDT 2017

+1 to Carlos proposal, if this phrase "

totally under the control of chapters.."
would be edited to "

totally *in **coordination **with *chapters *volunteers*.."

On Wed, Sep 6, 2017 at 11:25 AM, Richard Hill <rhill at hill-a.ch> wrote:

> I see that Carlos had made a concrete proposal:
>
>
>
> “Any Fellowship in which ISOC HQ put some money must be
> 
> totally under the control of chapters..  if not it does not make sense for
> us to organize people, develop projects, run several meetings, attend
> monthly meetings with staff and more volunteer work if anyone doing nothing
> can still have same and even best options to act "representing" our
> community through fellowships we need to maintain the hard work of the
> chapters.”
>
>
>
> Do people on this list think that this proposal should be submitted to the
> Chapters Advisory Council (ChAC)?  If yes, and if the ChAC approved it,
> then it could be submitted by the ChAC to the Board for consideration.
>
>
>
> Best,
>
> Richard
>
>
>
> *From:* Chapter-delegates [mailto:chapter-delegates-boun
> ces at elists.isoc.org] *On Behalf Of *Carlos Vera
> *Sent:* Wednesday, September 6, 2017 05:53
> *To:* Alejandro Pisanty
> *Cc:* chapter-delegates at elists.isoc.org
> *Subject:* Re: [Chapter-delegates] Revised Chapter Agreement
>
>
>
> Let's put it simple: most chapters with experienced leaders share
> identical concerns and some chapters with new leadership will do soon or
> later.
>
>
>
> I see identical concerns from Asia, Europe and of course América. And also
> exactly (as must be in a corporation) the same kind of answers from staff
> mid and high level.
>
>
>
> We are doing our best to keep the chapters working and running in the
> middle of a necessary balance between local laws, HQ agreement and
> practical ways of maintain them surviving..  it's simply to understood that
> the carrot-and-stick approach is not working in favor of a big presence of
> the chapters but as a way to justify a year to year growing and diverse
> staff that need more things to control and role to plays or disappear.
>
>
>
> We have every year more and more rules, reports, controls and
> responsibilities that simply put our attention, far away of what really is
> important: the Internet for everyone objective.
>
>
>
> As we have more and more things to do for the staff, we see more and more
> people receiving fellowships without any chapter intervention, which is
> also another challenge because the volunteers need some options for them to
> work. Every time we send some or our most active member to one fellowship
> we have a returning volunteer working with us. Every time we have an
> external receiving a fellowship out of the chapter we have an individual
> who ask for less volunteer work and more fellowships "for free"
>
>
>
> Any Fellowship in which ISOC HQ put some money must be totally under the
> control of chapters..  if not it does not make sense for us to organize
> people, develop projects, run several meetings, attend monthly meetings
> with staff and more volunteer work if anyone doing nothing can still have
> same and even best options to act "representing" our community through
> fellowships we need to maintain the hard work of the chapters.
>
>
>
> I respectfully ask to the staff be more productive working closely with
> chapters and not parallel and even against us as sometimes we all feel.
>
>
>
> Carlos Vera
>
> isoc Ecuador
>
>
> On Sep 5, 2017, at 5:21 PM, Alejandro Pisanty <apisanty at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Raul,
>
>
>
> indeed and yet not. The Chapter Agreement and related instruments are only
> as good as the depth to which goals are shared and trust prevails; as good
> as all parties involved feel they are respected in their professional
> competence, political experience, and ethical trustworthiness. The Chapters
> are not satellites and they are not branch offices. They are
> self-constituted entities which share a mission with all others in the ISOC
> organization.
>
>
>
> The Chapter Agreement has a structural contradiction in the incentives it
> creates and ISOC central has to be very mindful of this. It requires or at
> least requests that the Chapters be constituted as full-fledged independent
> organizations, legally recognized, governed by rules, big enough to allow
> diversity and a rotation of leadership, of weight enough to be influential
> in politics and policy, all of which may in turn require legal compliance,
> a lot of lawyering, administrative burdens for transparency and
> accountability, dealing with all kinds of authorities, and political
> exposure both favorable and of risk. Some of our Chapters, further, are in
> countries where any organized activity is high risk, all the more so if it
> promotes openness in any of its senses.
>
>
>
> It is hard to ask such an organization to submit itself meekly to a set of
> administrative requirements without fulfilling at the same time the
> conditions in my first paragraph above. The Agreement must commit both
> parts equitably. A pound of flesh from each if that is the measure. And as
> I have tried to explain many times over the years. ISOC global suffers when
> it acts regionally or locally without integration. At the very least you
> end up going to the wrong office and making the wrong statement at the
> wrong time; and your opportunity cost rises exponentially.
>
>
>
> The practical consequence is that you leave yourself more room to
> accomodate Chapter specifics (there's plenty of staff now for that) and you
> make and deliver on commitments from HQ that really mean something
> substantive for the Chapters as parts of a whole larger than the sum of its
> parts.
>
>
>
> Alejandro Pisanty
>
>
>
> On Tue, Sep 5, 2017 at 4:42 PM, Raul Echeberria <echeberria at isoc.org>
> wrote:
>
>
>
> Alejandro,
>
>
>
> Your email goes much beyond the issue of the Revised Chapter Agreement.
>
> I would suggest to keep the focus on this topic on this thread.
>
>
>
> Your comments about the role of the staff are not appropriate. The Staff
> doesn’t play games with the chapters as you suggest neither choose
> favorites and the only idea of using ISOC resources for supporting those
> games is something absolutely unacceptable. I’m happy to discuss with you
> any specific accusation and be sure we would take measure if something like
> that would be proved.
>
>
>
> With regard to Chapters involvement in international meetings, we have
> made huge progresses in the last couple of years, in fact you Alejandro
> yourself have participated in ISOC delegations in a very productive manner.
>
> Next month 5 chapters leaders will join ISOC delegation to WTDC. And this
> is not an isolated case, this is the habit in present times.
>
>
>
> We always try to coordinate with local chapters in every meeting. Of
> course, we can make mistakes sometimes, but mistakes are just mistakes, not
> the way we proceed. In some cases even the problem is not the communication
> between the Staff and the chapters but the internal communication at the
> chapter level,
>
> We are happy to correct anything we are doing wrong in that sense, but I
> hope it could be recognized the effort that has been made in the last few
> years in this area, not only in implementing fellowship programs oriented
> to the chapters,  for participating in ISOC delegations to International
> meetings, but also in the selection of the fellows, according to the
> recommendations submitted by the Chapters to the Board.
>
>
>
>
>
> Coming back to the topic of the subject, I think this dialogue has been
> very fruitful. We have taken notes of all the comments and all your
> opinions and we will try to accommodate most of them in a new revision of
> the agreement.
>
>
>
>
>
> Best regards,
>
>
>
> Raúl
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> El 5 set. 2017, a las 15:13, Alejandro Pisanty <apisanty at gmail.com>
> escribió:
>
>
>
> Hi,
>
>
>
> clearly Chapter officials rotation is not an easy proposition. We go
> through several generations in the formation of new leaders before some are
> ready, available, and clear of conflicts for time with their day jobs, as
> well as conflicts of interest such as working for government in Internet
> policy-making fields, having clients whose needs in litigation may be at
> variance with ISOC's positions, and so on. Other than a general call for
> renewal any crisp-set rules are bound to clash with reality.
>
>
>
> The need to incorporate new perspectives and people in leadership must be
> strengthened internally in the chapter. Otherwise too many incentives are
> created for intervention and manipulation by ISOC mid-level staff, who can
> play games with resources, choose favorites, enter into blame games, and on
> the other hand lose sight of the difficulties and failures of the
> leadership they choose to support.
>
>
>
> Now let's for a minute imagine an ISOC that was built as a federation of
> independently founded societies, as indeed is the case for a few of the
> older chapters (and also is a little bit with some new ones, whose members
> are simultaneously members in some other local organization such as a trade
> association or an NGO.) What would we agree with a central administration
> and representation that we created?
>
>
>
> We would put substance first, not form. One egregious disrespect that
> continues to happen is that ISOC delegations arrive at international
> events, such as those in the ITU's global and regional processes, without
> due advance coordination with the local chapter. To their surprise, the
> local Chapter is all over, invited by the local host, participating in
> consultations and even drafting documents... all on their own, and not
> being able to be decisive enough because the "party line" remains unknown.
> Ditto for ICANN, IGF WSIS Forum and so on. Further ditto for the processes
> where governments are taking their stuff away from multistakeholder
> mechanisms altogether. There is an asymmetry of trust that is hurtful to
> all parties in the long run.
>
>
>
> Re-balancing the HQ/Central-Chapter relationship will take much more work
> than just refining the Charter's provisions for managing Chapters
> internally.
>
>
>
> Alejandro Pisanty
>
>
>
> On Tue, Sep 5, 2017 at 2:34 AM, Borka Jerman Blazic <borka at e5.ijs.si>
> wrote:
>
>
> Hi all,
>
> In ISOC SI we had more than 50% Internet wide members that never appeared
> in the chapter communications or activities.
> We did not had as well any information why they were enrolled as our
> members. In that context I believe that  chapters
> should have the responsibility to conduct themselves based on high NGO
> standards  that are either visible or are checked
> each year.  However, being ISOC member global  is  attractive for the
> chapter membership, but most of the chapter activities
> should lay on local institutions and members that are engaged and work
> within the local community.
>
> So any firm restrictions in that context  are not appropriate in the new
> Chapter agreement.
>
> With regards,
>
> Borka
>
>
> Susannah Gray je 4.9.2017 ob 22:23 napisal:
>
> Hi Raul, all
>
>
> On 01/09/2017 10:41, Raul Echeberria wrote:
>
>
> <snip>
>
> The number of Internet users have increased very much and the number of
> people involved in Internet development and policy matters have grown very
> much too. There are several (ISOC runs some of them) programs for
> developing new leaders. New people is coming on board every year. Youth at
> IGF, NextGen leaders, Youth SIG, the numerous IG schools are just some
> examples of those initiatives. We have to learn how to take advantage of
> all these new leaders that ara being formed by different organizations.
>
> - Just a quick comment on this. I am fully in agreement that chapters need
> to rotate leadership, encourage young leaders and actively engage in
> succession planning.
>
> However, I believe it's not always possible or in the best interests of a
> chapter to rotate leadership frequently, as several others have pointed out.
>
> The SF-Bay Area Chapter has often had trouble recruiting Board Members. In
> the past, before I joined, I know the Board even talked about closing the
> chapter (one of the largest with over 2,000 members) because no one wanted
> to take over the Chair role.
>
> Running a successful chapter is similar to having a full time job or
> running a small business when you consider the amount of administration
> that needs to be done (website maintenance, finances, reporting taxes,
> member admin and engagement, social media, project management, event
> planning, Board meetings, keeping track of mailing lists etc. ).
>
> Admin and Board commitments take up a lot of time. Young leaders/those in
> the Next Gen programs are often at the beginnings of their careers and are
> working hard to climb the career ladder or are still studying, leaving
> little time for anything else. They may also not be able to ask for
> flexibility from an employer to carry out or contribute fully to
> Board/Chapter duties, which may be easier for people at a more advanced
> stage of their career.
>
> While I would love to have a graduate of any of the programs mentioned
> above on the SF-Bay Area Chapter Board, my personal opinion is that
> overstretched Boards generally need people on their Boards who already have
> Board experience, need little coaching, know the industry and who can jump
> in and offer much needed advice and support from the outset as this greatly
> reduces the workload on existing Board members.
>
>
> Kind regards,
>
> Susannah
>
> ---
> Susannah Gray
> President & Chair
> San Francisco-Bay Area Internet Society Chapter
> www.sfbayisoc.org
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> Jožef Stefan Institute and Faculty of Economics, Ljubljana University
> Slovenia tel. +386 1 477 3408 <+386%201%20477%2034%2008> tel. +386 1 477
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>      Dr. Alejandro Pisanty
> Facultad de Química UNAM
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> _______________________________________________
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> to this list, which is regularly synchronized with the Internet Society
> Chapter Portal (AMS): https://portal.isoc.org
>
>
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> --
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> - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
>      Dr. Alejandro Pisanty
> Facultad de Química UNAM
> Av. Universidad 3000, 04510 Mexico DF Mexico
> +52-1-5541444475 <+52%201%2055%204144%204475> FROM ABROAD
> +525541444475 <+52%2055%204144%204475> DESDE MÉXICO SMS +525541444475
> <+52%2055%204144%204475>
> Blog: http://pisanty.blogspot.com
> LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/pisanty
> Unete al grupo UNAM en LinkedIn, http://www.linkedin.com/e/gis/
> 22285/4A106C0C8614
> Twitter: http://twitter.com/apisanty
> ---->> Unete a ISOC Mexico, http://www.isoc.org
> .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .
>
> _______________________________________________
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> to this list, which is regularly synchronized with the Internet Society
> Chapter Portal (AMS): https://portal.isoc.org
>
>
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