[Chapter-delegates] Fwd: Urgent: Signature of the updated ISOC Chapter Charter Letter

Tue Dec 11 07:12:12 PST 2018

Dear Alan:

Your characterization of the relationship between Internet Society chapters and Internet Society organization is very far from the real situation. 
We have had an open discussion within the Chapters community about this letter for more than 1 year and most of the inputs, feedbacks and also the special requirements based on local laws, have been considered. 

I can not make a legal opinion about the use of our brand in South Africa since it is not my matter of expertise. And if needed, I hope we have a civilized conversation about that specific issue. 

You recently asked to discuss this issue with ISOC’s CEO, Andrew Sullivan, and I passed this request to him just a few minutes before you sent your email. The language you use in your text doesn’t seem very compatible with an attitude of dialogue. Let me know please later (on or off list, as you prefer)  if you are still interested in having further discussions about this matter  or you are just  parting ways,  as your email suggests. 

Best Regards, 

Raúl 

> El 11 dic. 2018, a las 11:52, Alan Levin <alan at isoc.org.za> escribió:
> 
> Dear friends and colleagues,
> 
> It seems that your top-down model is taking over (I say "yours" since I am told over 110 of you have signed this agreement).   ISOC-ZA have agreed not to relinquish the name Internet Society to the benevolent dictator in the USA, i.e. we believe we own this name in our Geography. So - as discussed always - we have taken out the part that says "The Internet Society hereby grants the Chapter a limited, revocable, non-exclusive license to use the name “Internet Society”.  We also reserve the right to be called the Internet Society of South Africa as we have in the past, and not how ISOC may determine from time to time how we should be named (as per the same part of the agreement we are being "forced" to sign). 
> 
> i.e. we established ourselves independently as a Chapter in our Geography and in 1998 that allowed us sovereignty and ownership of the name Internet Society. Since then we have established ourselves as a local civil society organisation that has mostly focused on local policy making activities relating to the Internet. 
> 
> Unfortunately now the "mother ship" has told us that we must relinquish our name to them and accept that we use it only under their license. Since we do not agree they wish to fight us / exclude us / or as they state "put us into "rehabilitation". 
> 
> I have been a member of this list for over 15 years, I suppose they will boot me soon... We do have affiliation with ISOC Libya and ISOC China who are not affiliated with ISOC-global, so please do be in contact if you wish to make a bilateral affiliation (if you think you are allowed :P). 
> 
> Cheers, Happy Holidays, Warm regards
> 
> 
> Alan Levin
> Chairman ISOC-ZA
> 
> 
> 
> 
> ---------- Forwarded message ---------
> From: Christine Saegesser <saegesser at isoc.org>
> Date: Mon, Nov 26, 2018 at 11:54 AM
> Subject: Re: Urgent: Signature of the updated ISOC Chapter Charter Letter
> To: Alan Levin <alan at isoc.org.za>
> 
> Dear Alan, 
> 
> I’d like to get back to you on this after further consultation among the team and our legal team. 
> 
> Chapters are very important to the work of the Internet Society to keep the Internet open, transparent and for the benefit of all people throughout the world.  Community engagement around our main campaigns and other important programmes is a key element of the Internet Society’s 2019 Action Plan and is very close to the heart of our leadership team and especially our new President and CEO, Andrew Sullivan. 
> 
> We now have 110 Chapters who signed the letter in its current version and we’d like to invite you again to consider signing the letter as it is. We will not be able to make these compromises on the points related to the use of the Internet Society trademark, logos and independence. 
> 
> As you know, the final version of the updated Chapter Charter letter was shared for signature with all Internet Society Chapters at the beginning of 2018, following the extensive community consultation process undertaken last year to develop and finalise this version of the letter. The Chapter Charter letter defines the Internet Society’s relationship with its Chapters and vice versa, it sets out our respective responsibilities and limits liabilities. 
> 
> From what we know, the constitution of the South Africa Chapter (from 2007) says the following with regards to the name of the Chapter: "The name of the association is the South African Chapter of the Internet Society and the recognised abbreviation thereof shall be ISOC-ZA.“ We thus understand that the Chapter was registered under this name with the very specific aim of being an Internet Society Chapter. 
> 
> Based on this, we hope you will be able to sign the letter without the edits (see attached). The final deadline for all Chapters to have their Charter letters signed is 31 December 2018.
> 
> According to the Internet Society's Chapter processes, as acknowledged by the Internet Society Board of Trustees during their last meeting, Chapters that have not signed the current version of the Chapter Charter letter will have to be put into rejuvenation. See also: https://www.internetsociety.org/chapters/processes/
> 
> We hope we’ll be able to avoid that and look forward to hearing from you. 
> 
> Best regards, 
> 
> Christine
> 
> ---------------------------------------------------------------
> Internet Society (ISOC)
> Christine Saegesser Baethge
> Senior Manager Global Chapter Development
> Website: www.InternetSociety.org
> ---------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> 
> > On 4. Oct 2018, at 13:41, Alan Levin <alan at isoc.org.za> wrote:
> > 
> > Hi Christine,
> > 
> > On Thu, Oct 4, 2018 at 1:20 PM Christine Saegesser <saegesser at isoc.org> wrote:
> > The conclusion of that discussion is that we’d be happy to make compromises on some of the minor edits you made. 
> > 
> > Thanks, there are some minor improvements I can make to them too. I also got some advice from an American member... 
> > 
> > However, there are several reasons why we cannot agree to the deletion of the points related to the use of the Internet Society trademark, logos and independence. 
> > 
> > So after some consideration we are willing to relinquish the logo, but the name Internet Society is our name in our geography - we have been independently trading with it since 1998 - and what we believe you consider the "trademark". We will not relinquish our name :)
> > 
> > How does that sound?
> > 
> > Alan
> > -- 
> > Alan Levin
> > ----------------------------------
> > Chairman ISOC-ZA
> > +27 21 4882820 (ddi)
> 
> 
> <2018_ISOC_Chapter_Charter_Agreement-EN_for_signature.pdf>_______________________________________________
> 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

-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: smime.p7s
Type: application/pkcs7-signature
Size: 4094 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <https://elists.isoc.org/mailman/private/chapter-delegates/attachments/20181211/d976f4e6/attachment.p7s>