• AGM2006

HUMBUG AGM on 2006-09-09

(I will put editor comments in brackets.)

Meeting started at 18:00. Mark Suter chairs. Apologies from Timothy Hitchens, all other executive members present.

1. Confirmation of minutes of last AGM

Motion - Gary Curtis to accept, Rudolf Vyborny seconds.Unanimously passed.

2. Office bearers reports

• President Mark Suter - Same as last year, not much happened. Clinton Roy - Ever thought of quitting as president? Mark Suter - If someone would run against him.
• Vice president (given by Mark Suter in absence of Timothy Hitchens) -Same as last year, not much happened.
• Secretary David Seikel - No membership figures for 04/05 - 82 for 03/04. Total for 05/06 is 46 (actually 49, more found later when the cash box was opened). There is no membership db. Plea that incoming executive nominees actually be able to commit to the tasks required.
• Treasurer Tim Kent - Same as last year, not much happened. Anthony Towns - How much money do we have? Tim Kent - Doesn't know. To be reported later. No one recalls seeing a bank balance, to be chased up by David Seikel.
• Librarian Tony Bilbrough - Current stock is two cartons of books, nine T-shirts, several donated books, fairly loose and undocumented. Willing to help catalogue.

Clinton Roy - Does the Linux Journal magazine subscription still exists? David Seikel - No.

2.5 Packing up the gear.

(Since this debate will have a bearing on who runs for the elections, it was decided at the meeting to have it first. No one objected. It was not on the original agenda, hence it's numbering.) Mark Suter explains the recent email debate. He quotes from the exec roster file. The general issue is that some people would like to run for executive positions if it wasn't for the late night finish and the requirement for an executive member to be present all the way through. (As background - a couple of years ago the executive decided that to make sure the membership had consistent start and end times for meetings that it would become policy to start at 15:00, with the network up by 15:30, and bring down the network after midnight in order to be out the door by 01:00. This was a compromise between the wishes of some members and some executive members.)

This is the bit he quoted, cut and pasted from the file -

"Roster for equipment at Humbug meetings --- There are two tasks, Setup and Pack-up. Normally, the person who does Pack-up will do Setup at the next meeting; however, this is not a rigid requirement.

1. Setup: Bringing the gear to the meeting and making ready for a meeting. This person does not need to stay for the entire meeting.
2. Pack-up: Taking the gear at the end of a meeting. This person does not need to be present at the beginning of a meeting.

To avoid any unintentional favouritism within the Club, only members of the executive are eligible for this roster. Thus, Humbug's equipment is cared for by those elected by the members.

There are six executive members, as follows: President, Vice President, Secretary, Treasurer, Librarian and Immediate Past President

We should aim that each executive member does the Pack-up & Setup pair twice in twelve meetings."

(Please refer to the General list archives, subject "agm agenda" thread started by Clinton Roy on 2006-08-30 for further details.)

• Clinton Roy explains his position as per his emails to the list.
• David Seikel explains the current flexibility, where executive members are free to swap around this task.
• Tony Bilbrough - (Sorry, didn't catch that.) Elspeth Thorne - asks about UQ policy regarding responsibility during meetings.

  • Mark Suter - room is booked by ITS, it is their head that rolls, but they leave it up to us. Elspeth Thorne - OWH&S issues. Mark Suter - president can appoint roles.

• David Seikel - we have appointed room monitors in the past for short periods.
• Mark Suter - we have not appointed machine minders.
• Clinton Roy - straw poll - who would be non exec and want to pack up late? A few hands raised. He wants to make meetings less onerous, so that potential executive members might actually want to be executive members.
• David Seikel presents his personal view, which was also on the general list.

Lots of discussion, most of which was covered in the online debate already. (Sorry I couldn't keep up.)

• If we go with the deputised members option, members will volunteer, executive will appoint from those volunteers. If a deputy is used, the deputy selected will be announced ahead of time as part of the usual meeting announcement one week prior to the meeting. That deputy will be responsible for the end of the meeting after the last exec member leaves, packing up the equipment, and storing the equipment until an exec member can collect it.
• Clinton Roy proposes three options.
• James Iseppi adds a fourth.
• Votes:
  • Option 1 10:30 shutdown - 11:00 close. 2 votes.
  • Option 2 Deputise members for the tasks. 15 votes.
  • Option 3 Executive members declare what times they pack up. 3 votes.
  • Option 4 Retain status quo. 5 votes.

Anthony Towns moves we vote on the options, Clinton Roy seconds. Option 2 wins.

Volunteers to inform the secretary of their desire. (Volunteers for deputy and not subsequently voted into executive - Gary Curtis, Elspeth Thorne, Mark Ellem, Stephen Thorne, Tony Bilbrough. Most of the next executive volunteered anyway.)

3. Nominations and Elections

Mark Suter steps aside as president and David Seikel runs the presidential election.

• President - James Iseppi nominates Mark Suter, who accepts, Stephen Thorne seconds.
  • Clinton Roy traditionally nominates Gary Curtis, who traditionally declines.
  • Mark Suter wins unopposed.
  • Mark Suter chairs the rest of the meeting.
• Vice president - Tony Bilbrough nominates James Iseppi, who accepts, Mark Ellem seconds.
  • Clinton Roy self nominates, second Simon Ellis.
  • James Iseppi wins the vote.
• Secretary - David Seikel self nominates, Mark Suter second.
  • Rohan Smith nominates Stephen Thorne, who accepts, Tim Kent seconds.
  • Simon Ellis nominates Clinton Roy, who accepts, Gary Curtis seconds.
  • David Seikel wins the vote.
• Treasurer - Gary Curtis nominates Clinton Roy, who accepts, Russell Stuart seconds.
  • Tim Kent nominates Rohan Smith, who accepts, Stephen Thorne seconds.
  • Rohan Smith wins the vote.
• Librarian -David Seikel nominates Scott Wilson, who accepted by proxy, James Iseppi seconds.
  • Mark Suter nominates Clinton Roy, who accepts, Russell Stuart seconds.
  • Scott Wilson wins the vote.

Applause for Clinton Roy for a valiant effort and being noble in defeat.

4. General Business

Russell Stuart brings up nominating for the next available LCA, and VOLUNTEERS! Some discussion about when the next available LCA is, and how early we need to apply. Mark Suter points out that when we ran it last time, we made more profit than any other UG has. Stephen Thorne nominates Russell Stuart for organiser, who accepts. Appointed by the president.

Russell Stuart brings up major drop in membership, UQ (?) mandates software engineering students contribute to open source projects. University membership drive?

David Seikel asks Mark Suter to give details on the UQ deal. Mark Suter - The deal we arranged with UQ to pay for the network bandwidth is to do things for UQ.

1. The first is to become some sort of unix help resource for staff and students.
2. The second is to help out with the computer museum.

David Seikel - At the end of a meeting earlier in the year, he called UQ security to inform them that we had finished with the room. Security asked if some of the security personal could attend HUMBUG meetings as they where interested in unix. David Seikel said they were welcome to attend.

Gary Curtis - Members have dragged others along to grow membership organically in the past. James Iseppi - Previous large associations with universities helped in the past, should raise profile there.

Russell Stuart wants a wiki on humbug for organising stuff, or will set one up himself. Greg Black, the HUMBUG web master, was not present to comment. David Seikel to discuss this with Greg Black and Russell Stuart later.

David (Belany?) promotes blogging on http://planet.humbug.org.au/

(Russell Stuart, Elspeth Thorne, Mark Ellem, David Seikel, maybe others) Software Freedom Day, started too late, not enough time, not this year, next year get our act together early. Shopping centres too hard, we have to be there at least a week, no approaching shoppers. Elspeth Thorne - May be do what Sydney is doing. Russell Stuart - We are very welcome at the market. They would like us there weekly.

Elspeth Thorne - events organiser? Elspeth Thorne appointed by president.

David Seikel to ask Scott Wilson if he wishes to continue as talks maintainer.

Andrae Muys reports on dsig - Not much happened, maybe we should do something, let Andrae Muys know if you are keen.

David Seikel reports on csig - dead spam trap, kill it.

Meeting closed at 19:45.