[Vanhackspace] Incorporation questions

[dan anderson]

Make sure the wording is clear that consensus or supermajority is by
members present at the time of the vote, and that quorum (the minimum
percentage of people who could vote who must be present for a vote to
count) is well-defined. I've seen both of those cause havoc before
(albeit not in the context of incorporation).

-D

2009/2/17 Jeff Davis <jeff at textsfornothing.com>:
> I'm working on the incorporation paperwork, and I've got a few questions
> that we need to answer.
>
> Bylaws
> ------
>
> (1) Do we want to have officers (president, vice president, etc.)?  My
> preference is to have a board with no defined officers.  AFAICT there's
> nothing in the Society Act that prevents this.
>
> (2) Do we want to allow corporations to be members?  I think we should
> restrict it to individuals.
>
> (3) Members lose their membership when they haven't been in good
> standing for a number of months.  How many months?  The standard bylaws
> default to 12 months, but they also assume annual rather than monthly
> membership fees.  I think something shorter, like 6 or even 3 months, is
> more appropriate for us.
>
> (4) We operate by consensus.  How do we want to write this into our
> bylaws?  One option is to specify that decisions are reached by
> "consensus or an 80% supermajority," implying that we try to reach a
> consensus first, but failing that, we resort to a vote with a high
> threshold.  (That's what SFPIRG does.)  Or we can specify that decisions
> require the unanimous consent of everyone who votes.  Or we can come up
> with something else.
>
>
> Constitution
> ------------
>
> We also need a constitution that defines our name and purpose.  Here's
> what I've got for our purpose, based on what's on the wiki:
>
> The purposes of the society are:
>    - to provide a physical space where hackers, computer geeks,
> engineers, circuit benders, crafters, and other creative types can
> gather to share ideas, knowledge, equipment, and opinions in a friendly
> and collaborative atmosphere.
>    - to provide related services and tools for fostering playful
> cleverness, as determined by the membership.
>
> Thoughts?
>
>
> Directors
> ---------
>
> Finally, turns out we need five directors after all.  Four folks have
> volunteered already (Joe, David C, Ryan, and me).  If you're interested
> in being the fifth, let me know.
>
> Jeff
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