next wednesday's meeting?

[richard at aoi.ultranet.com (Richard Royston)]

I shan't be able to come.

I went to the schmooze at Cybersmith's.  Internet.org has a structure about
which they are still a bit coy, in my opinion, but I don't see that as
necessarily an insuperable obstacle to our joining.

As I understand it, they have a Board of Directors, who are currently self-
appointed (that's the only way to get anything started cf: Constitutional
Convention of the United States, Philadelphia, 1789).  In the future they
will all be elected by the Board of Management.  The Board of Management is
partly composed (the majority, I think) of representatives from the
constituent groups (exactly one from each group), and also includes persons
appointed by the Board of Management itself (i.e co-opted), and possibly of
persons appointed by the Board of Directors (I'm not certain about this
last).

I'm not sure if there are any term limits, or what they are.

Internet.org is a Trade Association, so it's tax free, and dues can be taken
as a business expense, but cannot be taken as charitable donations.  The
reporting requirements and restrictions are less onerous for Trade
Associations than for Charities.

All funds must be physically under Internet.org's control (i.e. in its bank
account), but they propose to keep track of distinct sub-accounts for each
member group.  Similarly, all property will legally be vested in the central
organization, but it will be physically controlled by the group that buys it,
except for the small number of items that the Board of Management decides it
would be good to buy to share the use of among all (or at least, several of)
the groups.

Secession: in the event of a group deciding that the organization is not for
it, and leaving, they would like to give to the group any property (and
funds?) that it obtained for its own use, but the legalities of that need
research, and they're looking into them.

The idea is that the Board of Management will run the organization, and the
Board of Directors will ratify its actions, but it is the latter who will be
legally responsible for the organization's actions.  This seems a bit strange
to me, and could be self-contradictory.  Are the purviews of the two boards
distinguished and spelled out in any specific fashion, or is this just an
earnest hope and intent?  I don't know, and noone but me seemed to want to
pursue these aspects of it.

Were our hosts the Board of Directors, or the Board of Management? I don't
know.

The focus of the founders appears to be on the uses of Internet technology,
rather than its development.  We're somewhere in the middle, but I feel,
speaking for myself, closer to business than academia, so based on what I
know now I'd be reasonably comfortable to join it, particularly if I
understood how it was really going to be run.

I'd not, myself, met any of the directors before, except Gerry, and they all
struck me as sensible and nice people, which is always a very big positive
factor.

One question, which only occurred to me afterwards, is: could our group
affiliate with any other groups as well, if it wanted to?  Would we even want
to?

The idea of having someone take care of the legalities, insurance,
book-keeping, etc for $150/year seems like a deal that it would be
hard to match!

See you all in two weeks I hope

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Richard J. Royston                             AOI International Division
richard at aoi.ultranet.com                       Triple I Corporation
(508) 937-5400 x218 voice                      847 Rogers Street #1-LRC
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