First of all, I'd like to make a proposal for the GA, something I basically already mentioned in the past: Should we get an employee/intern under german law who will be paid 400,- a month (this is a somewhat privileged employment scenario which cost us exactly 500,-/month). This employee will have a contract for one month. If his/her work looks promising, after one month the contract will be renewed for another three months. If it works out fine we might extend it for 6 months, 12 months or even offer a full employment position or get another employee... and so on. Goal: Definitely to scale upwards during the next 12-24 months. By the fundraising they generate, our employee(s) should pay themselves. If absolutely do not have any money for that now, let us try to get an unpaid intern for 2-3 months with the goal of later upgrading him to a 400,- position. Our new employee shall have the following responsibilities, ordered by priority: a) Keeping in order and in mind all our obligations, appointments and deadlines and reminding activists of all these things. Theoretically, this can done by a database, but in practise it is better to have an ass you can kick when a deadline is forgotten. In other words we need somebody to be *responsible* and it is much better if that person is a paid one and *not* a volunteer - that makes asskicking a lot easier. This is our Nr. 1 priority so that some things that happened in the past (forgotten deadlines etc) never can happen again. It could also improve our overall effectiveness a lot, i.e. avoid last minute efforts and similar burn-out factors. b) Fundraising is the next priority. It should definitely be based first of all on our members. Our employee should write a newsletter at least once every month, even better (if its concise) every week. If it is written fine, this is *not* spam, it will explain our activities to our supporters and remind them (bank account number should always bee in the .sig) how important even a little financial support is. We had thousands of members/supporters/sympathisants in the past - that's where our money came from monthly, so we just cannot afford to abandon them. c) Press relations go hand in hand with the newsletter effort. Putting basically the same content in another package for journalists shouldn't be that much work, answering the phone and collecting some contacts neither. d) Dreaming of big players sponsoring us with big bucks is nice, but a long-time effort. So our employee should definitely start immediately sending out letters and bugging people with requests for funding, but having any outcome will take months, having significant outcome before the next 12 months doesn't seem to realistic to me. Who should get such a job? I think it is only fair that such a job should be first of all offered to some FFII member we know and trust allready. If that doesn't work, Universities produce a bunch of graduates in Media- and Communication Sciences, Publicistics and even Economics who are willing to kill even for unpaid internships. And, believe it or not, some of them are even bright and better yet, idealistic. They might not now that much about Free Software, Patents or Brussels, but that we will teach them. In 12-24 months we could scale up to 2-3 employees (depending on if they're full or EUR 400,- jobs). One press speaker and one general secretary and we might even be able to establish a serious office in Bxl. If that proposal is rejected, I still would propose to put out a monthly newsletter as described above. (So actually those are two proposals.) OK, that was that. And here are some considerations on the amendments to our statute. I would urge you talk about these things with Jürgen Siepmann in more Detail, as he is a.)a german lawyer b.)and definitely knows more about german association law than I do. (I'm aware that Hartmut has already contacted him, this is mainly to make sure that we don't forget anything we should be discussing with him.) Amendment 2, 6.2: Active members have the active and passive election right in the general assembly. They have to are expected to participate in all votings, to hand in justified positions before the voting and moreover to participate publicly (according to ability) as well as and to shoulder a certain responsibility area within the association. If for a good reason they violate one of these burdens then they lose voting rights and become contributing members. Normally each member decides for him/herself whether he/she fulfills these requirements. But the general assembly also can decide on person-independent judgment criteria. -> The last two sentences create a situation which in some scenarios might become far to blurry for my tastes. It should be clearly stated, that under certain circumstances (which?) the GA has the right to downgrade/kick out members. Or maybe only kicking them out under extreme circumstances whereas the distinction between active and contributing is fully up to the member (not so lgical since you become an active member only by GA decision - or should that be confirmation). Anyway, downgrading somebody might be something that occasionally involves controversy, so having somewhat clearer rules and procedure seems to be a necessary precaution. On the other hand, it is essential that the board should has a right to handle critical situations on their own in as fast a way as possible, subject to later confirmation of the GA (example: suspending a member, effective immediately, 7.7). So maybe the last sentence of 6.2 can be entirely left out. Amendment 4, 9.2 (country where GA may be held): -> Please *do* ask Jürgen if that's OK. I have doubts, but I'm not sure and since you should talk to him anyway you might also save me the time of having to look it up. Amendment 5 (GA Proposals; there's a 9.2, too, is there something wrong?): The general assembly only decides on propositions whose (at most 10 kb long) full text was at least for one month in advance proposed to all members. All members have the right to propose propositions and to ask 1-3 active members of their choice for an extensively justified position. The positions are to be distributed at least two weeks in advance on the public email distribution list of the association. -> What if the position contains another proposal? Logically, this will be often the case, nut what if such a position is abused to come forward with another proposal 2 weeks before the GA instead of a month? Maybe not that important, but still a bit unclear. Amendment 7: Donors are individuals or organisations who have made financial contributions to the association, excluding membership fees. Donors may indicate the areas and activities that they wish to fund, but the board directs funds towards specific activities, at its sole discretion. The board is expected to provide donors with financial reports of the association and its activities. -> I'm not entirely sure how we want to handle the issue of national "Sub-FFIIs", especially regarding funding, i.e. do we want one in any country and do we want some of their money by definition, if yes, how much, should national supporters give money to the respective Sub-FFII or to the "Main-FFII"? And so on. But: I am aware of some strange national tax regulations which make donations difficult bit allow bypassing by special (i.e. higher) membership fees. So, is there a reason why we absolutely need something like "financial contributions to the association, excluding membership fees"? Amendment 8: -> isn't the whole affiliation process a bit too bureaucratic? Couldn't this be done a lot easier through (interims) decisions by the board, subject to confirmation by the GA? Oh, and one last thing: Theoretically, I could take over some official responsibility (i.e. board membership), but I won't be able to do a lot of serious work before January 07. Since I think that we do not have much time to loose, it might be much better to have somebody who can throw him or herself in fully and immediately. But anyway, if there isn't anybody else, I'm available (subject to the mentioned limitation).
