[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]
IMPORTANT: Call for Agenda items, LLG annual meeting, important announcement
This is a call for agenda items that people would like to have discussed at
the annual meeting of the Logical Language Group. Please submit things to
me, and I will incorporate them in a formal meeting notice to be snail
mailed in a few weeks as noted below. Be as specific as possible, and if
you want to see the Bylaws amended in some way, I need the exact wording
that you would like to see approved.
ALSO, if you are NOT a voting member of the LLG, and feel that you are
interested enough in organizational matters that you would like to be, and
that you can fulfill the responsibilities of members under the Bylaws (they
are on www.lojban.org), please let me know, and you will be considered for
voting membership during the meeting.
There is no obligation for a voting member to speak Lojban (yet) - there
was a motion last year that we evolve towards holding the meetings in
Lojban rather than English, and it is intended that we attempt to run this
year's meeting with bilingual translation available. Xod is responsible
for setting that up at this point, if people want to volunteer to help with
translation.
Here is the information on the meeting. See also the last couple of
paragraphs of this message which contain an important announcement in the
context of the meeting call.
The following motion was passed by the Board last November:
4A. I move that the annual meeting be called for Sunday June 15, 2003 at
6PM EDT, to be held online using IRC or some similar means to more
effectively include non-US Lojbanists. Formal notice of this meeting will
be snail-mailed to all members before May 15, 2003, including a proposed
agenda and any bylaw amendments to be considered at the meeting. This
meeting may be continued over multiple sessions if needed, but if it has
not concluded before July 15, 2003, then it will be adjourned until
Saturday, July 26, 2003 at 2PM EDT, to be conducted in person at LogFest.
Thus for the first time, the LLG Annual meeting will be held on line, and
it will be held BEFORE LogFest, if possible. To maximally comply with the
Bylaws in this untried effort to get more of the membership participating
directly in the meeting, we have to send out official notice in a few
weeks, which has to include the specific wording of any proposed Bylaw
amendments to be considered, and as specific as possible details of any
agenda items to be considered at the meeting.
The parameters of the meeting have changed slightly since November. The
following is a brief list of the annual meeting agenda as included in the
Bylaws (note that the bylaw version on lojban.org is incorrect and is
missing item (6))
(1) roll call;
(2) proof of notice of meeting or waiver of notice;
(3) reading of Minutes of preceding meeting;
(4) reports of Officers;
(5) reports of committees;
(6) proposal and approval of new members, who shall assume membership
immediately if present at the meeting, or at the end of the meeting if
not present.
(7) election of Directors, if necessary;
(8) unfinished business;
(9) new business.
There is virtually no restriction on what may be discussed under new
business, but bylaws amendments are severely constrained. We want to
identify as many issues as possible so that people can give instructions in
their proxies for any portions of the meeting that they cannot
attend. Please let me know what you want to discuss.
I am planning that the meeting be conducted by email up until agenda item
5, because other than calling the roll and approving the minutes of the
prior meeting, that portion of the meeting is not interactive and thus does
not require timely interactions. The meeting will be conducted on the
LLG-members list with information copies of all reports posted to Lojban
List for the benefit of interested Lojbanists who are not voting members.
(An alternative for either this portion or the IRC portion of the meeting,
may be to use the PHBBB forum on lojban.org which has been set up for the
byfy. But this may require setup work from Robin that he has no time for
per his posting of a couple days ago. Any decision on this will be likely
made before the formal meeting announcement.)
After agenda item 5, I intend that the meeting will adjourn and reconvene
on one or more IRC channels, so that debate and voting can take place
interactively. The date and time of that reconvening has not yet been
decided yet; whether the decision needs to be made before the meeting will
be decided by John Cowan as parliamentarian. We intend that people have
plenty of warning, and that the time will be chosen to be as fair as
possible to people spread over half the globe. We will ask that people
provide proxies covering specific issues (but wait until the formal meeting
announcement next month) so that they get a vote and the meeting can be
conducted even if the time isn't suitable for them.
In the last few years, I have turned over the chair of the meeting to John
Cowan after the initial stuff, since he is a knowledgeable parliamentarian
and runs a more orderly meeting than I do. As Vice President of LLG, he
also serves in my stead when I am absent, and assumes my responsibilities
as President when I cannot. The logical time for this turnover is after
the reports, which also corresponds to the reconvening just described.
IMPORTANT:
This year will be somewhat different with regard to turning over the
chair. It is my intention to resign as President and Director of LLG after
the conclusion of the email portion of the meeting, in which case John
Cowan will assume the chair automatically for resumption of the meeting in
an interactive forum. I am not planning to run for reelection to the Board
of Directors of LLG, though I plan to continue in a less
time-and-responsibility-intensive leadership role in the Lojban community,
and will continue to serve on the byfy. At this point, I am planning as if
John Cowan will be the next President for transition purposes, but the
actual election of a new President will be made by the Board of Directors
elected at the annual meeting, after that meeting is over, and I will not
be on the Board that makes that election.
Nora LeChevalier is planning to resign as Secretary/Treasurer of LLG and
Board member at approximately the same time (though possibly before the
meeting starts), and as Robin Powell mentioned in his announcement, we are
already starting a transition on the assumption that Robin will be elected
as the new Secretary/Treasurer in June or July, though again this will be
up to the Board. Some assumption as to who the next Secretary will be is
necessary, because in this first transition of power, there is an enormous
amount of information and records and CLL inventory and responsibility to
be transferred and no precedents have been set; in the LLG, the
Secretary/Treasurer has more actual power than the President, handling all
correspondence, monies, and the important order-fulfillment function.
Shawn Lasseter is also not planning to run for reelection to the Board of
Directors. There will thus be at least 3 potential openings for new people
to serve on the Board (the Bylaws require the Board to have between 4 and 7
members, and we have 7 right now). If you are a consistently active
Lojbanist who can commit to the level of effort needed to serve on the
Board, you may wish to consider seeking election. Nora and my decision to
not seek reelection to office or to the Board is intended to encourage a
new wave of leaders to take over, a group more oriented towards the
directions that LLG has been taking as an organization. Many new people
have become active, and Nora and I haven't had the time to stay in touch
with the net-based wave of change that has been sweeping through the
community; furthermore, in the last couple of years, even the functions of
our offices within LLG have been only intermittently fulfilled, and we
cannot in responsibility commit to continuing them.
This orderly transition of power will also serve to put Lojban up with
Esperanto among the few artificial languages wherein the founder turned
over his power and authority in the organization during his lifetime. This
should bode well for Lojban's future.
Bob LeChevalier
--
lojbab lojbab@lojban.org
Bob LeChevalier, President, The Logical Language Group, Inc.
2904 Beau Lane, Fairfax VA 22031-1303 USA 703-385-0273
Artificial language Loglan/Lojban: http://www.lojban.org