Difference between revisions of "Talk:Draft of proposed By-Laws"

Revision as of 23:17, 8 June 2009

Drop any references to claiming any part of the Moon and you should be left alone long enough to get something done. U.S. and signatory nations to the '67 UN 'Outer Space Treaty' cannot subborn an act that is clearly in violation of the treaty provisons banning private appropriation of the Moon 'or any part thereof'. They will move to shut you down if you actually try to launch or attempt to actually stake a claim. You do NOT want a legal war over this as you will lose. . .AFTER you have racked up so much debt the orgnaization would have to fold.

^^^^^ Not sure what this is in reference to on preceding age ^^^^^

A1 S1 - perhaps the BOD should approve (en mass) the memberships acceptance of new members? checks and balances.

A1 S2 perhaps Founding member would be better pronounced Founder member. Allows us to run around as founders instead of f***ing members. Is there any legal ramifications of such a title change? This would parallel the naming of Patron (patronising) Explorer (exploring), Settler (settling), and Student (studending/studing :) Members.

A1S3 the establishing of procedures needs to be voted on, not just published by the membership committee. I assume the procedure for passing resolutions and other issues of governance will be covered in a later article.

A1S4 Should all membership dues be for the same period with all membership renewing on the same date ? This would allow for a unified "pay - your dues and vote on this years plan' style operation. It also gives an excellent opportunity to publish an annual report and financial statement. Members could join with a partial payment for the remaining annual membership.

A1S5 this one seems a little odd. I think it is the RESPONSIBILITY for the BOD to solicit input and support form individual members, not really an option, but don't really know if it goes in this article. The voting and record keeping seems to go in this article, possibly with it's own section ???

GES 5/13/09

No one else is commenting ???

On AIV should some provisions be made for telecommuting (tele-attending ?) the general or Directors meetings ?

ges 5/20/09

DRAFT OF BY-LAWS

I finished the Draft of Articles IV, V, and VI, for review and comment; Rick

in reverse order - I think that the Tele-commuting issue has been addressed by the provision for Members or the BOD to take actions by 'counterpart' signature/date documents; good question, please see Sec. 3, Art. VI, added today.

As to GES comment about 'Founders' - I think what we are do-'ING' now, presently, is Found-'ING'; hence, upon adoption of By-Laws and completion of the First and Organizational Meeting - we - the Founding Members - will slip quietly into the past tense, as the 'Founders' for historical context; but we would carry forward as General Members.

I agree, the BOD, as initial Membership Committee, should approve all of the Founding Members as the initial General Members, by a Resolution at the 1st & Organizational Meeting; and should then develop an Application Form and process for review and approval of subsequent Member prospects, to be accepted by Resolutions, at future BOD meetings. - could use some help on form and process, anyone?

Dues - there is a blank line, to be filled in by us - the Founders, about an amount for annual dues- by each of us, then by new Members added later. What are we willing and able to pay/donate, now, to get OpenLuna started? I put a $50 charge on my credit card, to pay the incorporation fee to the Colorado Secretary of State; I would deem that $50 as my initial dues, but, for what period of time? Others of you have 'fronted' your own funds for the benefit of OpenLuna, in various ways; I did see a receipt for the cost of printing, for OpenLuna business cards, 'fronted' by someone. If I am going to set up the initial set of books for OpenLuna, I will want receipts (copies) for expenditures each or any of you have made, 'fbo' (for benefit of) the entity. If someone has made large expenditures, we should treat that total amount, minus $50 [or whatever amount we designate] for 1st year/initial dues, as an Account Payable, by OpenLuna, to the individual Member; it would be nice to have the documents/copies, in support of these transactions 'out on the table' so we can discuss, decide and Act, by Resolutions at our 1st & Org. Mtg. - this month!!! As you will note in the finished 'Draft' of our By-Laws, I designated our fiscal year as July 1 to June 30; therefore, we should review, final 'fixes' as needed, agree to adopt By-Laws, and conduct our 1st & Org. Meeting - NOW - before end of June; it will serve as our 1st Annual Meeting; we would run a long year, a few days (June 2009) to end of our first full fiscal year, June 30, 2010; hence, our next annual meeting of Members, and BOD would be scheduled next June or July.

  From that, should my $50, as dues, carry me to next June, or renewal as of July 1, 2010?  The same question would apply to each of you who put money into/'fbo' OpenLuna over the past year or so.
  Please send me your receipts/copies, with a brief explanation, so we can resolve these matters; Paul will call to schedule a teleconference Meeting, for our 1st & Org. Meeting, soon.  Rick

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A-V One thing that is important to Paul and I is the financial statement. We have seen other organizations misappropriate funds, or at least use funds in ways not in the intent of the original donation. I think we discussed a 'open books' policy that would explicitly state all incomes and expenses with a tag describing intent and disposition. At the time we talked about this being on the website. the whole 'open' thing. Should we add to Article V a part about open books?

GES 6/4/09

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I agree with Gary here. I think an enumeration of the open financial statement would be good. However I am prepared to vote "Yes" in the current form, saving the operational specifics for the first amendments to the bylaws.

J. Harris 6/8/09

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Hello :)

I have skimmed the by-laws and failed to find anything that seemed obviously in-appropriate. Reading the comments here, I agree with the open-book financial thing. I might suggest specifying where funds can be invested if ever we start raking in more than we dish out, for example, requiring investments to always be in guaranteed payback form, ie, risk free. Could save huge head-aches down the road, as you hear about financial shenanigans once a week these days.

Something I found quite interesting was the stipulation that general members must be 18 or more years old. I guess that is because they have to pay to become general members, and under that age they can't be trusted to really know whether they want to invest or not, and we don't want to be branded as coercing money out of them. The other question would be: Can a founding member be a student member, and therefore not pay any dues while they remain a student?

Something else I might suggest is specifying what happens to funds contributed by members beyond the standard membership fee. Is there any kind of system of recognition in place? Will somebody who contributes a thousand dollars to the cause be recognized more than another who contributes a thousand dollars worth of equipment, or a thousand dollars worth of time and effort? (In my opinion, we will most want to thank those who contribute time and effort).

A final thing I found interesting is that new members have to request membership, and their membership has to then be voted on at either a scheduled or special meeting for the purpose. Wow. You're really taking this membership thing seriously! The million dollar question: What would make the membership committee refuse a new member? Is this organization going elite, or is that sentence in there just to prevent criminals becoming members?

anyway, my two cents worth,

cheers,

-Mike :) 6/8/09