[TASK] Building an OSCEdays Organisation

Lars2i · October 14, 2015, 10:16am

UPDATE: Yesterday on February 16 2016 the founding meeting happened in Berlin.

##Introduction

In the meeting from September 24-27 in Berlin an open group of people decided to build a legal body for the Open Source Circular Economy Days. This will enable future events and also other work and projects to accelerate the invention and building of an Open Source Circular Economy.

The goal is to create an organisation that is as open, transparent and inclusive as possible and has enabling impact.

In the meeting we decided to found this organisation in Germany and go for the legal structure of a “Verein” (=association). Here are the current steps and tasks:

##1. Developing Statutes
Every “Verein” needs statutes. Lars is put in charge to facilitate the development process and translate everything back and forth between english and german. We are happy about any contributions to the process. Especially with legal skills. The discussions about the content happens here in the open:

###Full Statutes
The full statues (in german) are developed here.

###Guidelines
Part of the statutes are clear guidelines what is the organisation for and what not. What do we want to do? Open development happens here.

###Circular Economy Definition
For Open Source a clear definition exist. But for Circular Economy a real good one is missing. As the statutes need to define a bit more what we mean with “Circular Economy”, we need our own definition. Here is the topic for this development process.

###An Internal Democratic Structure
What executive bodies should the association have and how is power devided between them. Here is the topic for that.

###A Voting Procedure
How to make the association as flexible as possible and truly community governed at the same time? How to make decisions? Here is the topic for that.

###Members Fee
Members Fee discussion

##2. Founding the Association
When clear statutes are developed there will be an initial members meeting to found the organisation. This meeting can have online elements as well. Infos about the meeting will be published once progress was made with the statutes.

Are you interested in being a cofounder? Lets us know: @unteem @TechnicalNature @Lars2i

Lars2i · October 14, 2015, 11:25am

Lars2i · October 20, 2015, 6:47pm

Update October 20: Full Statutes Version 0.1 (in german) is published

transitionmica · October 20, 2015, 7:10pm

I would strongly advise to leave out some of the details from the statutes. It is a lengthy and very often unnerving and expensive process, always including the paid help of a notary and most likely a lawyer, to achieve the status ‘gemeinnütziger Verein’ in Germany (non-profit association for the common good - meaning that people can deduct their donations from their tax-liabilities and are more likely to give). Anything that exceeds the usual is eyed with suspicion by the authorities (Finanzamt). Anything that is still work in progress such as the definition of OSCE should by all means not be included in the ‘Satzung’ (satutes) as they are hard to ever change again, even single words. The usual way to deal with it is to refer to a seperate document which can then be amended and changed without having to undergo the authorties’s scrutiny.

transitionmica · October 20, 2015, 7:11pm

I’m interested to be a co-founder, please let me know when you meet (it’s not the first association I founded and I know a specialised lawyer, that might help)

Lars2i · November 17, 2015, 7:24pm

Update: Call for Stewards for the Board of Stewards

Update: How to vote the first board of stewards?

Lars2i · January 29, 2016, 3:07pm

UPDATE: I had a phone call with the lady from the Finanzamt and we made together two more small changes to our statutes. Now we are good to go. I will prepare all necessary things in the coming days in if everything works well we will have a Verein in 3 weeks

@cameralibre @Silvia @Jaime @Gien @TechnicalNature @sharmarval @unteem @djcoco

Lars2i · February 17, 2016, 6:59pm

UPDATE: Yesterday on February 16 2016 the founding meeting happened in Berlin.

Lars2i · March 20, 2016, 12:29pm

We got feedback from the court … and it is negative. They demand changes in our statutes. And this means that the whole process will take much longer :-((((( … Worst case scenario we have to do the founding meeting again. Sxxx!

And it is my mistake. I missed to copy the passages from the Wikimedia Satzung (§5 (3) & (3a)).

Jaime · March 23, 2016, 9:48am

Thanks for letting us know @Lars2i. Really appreciate that you are taking the effort to put this all together.

Let me/us know if there is anything we can help you with.

Lars2i · March 28, 2016, 8:57am

We discuss this in the BoST meeting on March 28.

Here is the introduction about the problem and options. See minutes of the call to find out about the outcome:

"
##3 Founding delayed: What to do? First members gathering vs. new founding meeting.

As written here in a comment we got feedback from the court. They demand that we add something to our statutes. I made a mistake and not copy to the statutes how members can leave the association m( - very sorry for that. They demand that we have a members gathering to make the change. We have two options now.

###OPTION A. Members Gathering
Problems with this:

according to our statutes this is a very long process. 8 weeks from announcement to actual decisions plus 6 weeks till all the decisions are legally fix.
It would take a lot of energy to set up the complex online voting process / it would overlap in time and compete in attention with the event.
Initially was planned to have the first gathering after the event - as a way to keep the community involved and invent the whole thing.

###OPTION B. We found again.
We just do a new founding meeting. This we can do immediately. Because we are not bound to the 8 week rule.

Problem is, it would cost us ca 150 Euro extra. (yes, and a new founding meeting, but this is not too complicated.)

###What to do?
@djcoco suggested to go with the members gathering. Because we are already half through the door. The members thing was the only change the court demanded. And maybe next time, when we found again, they find something new . . .

They gave us 3 months to do the change. Which is impossible because 8 weeks plus 6 weeks - is already 3 months . . .

What do you think? I’d suggest I call the court and ask if they are ok with giving us 6/7 months to do the change. Then we can still have it after the event and as a way to involve the community. But then the first inline process would already include something strange, complex and unappealing like a small change to the statutes . . . s****
"

###OUTCOME
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
We discussed this briefly and after a short discussion we decided to go with Option B - do a new founding meeting. @cameralibre,@technicalnature, @Melanie_Tan, @JuliaP voted or Option B. @Gien @Lars2i no vote.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Lars2i · May 24, 2016, 6:46pm

Ah, never told the non german speakers what bit is missing in the statutes.

It is the bit how members can Sing Out of the association, immediately. (They can sign out by not paying the members fee, but this would happen in spring of the next year, automatically).

This bit is so small, that everyone who checked the statutes (6 pairs of eyes with experience) missed that it is missing. But of course, it is understandable, that it should be there.

I added it to provide info for this discussion

Lars2i · July 28, 2017, 2:39pm

###Update July 2017

During this discussion about a future strategic framework and in the Board Of Stewardship Calls in Summer 2017 we started to discuss a 2nd attempt with founding an organization.

Here is a topic inviting @BoST to review the old structure: