[Ground-station] AMSAT "Don't Rock the Boat" rule

Tue Apr 20 17:48:26 PDT 2021

Written objection, in a paper stamped letter must be received from at least
10% of the members within 30 days of the postmark, or they will go ahead.
IMO, that's engineered to prevent any viable objection.

The address on the top of the letter is
Radio Amateur Satellite Corporation (AMSAT)
712 H Street NE, Ste 1653
Washington DC 20002

I really wonder if anyone is at that address any longer.

On Tue, Apr 20, 2021 at 5:42 PM Bruce Perens <bruce at perens.com> wrote:

> IMO you can't claim to represent US Radio Amateurs regarding satellite
> issues if you are selective about who you represent. So, if this is enacted
> we should talk with ARRL, IARU (and maybe even ITU) about their no longer
> qualifying as a national organization.
>
> ARRL can expel a member for cause (in Articles of Association, not
> Bylaws), but it requires notice and an opportunity to be heard, and I am
> not aware that in a century of history anyone has involuntarily lost their
> ARRL membership for anything but not paying dues. In addition, ARRL claims
> to represent all US Amateurs, so they have to listen to non-members.
>
>     Thanks
>
>     Bruce
>
> On Tue, Apr 20, 2021 at 5:38 PM Michelle Thompson <
> mountain.michelle at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Understood. ORI board is currently in session and I'll ask them to help
>> write something on paper and find a stamp and send it to all the addresses
>> listed.
>>
>> Here's some background. There was a bylaws committee. Ironically, I'm the
>> one that made the motion to establish it. The committee was tasked with
>> fixing the electronic voting "problem", in that the wording of the bylaws
>> was kind of not great and needed to be modernized.
>>
>> Those bylaws revisions, from that committee, were accompanied by a nice
>> report from Brennan Price (the secretary at the time) explaining the rules
>> changes. Those bylaws are not the ones that appeared for a short-notice
>> vote this past March. Those original bylaws revisions were skipped over.
>>
>> Instead, these "Don't Rock the Boat" rules, along with the 3 year
>> membership requirement to run for the board, were substituted in the week
>> prior. There was no accompanying explanation or writeup.
>>
>> There are no regular board meetings at AMSAT. They are only ad-hoc
>> meetings like this.
>>
>> Choosing members is what this is about. There's no definition of
>> "undesirable", there's no procedure here, and there's no hearing, or
>> appeal, or any of the other mechanisms that exist in every other club or
>> organization bylaws that I'm aware of. This is subjective as written.
>> There's ways to write membership removal rules.
>>
>> The "3 year minimum membership to run for the board" rule works in here
>> because once your membership is interrupted, then the clock starts over and
>> you can't run for 3 more years.
>>
>> There isn't any reason to require a 3 year membership to run for the
>> board. The vast majority of people that have run recently are life members
>> or long-serving. Honestly, I think it would help the board to have recent
>> members elected.
>>
>> I objected to these bylaws being substituted in instead of what I
>> considered to be the authentic committee work. I pointed out that without
>> standards/cause, a process, and an appeal that these rules were way too
>> easily abused.
>>
>> In order to stop this, according to Patrick Stoddard, 10% of the members
>> would have to object in writing. Without a coordinated campaign and
>> spending some money, I do not believe that enough members will clue in to
>> this in time.
>>
>> I believe they'll "review" ORI's Member Society membership as soon as it
>> comes up. It is really sad to see things like this happen, but it's not
>> surprising given the other choices leadership has made since the Reno
>> Symposium.
>>
>> We should object to these rules and be prepared to simply be eliminated
>> as a Member Society. Currently, senior leadership refuses to even list us
>> in the AMSAT Directory with the other Member Societies, has interfered with
>> presentations at AMSAT Symposium, and has interfered with our news
>> submissions to ANS Bulletin. I believe AMSAT should be holding up its end
>> of the bargain as the major advocacy organization in amateur satellite, and
>> actively helping us, supporting our work, and being fair and kind to our
>> volunteers. Most of which happen to also be AMSAT members. This bylaws
>> revision is not the right direction.
>>
>> We need to stay focused on publishing good work and helping projects in
>> our space be successful. We offer no threat or harm to AMSAT. Our work
>> directly benefits AMSAT in a wide variety of ways. In the future, things
>> may improve. In the meantime, sending a paper letter objecting to the
>> bylaws would be a positive step.
>>
>> Thank you for bringing this up, Bruce. If you have any specific advice on
>> constructive wording and instructions on exactly what the "right" address
>> is, to avoid any misdirected mail, then that might be helpful to those
>> reading.
>>
>> -Michelle W5NYV
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On Tue, Apr 20, 2021 at 4:49 PM Bruce Perens via Ground-Station
>> <ground-station at lists.openresearch.institute> wrote:
>>
>>> ORI is an AMSAT member organization, and I submit that ORI should file a
>>> written objection to the proposed AMSAT "Don't Rock the Boat" rule.
>>>
>>>
>>> Bruce Perens <bruce at perens.com>
>>> 4:44 PM (1 minute ago)
>>> to AMSAT
>>> The proposed modifications to the bylaws of AMSAT include a provision
>>> for the secretary and the board members to deny membership renewal to any
>>> member or member society. This is included in Article 1, Section 2. The new
>>> rule is:
>>>
>>> Section 2. Applications for membership or renewal as Member or Member
>>> Society shall be submitted to and in the manner prescribed by the
>>> Secretary. *In the case of any applicant whose character, reputation,
>>> or conduct might make him or her an undesirable member, the Secretary shall
>>> refer the application to the Board of Directors (the "Board") for review;
>>> in all other cases, the Secretary shall have the authority to grant
>>> membership.*
>>>
>>> Obviously, this is aimed at the folks who dared to challenge the board
>>> (and win) in a democratic election, and of course me, for daring to
>>> campaign for them. It is a fact that many non-profit boards have never
>>> learned about the fact that there *should* be contentious elections -
>>> that's what democracy is about. They just see them as a threat. So, here's
>>> a rather undemocratic rule which allows them to purge opposition, so that
>>> they will not be able to vote in the next election.
>>>
>>> Because the board doesn't want you to interfere with their addition of
>>> this rule, they have required that you register any objection to this, and
>>> other new rules, by writing a letter on paper and mailing it with a stamp.
>>> Objections you post to this list and the AMSAT BBS are useful for
>>> discussion and I encourage you to do so, but the board will not count them.
>>>
>>> --
>>> uce Perens - Board Partner, OSS Capital LLC Venture Capital
>>>
>>
>
> --
> Bruce Perens - CEO at stealth startup. I'll tell you what it is eventually
> :-)
>

-- 
Bruce Perens - CEO at stealth startup. I'll tell you what it is eventually
:-)
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