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

Tue Apr 20 19:27:57 PDT 2021

Bruce,

Speaking of being selective about who you represent... ORI represents
noone, that's a fact, it has no members:

ref: BYLAWS
<https://www.openresearch.institute/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/BYLAWS.doc>
quote "Article II, Membership:Membership shall consist of the Board of
Directors."

Just saying, it's unfortunate,
Joseph Armbruster
KJ4JIO

On Tue, Apr 20, 2021 at 8:43 PM Bruce Perens via Ground-Station
<ground-station at lists.openresearch.institute> 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
> :-)
>
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