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

[Michelle Thompson]

We do have members. Associate Memberships are available for the asking.

Voting members are limited to the Board of Directors.

ORI is not a membership society. This is very much on purpose.

We are set up as a research institute. ORI decided not to sell memberships
in order not to compete with membership societies like AMSAT.

We are an AMSAT Member Society, and have been quite active here.

-Michelle W5NYV




On Tue, Apr 20, 2021 at 7:28 PM Joseph Armbruster <
josepharmbruster at gmail.com> wrote:

> 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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