[H-ANNOUNCE] Motions on Notice

[Raymond Smith]

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The executive comittee wishes to tell the membership in
advance of several motions that it intends to put at the 
coming AGM. Please note that this email does *not* move
any of thes motions: that will be done at the AGM.

  Membership Fees
  ---------------
This is a consitutional change. The motion to be put is:

  That section 6a) of the constitution be amended to read:

     "The membership fee is $20.00 for one year or part thereof,
      and falls due the 31st day of August or the next AGM 
      whichever is the latest."

Effect: If passed, this motion will raise membership fees by 
five dollars and remove the current tiered membership structure.

Explanation: HUMBUG membership fees have remained constant since
1995. This amendment to the constitution will simplify fee
collection and provide a modest increase to HUMBUG's income.
This income is necessary for HUMBUG to be in a position to
meet expenses such as replacing hardware and paying for meeting
venues.

  Changes to Membership Fees
  --------------------------

This constitutional amendment was proposed by Robert Brockway.
The motion to be put is:

  That section 6b) of the constitution be amended to read:

     "Membership fee changes shall be made by way of a majority
      vote at an SGM."
     
Effect: membership fees increases would need to be approved
by a majority vote of the members present at an SGM.

Explanation: Section 6b unduly restricts the ability of HUMBUG
to change membership fees. Requiring an SGM ensures that
members are consulted before fee changes. 

  Payment of traffic charges for Caliburn
  ---------------------------------------

The motion to be put is:

  That to remove any conflict of interest, or perceived 
  conflict of interest, the membership of the club resolve that
  the partnership of Bruce Campbell, Raymond Smith, and
  Mark Suter (ABN 77 442 238 916) be compensated at cost for
  traffic charges incurred by HUMBUG equipment hosted by them
  on presentation of a valid Tax Invoice. 

Effect: HUMBUG would pay for incoming traffic to caliburn.humbug.org.au 
for web, mailing lists and aliases at the rate UQ charges (presently
0.14 cents / megabyte).

Reasoning: 

In the past, caliburn's traffic was absorbed by the partnership
of Bruce Campbell, Raymond Smith, and Mark Suter ('the Partnership').
However, recent changes to the partnership's service providor and
sharp traffic peaks to caliburn have made it uneconomical for the 
partnership to continue absorbing these costs on an ongoing basis. 

While the executive has the power to approve HUMBUG expenditure
there is a clear conflict of interest between the current President
(Mark Suter) and Secretary (Raymond Smith) who are members of the
Partnership. It was therefore felt appropriate to turn the matter 
over to a public vote of the membership of the club.

The Partnership has indicated that it may from time to time waive
part or all of any traffic charges payable by HUMBUG. At the time
of this email it is expected that the partnership will waive the
first $50.00 of any traffic charge in a single month.

To provide some concrete figures, the metered traffic from Jan 03:

	Month	Traffic	Cost	Charge with waiver
	Jan	 239.60	$ 33.54	$  0.00
	Feb	 242.74 $ 33.98 $  0.00
	Mar	 248.27 $ 34.76 $  0.00
	Apr	 256.15 $ 35.86 $  0.00
	May	 281.19	$ 39.37 $  0.00
	Jun	 360.31 $ 50.44 $  0.44
	Jul	 350.82 $ 49.11 $  0.00
	Aug	1198.50 $167.79 $117.79
	Sep	1468.10 $205.53 $155.53

The high traffic charges for August and September are believed 
to be due in part to attempted DoS attacks against caliburn.
The partnership expects that caliburn's usual traffic usage will
be more in line with the months of Jan - Jul.

The Partnership has also indicated that it intends to continue
to absorb the rackspace rental cost of hosting caliburn. This 
is currently $264.00 per year.

  Conclusion
  ----------

The current club consitution may be found at 
'http://www.humbug.org.au/constitution.html'.

If you intend to put a motion at the meeting and wish for it to
be announced beforehand, please email secretary at humbug.org.au. Your
motion will be emailed to the announce at the earliest opportunity.

Proxies may direct the proxy to vote on these or any other motions.
Where proxies include specific instructions, these will be noted in
the minutes of the meeting.

Regards,

Raymond Smith                                    
Secretary of HUMBUG 2002/2003              mailto:secretary at humbug.org.au
Home Unix Machine - Brisbane User Group    http://www.humbug.org.au/

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