Re: Linux Australia as It Stands

re: reimbursing Board Members

I recently sat through some Board Governance training for NSW
non-Government NFP schools, and my understanding there is that Board
Members can only be reimbursed for actual costs incurred carrying out their
duties as a Board Member. They can not, and it is illegal to do so, be paid
for the 'time' as a Board Member.

Now, of course, LA is _not_ a school - however, I expect that the rules of
Board Governance of pretty we any NFP will be quite similar - e.g. the
rules are much 'the same' for Board Members of SuperFunds (from the person
delivering the above training who was previously a member of a SuperFund).

While the suggestion that Board Members should be 'paid' in some way is a
noble one, it may also be fraught with legal difficulties.

.h

On 12 December 2016 at 17:12, Andrew Bartlett <[email protected]> wrote:

> On Mon, 2016-12-12 at 16:20 +1100, Kathy Reid wrote:
> >
> > On 12/12/16 16:00, Hugh Blemings wrote:
> > >
> > > Hi David, All,
> > >
> > > >
> > > > Has it outgrown its grassroots and does it need a paid
> > > > secretariat?
> > > > Note that “need” does not invite a discussion about “being able
> > > > to
> > > > pay for”…
> > >
> > > I'll defer to Kathy as she may wish to elaborate, but devolving
> > > some
> > > more administrative functions of the organisation has been
> > > discussed
> > > and is something she explicitly posits in her Candidacy statement.
> > >
> > > If as I hope we will, we as a community decide to grow LA then this
> > > sort of offload seems eminently reasonable to me :)
> > >
> > > Cheers,
> > > Hugh
> >
> > Thanks for starting the discussion David, I think it's a good one to
> > have.
> >
> > I think there are two different questions here;
> > 1 - should LA offload / outsource work to paid people
> > 2 - should the Council be paid for the work they do
> >
> > The implications of both are different.
> >
> > I strongly advocate paying professionals / organisations / companies
> > to
> > do $things that we don't have the capacity or capability (viz.
> > CiviCRM)
> > to do internally, and where doing $thing is a priority for Linux
> > Australia. This should be coupled with due process such as clear
> > specifications / statements of work, a review process for proposals
> > etc.
> >
> > I'm on the fence re: Council being paid for the work they (we?) do,
> > and
> > I'll note the obvious conflict of interest I have in commenting on
> > this
> > as a current Council member who's nominated to stand next year.
>
> As an interested member but not one who is very involved, I have to say
> this lines up with my gut feeling.  I'm quite comfortable for LA paying
> for services (hosting, X as a service, accounting, auditing, etc).
>
> I'm less comfortable with paying for employees or pseudo-employees,
> because even at the scale LA now is, becoming an employer does bring a
> considerable management overhead/risk that can be easily ignored but
> will come back to bite later.  However, I'm quite willing to be
> convinced.
>
> > Different Council members put in different amounts of effort over the
> > year, and to be equitable we would need to stipulate and enforce
> > 'minimum hours' of contribution or similar. Some Council members go
> > above and beyond, with no remuneration whatsoever. Would introducing
> > stipends or similar change who nominates to Council by providing a
> > financial incentive? I'm not sure that's the position we want to be
> > in.
> >
> > As a counterpoint though, some Council members spend upwards of 5-6
> > hours per week on LA business, at peak times more. That equates to
> > say
> > 240 hours a year, or say 6 weeks' full time work - at say a
> > conservative
> > rate of $500 per day that's $15k a year these people are donating in
> > kind to LA. Reimbursing even a portion of this may be an incentive to
> > get the "good ones" to stay on and keep contributing their expertise.
> >
> > Really keen to hear the thoughts of others on this one.
>
> This certainly puts the situation very well.  Thanks!
>
> Andrew Bartlett
> --
> Andrew Bartlett                       http://samba.org/~abartlet/
> Authentication Developer, Samba Team  http://samba.org
> Samba Developer, Catalyst IT          http://catalyst.net.nz/
> services/samba
>
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