I’ve been meaning to read through this thread, and my initial reaction is to agree wholeheartedly with Allan’s sentiment:
There’s no question that the Belgium local chapter has been quite active and contributes a great deal of value globally (and, I presume, within the country).
Yet reading through this thread, I have to admit I’m thoroughly confused and endorse Simon’s fundamental request (minus the snarky bits and cross-examination, which I reserve for non-serious threads that deserve it) for:
I think if the board of OSM US – an organization with paid staff, corporate donors, and a non-trivial budget – were to suddenly announce that we were forming a new organization called OSM America and were applying for local chapter status, there would quite rightly be a bunch of questions about just what the heck is going on here. The dialogue in this thread doesn’t really answer that for me, and I like to think that I’m not completely incompetent in my ability to summarize a discussion thread.
What I’ve been able to piece together so far is something? like this:
- OSM Belgium (OSM BE) used to be a part of Open Knowledge Forum Belgium (OKF BE), and that parent organization was registered as a local chapter.
- There were problems (?) with this arrangement that were detrimental to OSM BE
- There was significant overlap between the membership of the boards of directors of OKF BE and OS BE
- To solve these problems, the two organizations wish to separate but with the same people at the helm of both groups
Given this line of thinking, I’m curious but don’t particularly care about what disagreements or palace intrigue caused the desire to split, other than perhaps as lessons learned for other local chapters that we can all benefit from.
However, if OKF BE is still registered as a local chapter in Belgium, and they are involved in…whatever this is…then I think it’s fair to ask for some kind of official statement from their board which concurs with this new arrangement and whether they are also voluntarily abandoning their local chapter status in favor of OSM BE – or will there now be two local chapters in Belgium? That alone would go a long way towards convincing me that this is just a no-impact paper reorganization. Is the new arrangement mutually desired or are we looking at a messy divorce?
From a more practical matter, presumably OKF BE / OSM BE in their current arrangement has assets and employees and some set of program and activities that serve the OSM community in that country. If I were sitting on the OSMF board considering this application, the number one thing I would want to know is that their interests are appropriately looked after. Will the new OSM BE have all the same resources (people, money, etc) they currently have under their present parent organization? There is some discussion above about bank accounts and transferring money so I think then answer is yes, but these are pretty important corporate governance concerns that I think the OSMF board should have clear answers to before giving their endorsement.
To be clear, I don’t think anyone is acting in bad faith here, and as a local chapter board member myself, I wholeheartedly embrace the struggles of volunteerism. However, I do have to agree that given the unusual nature of this application that asking for additional information seems quite fair game. If this has exposed a gap in the local chapter application process that needs to be corrected, then that’s something the OSMF board should consider addressing.