Objections to the Charity Process

[Alistair Lynn]

Hi everyone–

As a community we were all somewhat shocked by Tuesday’s announcement.
The Steering Committee gave assurances of a vote and consultation in
February. Few people would have assumed that this was in question.

We have a number of objections to the way the move to becoming a
charity has been handled, chief among which is the general lack of
communication from (and even within) the committee. This has
culminated in the application being submitted to the Charity
Commission without the proposed constitution being released to the
community (or even the Steering Committee) for review.

The community was promised [0] a chance to review the constitution
before submission. As this has not occurred, the current application
to the Charity Commission must be halted so that a community
consultation can take place. How that consultation will happen is up
for discussion.

The consultation must then be followed by a democratic vote on whether
or not to accept the constitution.

We are not prepared to accept any constitution that has not been
through this process.

Alistair Lynn
Harry Cutts
Peter Law
Tyler Ward
Andy Busse
Andy Cottrell
Jon Bartlett
Giorgos Karatziolas
Tom Leese

[0] https://groups.google.com/d/msg/srobo/EngHjM_i2ko/FpHBW4iPBFoJ

[Murray Colpman]

On 22/12/14 21:37, Alistair Lynn wrote:
> Alistair Lynn
> Harry Cutts
> Peter Law
> Tyler Ward
> Andy Busse
> Andy Cottrell
> Jon Bartlett
> Giorgos Karatziolas
> Tom Leese

+1, I was out when the signing was taking place.

Murray Colpman.

[Lila Fisch]

+1, dito

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[Scarzybrook]

+1 (I wasn't out, but was busy throwing up instead)

Scarzy

On 22/12/14 23:55, Lila Fisch wrote:
> +1, dito
>
> On Mon, Dec 22, 2014 at 11:51 PM, Murray Colpman
> <muzerak...@gmail.com <mailto:muzerak...@gmail.com>> wrote:
>
> On 22/12/14 21:37, Alistair Lynn wrote:
> > Alistair Lynn
> > Harry Cutts
> > Peter Law
> > Tyler Ward
> > Andy Busse
> > Andy Cottrell
> > Jon Bartlett
> > Giorgos Karatziolas
> > Tom Leese
> +1, I was out when the signing was taking place.
>
> Murray Colpman.
>
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[Christopher Hewett]

+1 Also, busy weekend.

Chewett

On 23 December 2014 at 09:43, Scarzybrook <scarz...@gmail.com> wrote:

+1 (I wasn't out, but was busy throwing up instead)

Scarzy

On 22/12/14 23:55, Lila Fisch wrote:

+1, dito

On Mon, Dec 22, 2014 at 11:51 PM, Murray Colpman

<muzerak...@gmail.com <mailto:muzerakascooby@gmail.com>> wrote:

    On 22/12/14 21:37, Alistair Lynn wrote:
    > Alistair Lynn
    > Harry Cutts
    > Peter Law
    > Tyler Ward
    > Andy Busse
    > Andy Cottrell
    > Jon Bartlett
    > Giorgos Karatziolas
    > Tom Leese
    +1, I was out when the signing was taking place.

    Murray Colpman.

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[Steven Haywood]

I have had no internet real internet access for the last fortnight, and
was thus offline when the signing happened.

+1.

Steven Haywood

On 23/12/14 09:55, Christopher Hewett wrote:
> +1 Also, busy weekend.
>
> Chewett
>
> On 23 December 2014 at 09:43, Scarzybrook <scarz...@gmail.com

> <mailto:scarz...@gmail.com>> wrote:
>
> +1 (I wasn't out, but was busy throwing up instead)
>
> Scarzy
>
> On 22/12/14 23:55, Lila Fisch wrote:
>
> +1, dito
>
> On Mon, Dec 22, 2014 at 11:51 PM, Murray Colpman

> <muzerak...@gmail.com <mailto:muzerak...@gmail.com>
> <mailto:muzerakascooby@gmail.__com

> <mailto:muzerak...@gmail.com>>> wrote:
>
> On 22/12/14 21:37, Alistair Lynn wrote:
> > Alistair Lynn
> > Harry Cutts
> > Peter Law
> > Tyler Ward
> > Andy Busse
> > Andy Cottrell
> > Jon Bartlett
> > Giorgos Karatziolas
> > Tom Leese
> +1, I was out when the signing was taking place.
>
> Murray Colpman.
>
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[Rob Spanton]

Hi,

I'm quite surprised by some people’s response to this charity
registration. I feel that we've been as open as possible throughout
this process. Just to make entirely sure that there's no
misunderstanding here, this is my perspective of how the charity
registration has gone:

1. I emailed out the plan for charity formation some time ago [1].
2. I later emailed out an update indicating that things were being
set in motion [2].
3. As per plan, I worked with some solicitors to sort out the
registration paperwork.
4. As per plan, we seeded the trustees/members with the steering
committee, then submitted the application, as approved by the
trustees.
5. We notified volunteers [3].

Point 4 above should get some additional notes:
As we’ve already stated, it’s vital that the charity’s trustees
work well together as a team. Four of the six steering committee
members were mutually comfortable working together, and so the
charity is being constructed with them as initial trustees and
members. We felt that notifying the other members of the
steering committee had to happen in a meeting, rather than by an
email to the list, as this would be the least stressful for all
involved. Once we’d had that meeting, we then notified all
volunteers.

If you feel that you would like to read through the constitution before
you sign up as a volunteer for the new charity, you are of course free
to do so. It’s available here [4], and is extremely similar to that of
other charities. It’s written by solicitors who are well-qualified for
such tasks, and will be reviewed by the charity commission before being
accepted.

We believe that the new charity is a better arrangement that will serve
both its target audience (the 16-18 year-olds) and its volunteers in a
considerably better fashion than the existing ad-hoc arrangement.
That's why we're here afterall: to provide an engineering experience to
young people.

What I would very much like to do is speak to you all so that I can
address your concerns. So I’ve assigned some time to do that, and have
set up a doodle that you can fill in here [5]. Please fill in all the
slots that you’ll be able to make a Google Hangout in. I’ll get back to
you as soon as possible after you’ve filled in the doodle poll to let
you know which time is best. We'll aim for a maximum of 3 people per
session, so that everyone's voice can be heard. Please complete the
doodle as soon as possible, as the first slot is on Monday.

Cheers,

Rob

[1] http://article.gmane.org/gmane.science.robotics.srobo.general/4834
[2] http://article.gmane.org/gmane.science.robotics.srobo.general/5469
[3] http://article.gmane.org/gmane.science.robotics.srobo.general/5923
[4] https://groups.google.com/d/msg/srobo/vCH5G4rROAQ/540Y8AxgdYQJ
[5] http://doodle.com/f8uvm99mt5xhrkim

[Andy Busse]

Hi Rob,

I think you're missing a couple of the main points raised in the email
on the 22nd December

On 11/01/2015 13:49, Rob Spanton wrote:
> Point 4 above should get some additional notes:
> As we’ve already stated, it’s vital that the charity’s trustees
> work well together as a team. Four of the six steering committee
> members were mutually comfortable working together, and so the
> charity is being constructed with them as initial trustees and
> members. We felt that notifying the other members of the
> steering committee had to happen in a meeting, rather than by an
> email to the list, as this would be the least stressful for all
> involved. Once we’d had that meeting, we then notified all
> volunteers.

This is one of the major points of contention, actually. The SC
elections are actually rather overdue (I'm told that this rolls over on
Friday, in fact), and a number of us were peeved that you appointed
yourselves to this role without holding a vote as promised in the thread
[1]. If you'd have held a vote, we'd have likely voted for you anyway.
The fact that the community doesn't get a say in who the initial
trustees are undermined our trust in yourselves.

It was also somewhat worrying that the other 2 members of the SC were
informed of the registration details after it had been done, and only
saw the constitution at the same time as the rest of us, i.e. not kept
in the loop while you were consulting solicitors.

There's also an unanswered question along the lines of "What happens to
the SC once we become a charity", which I believe ought to be answered
before we elect Trustees or a new SC.

Just to quote yourself from [1]:
On 05/02/2014 16:44, Rob Spanton wrote:
> Sure, once the constitution has emerged from the solicitor, I'll send it
> out on the list before sending it's sent off the to charity commission.
(You didn't do this)

On 06/02/2014 15:06, Rob Spanton wrote:
> Since the trustees will be selected by the members, it is of course not
> possible right now to determine who the trustees will be. I imagine
> that the initial set of trustees will likely be the current members of
> the steering committee.
(You didn't do this either)

>
> If you feel that you would like to read through the constitution before
> you sign up as a volunteer for the new charity, you are of course free
> to do so. It’s available here [4], and is extremely similar to that of
> other charities. It’s written by solicitors who are well-qualified for
> such tasks, and will be reviewed by the charity commission before being
> accepted.

This paragraph reads a lot like "Well, it's done now, if you don't like
it, don't join as a member of this charity". I hope this isn't what you
mean (as I wouldn't join, but would like to keep volunteering). I won't
go over points mentioned in the thread dedicated to understanding the
constitution, but I'd much rather the concerns raised over the
constitution and trustees were addressed before joining.

Are you saying mentors need to register as members before going
mentoring? How does this affect getting new mentors involved?
(Personally, I have SR registered as an ongoing activity with STEMNET,
so that my DBS and insurance are kept up to date, so child protection is
dealt with by them too)

> We believe that the new charity is a better arrangement that will serve
> both its target audience (the 16-18 year-olds) and its volunteers in a
> considerably better fashion than the existing ad-hoc arrangement.
> That's why we're here afterall: to provide an engineering experience to
> young people.

I don't think you'll find any of us arguing about this. Pretty much all
of us want SR to be a charity.

> What I would very much like to do is speak to you all so that I can
> address your concerns. So I’ve assigned some time to do that, and have
> set up a doodle that you can fill in here [5]. Please fill in all the
> slots that you’ll be able to make a Google Hangout in. I’ll get back to
> you as soon as possible after you’ve filled in the doodle poll to let
> you know which time is best. We'll aim for a maximum of 3 people per
> session, so that everyone's voice can be heard. Please complete the
> doodle as soon as possible, as the first slot is on Monday.

I might sign up, but may I ask what you hope to achieve by this, and
will you take actions based on the results (and will it be just yourself
there, or other trustees)? Will you publish the results of this
consultation? Most of what I'd say is all on the list (said by others)
anyway.

You might get a lot more out of holding an EGM with all of those who've
registered their discontent with the situation.

Thanks,
Andy

[1] http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.science.robotics.srobo.general/4834

[Alistair Lynn]

Hi Rob-

> some people

To quantify this, every single person I have spoken to - with the
exception of the four of you - has objected. Every single one.

> Just to make entirely sure that there's no
> misunderstanding here, this is my perspective of how the charity
> registration has gone:
>
> 1. I emailed out the plan for charity formation some time ago [1].
> 2. I later emailed out an update indicating that things were being
> set in motion [2].
> 3. As per plan, I worked with some solicitors to sort out the
> registration paperwork.

We would have preferred more frequent updates on the process, but
that's a minor detail; I don't mind what happened up to that point.

> 4. As per plan, we seeded the trustees/members with the steering
> committee, then submitted the application, as approved by the
> trustees.

Approved by a subset of the steering committee (without even informing
the other two until after the fact), but not by anybody else, which is
what this objection is about! Did you actually read the emails we've
sent? To reiterate, we are constitutionally guaranteed a vote on
substantial structural change to SR[1], and you gave us assurances on
this vote in a steering committee meeting[2].

> Point 4 above should get some additional notes:
> As we’ve already stated, it’s vital that the charity’s trustees
> work well together as a team. Four of the six steering committee
> members were mutually comfortable working together, and so the
> charity is being constructed with them as initial trustees and
> members. We felt that notifying the other members of the
> steering committee had to happen in a meeting, rather than by an
> email to the list, as this would be the least stressful for all
> involved. Once we’d had that meeting, we then notified all
> volunteers.

The minutes from the February committee meeting, and I quote:

"initial seat set would be steering committee"[2]

Whether you feel comfortable working with Andy and lilafisch is
largely irrelevant, because the leadership of SR is not your decision.
It is the decision of the community, and the community voted for six
of you, not four.

On a personal note I have always found both Andy and lilafisch
constructive and helpful, and I don't think this attempted character
assassination of them is at all called for.

> What I would very much like to do is speak to you all so that I can
> address your concerns. So I’ve assigned some time to do that, and have
> set up a doodle that you can fill in here [5]. Please fill in all the
> slots that you’ll be able to make a Google Hangout in. I’ll get back to
> you as soon as possible after you’ve filled in the doodle poll to let
> you know which time is best. We'll aim for a maximum of 3 people per
> session, so that everyone's voice can be heard. Please complete the
> doodle as soon as possible, as the first slot is on Monday.

Anything you need to say can be said, in the open, on this mailing list.

With respect, it is not up to you to dictate the terms in which you
hear objections to what you've been doing. "Divide and conquer" is a
military tactic, not an approach to problem-solving in a community.

If the motivation is to ensure that everyone's opinions are heard,
then even just from a practical point of view this is the wrong
approach, because this is containing opinions to being heard just by
you. I for one want to hear this debate publicly.

Alistair

[1] https://www.studentrobotics.org/trac/wiki/Committee2
[2] https://www.studentrobotics.org/cgit/steering-minutes.git/tree/2013-2014/2014-02-25/minutes.txt

[Peter Law]

Hi Rob,

I've a bunch of comments to make specifically which I'll get to, but
first some thoughts on perspective.

I've heard that it's very easy to judge others by their actions, but
yourself by intentions. Separately, I personally find that it's very
easy to accidentally convey a message which is rather different
from, that which was originally intended to be conveyed. I suspect
that some of both is at play here.

I've (somewhat deliberately) not read other replies yet, so apologies
for any crossover.

Rob wrote:
> I'm quite surprised by some people's response to this charity
> registration. I feel that we've been as open as possible throughout
> this process.

I expect that many people will be frankly amazed by this statement.
Are you really saying that some regulation prevented more information
from being made public during the process?

For example, it has been separately noted that the constitution could
not have been released due to restrictions from the solicitor. However
the presence of those restrictions was not made clear until _after_
the constitution documents were leaked published by Alistair.

In this instance, it would have been good to know that there was a
restriction preventing its publication. Without this the community was
left speculating both as to what was in it as well as the reason for
it not having been published.


Given the somewhat surprising move of excluding two members of the
committee (notably those who it appears dissented most often from the
opinion of the rest), a number of unpleasant motives for the
withholding of the documents came to mind. Frankly (to me at least) it
felt rather like a coup d'état.


Moving on to more specific complaints I would like to examine first
the timing of the charity registration submission and then the choice
of initial trustees.

## Timing of the charity registration submission

> 3. As per plan, I worked with some solicitors to sort out the
> registration paperwork.
> 4. As per plan, we seeded the trustees/members with the steering
> committee, then submitted the application, as approved by the
> trustees.
> 5. We notified volunteers [3].

I think the ordering of these three is the main point at issue. The
community was promised both a consultation and vote on the
constitution _before_ the registration took place.

There are a number of places where this is confirmed, but I'll just
quote one of them, from your own post [A]:
> Harry Cutts wrote:
>> Is there a plan to review this constitution (e.g. on this list) before we
>> register, and if so what is it?

>
> Sure, once the constitution has emerged from the solicitor, I'll send it
> out on the list before sending it's sent off the to charity commission.

Even with the garbled grammar on the last line, I think it's clear
that everyone should have expected the community to see the
constitution before the Charity Commission. This did not happen, and
is one of the key things being objected to.

I therefore think the community deserves a public response to the question:
* Why was the constitution not published to the community before the
charity application was made?
If this was as a result of the noted lack of rights from the solicitors,
why were the community not informed of this issue? Was there something
which meant that the application could not have been held until either
the community was satisfied with the available information about
the constitution, or the rights became available?

## Choice of initial trustees

This point is a little more subtle, though the confusion it causes is
great. Hopefully you'll bear with me.

Rob wrote:
> 4. As per plan, we seeded the trustees/members with the steering
> committee, then submitted the application, as approved by the
> trustees.

I find it rather interesting that you choose to call the would-be
initial members of the charity "trustees" here, and suggest that they
already have the approval powers for things which the charity
constitution would grant them. My confusion stems from the fact that
you state this was taking place before the charity itself could
possibly have existed, meaning that such designation and powers could
not exist.

I hope that this is a simple case of badly chosen phrasing, but the
end result does seem to have been these people acting with powers they
did not yet have. Specifically I refer to the Committee2 trac page
[B], which is the closest thing which the non-charity SR has to a
constitution as far as the SC goes.

Quoting from Committee2's "Steering committee rules" section:
> 2. Changes to the steering committee rules, or the structure of the
> steering committee itself require a general vote of Student Robotics
> members. This vote must be open for at least one week.

I would certainly consider the creation of a Student Robotics charity
lead by trustees to be a change to the structure of the SC.

To further expand on this, it had not been previously made clear that
the initial members would also be the initial trustees. In the past,
the wording used had always been that the members would choose the
trustees (which to me implied a community vote, though that is
admittedly an assumption which I didn't verify), however it was clear
that the initial trustees had not yet been chosen.

To quote again from the "Charity Registration Plan" thread [C]:

> Since the trustees will be selected by the members, it is of course not
> possible right now to determine who the trustees will be. I imagine
> that the initial set of trustees will likely be the current members of
> the steering committee.

I think it is only fair to read the second sentence as being merely a
possible suggestion, and not something which would be acted upon
without consultation or at least notification.

I therefore think the community deserves a public response to the question:
* Why was the community not consulted (nor even notified) of the
changes to the planned trustees/SC until after they had been made?

Thanks,
Peter

[A] http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.science.robotics.srobo.general/4834/focus=4844
[B] https://www.studentrobotics.org/trac/wiki/Committee2#Steeringcommitteerules
[C] http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.science.robotics.srobo.general/4834/focus=4853

[Peter Law]

Hi,

I wrote:
> For example, it has been separately noted that the constitution could
> not have been released due to restrictions from the solicitor. However
> the presence of those restrictions was not made clear until _after_
> the constitution documents were leaked published by Alistair.

Please imagine that I'd successfully edited out "leaked" in the above.

P

[Lila Fisch]

What andy and alistair said +1

except that I definitely won't sign up for a personal consultation with rob - what kind of secret order is this, where the doodle poll is even locked and the person that graciously hears everyones opinion is Rob?

lilafisch

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[Christopher Hewett]

On 11 January 2015 at 13:49, Rob Spanton <r...@robspanton.com> wrote:

What I would very much like to do is speak to you all so that I can
address your concerns.  So I’ve assigned some time to do that, and have
set up a doodle that you can fill in here [5].  Please fill in all the
slots that you’ll be able to make a Google Hangout in.  I’ll get back to
you as soon as possible after you’ve filled in the doodle poll to let
you know which time is best.  We'll aim for a maximum of 3 people per
session, so that everyone's voice can be heard.  Please complete the
doodle as soon as possible, as the first slot is on Monday.

Thank you for making some time to listen Rob, however I don't feel entirely comfortable voicing concerns in such a private way (bad experience previous, non SR related).

The majority of the points I was concerned about are described by Andy, Alistair and Peter. So it would be good to see a response to them here.

Thanks

Chewett

[Harry Cutts]

Hi Rob,

On Sunday, 11 January 2015 13:50:01 UTC, Rob Spanton wrote:

I'm quite surprised by some people’s response to this charity
registration.  I feel that we've been as open as possible throughout
this process.

I don't see how you can say this with a straight face.

 

Just to make entirely sure that there's no
misunderstanding here, this is my perspective of how the charity
registration has gone:

     1. I emailed out the plan for charity formation some time ago [1].
     2. I later emailed out an update indicating that things were being
        set in motion [2].
     3. As per plan, I worked with some solicitors to sort out the
        registration paperwork.
     4. As per plan, we seeded the trustees/members with the steering
        committee, then submitted the application, as approved by the
        trustees.
     5. We notified volunteers [3].

As others have noted, the order of these points is the issue here. As we said, the problem is that the review and vote we were promised [0] did not occur. If there were copyright issues with the solicitors, the community should have been notified of them, and they should have been resolved before the process continued.

Peter wrote:

I find it rather interesting that you choose to call the would-be 
initial members of the charity "trustees" here, and suggest that they 
already have the approval powers for things which the charity 
constitution would grant them.

I also find this presumption of power rather concerning. 

 

On Sunday, 11 January 2015 13:50:01 UTC, Rob Spanton wrote:

Point 4 above should get some additional notes:
        As we’ve already stated, it’s vital that the charity’s trustees
        work well together as a team. Four of the six steering committee
        members were mutually comfortable working together, and so the
        charity is being constructed with them as initial trustees and
        members.  We felt that notifying the other members of the
        steering committee had to happen in a meeting, rather than by an
        email to the list, as this would be the least stressful for all
        involved.  Once we’d had that meeting, we then notified all
        volunteers.

You make informing two (highly competent) volunteers that their fellow committee members have decided in secret that they are untrustworthy sound quite pleasant. The initial trustees should be chosen by free and fair elections, which, as Andy noted, would have likely elected you four.

 

We believe that the new charity is a better arrangement that will serve
both its target audience (the 16-18 year-olds) and its volunteers in a
considerably better fashion than the existing ad-hoc arrangement.
That's why we're here afterall: to provide an engineering experience to
young people.

This is not in dispute. 

 

What I would very much like to do is speak to you all so that I can
address your concerns.  So I’ve assigned some time to do that, and have
set up a doodle that you can fill in here [5].  Please fill in all the
slots that you’ll be able to make a Google Hangout in.  I’ll get back to
you as soon as possible after you’ve filled in the doodle poll to let
you know which time is best.  We'll aim for a maximum of 3 people per
session, so that everyone's voice can be heard.  Please complete the
doodle as soon as possible, as the first slot is on Monday.

There have been enough closed discussions in this process already; I do not wish to take part in any more. We can outline our concerns just as well on this open mailing list, which has the advantage of ensuring that everyone has an opportunity for their voice to be heard, regardless of availability (this is the first of two exam weeks here in Southampton) and assertiveness in meetings.

Harry Cutts

[0] http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.science.robotics.srobo.general/4834/focus=4844

[Scarzybrook]

Hi,

On 12/01/15 12:11, Harry Cutts wrote:
> As others have noted, the order of these points is the issue here. As we
> said, the problem is that the review and vote we were promised [0] did
> not occur.

There has been a number of mentions about the vote that the community
was denied.

As such I feel it necessary to point out that this is not the first time
that this has occurred with the current SC.

A while ago I was asked to sign the forms to instruct Barclay's to
change the treasurers to what is now the current treasury. This occurred
before any vote on said treasury took place, and indeed before the
community was even notified that a new treasury had been selected. I had
to flatly refuse to sign the forms until the vote had happened (as
promised on trac and in a number of threads on the mailing list) in
order to get it to occur.

Scarzy

[Lila Fisch]

Hi,

one more thing that I would like to point out and get a comment on:

That's why we're here afterall: to provide an engineering experience to
young people.

This is not entirely why I am here:

As important as providing and engineering experience to young people

is doing so in a respectful, open and honest community of volunteers.

I very much find this in the local communities and in many mailing list discussions.

However I am disappointed by the actions of the current steering committee. My concerns when confronted with the charity applications, that this will be harmful to the community, were not taken seriously. Promises were made and then broken without a comment, understanding and until now even acknowledging it.

Rob, Sam, Jeremy and Rich:

What is your position on my statement that a respectful, open and honest community is as important in SR as providing an engineering experience to young people?

Regards,

lilafisch

[Rob Spanton]

I wrote:
> That's why we're here afterall: to provide an engineering experience
> to young people.

Lilafisch wrote:
> This is not entirely why I am here:
> As important as providing and engineering experience to young people
> is doing so in a respectful, open and honest community of volunteers.

> Rob, Sam, Jeremy and Rich:
> What is your position on my statement that a respectful, open and
> honest community is as important in SR as providing an engineering
> experience to young people?

I think it is very important to have a respectful and honest community,
yes.

You'll note I haven't written "open" above, because its definition is
too vague. I believe SR should ship open-source software and hardware
to its teams, as this is crucial to a quality educational experience.
However, when it comes to project management and execution, I do not
believe in a situation in which every aspect of every task that every
individual is doing is continuously published to every other individual.
That would be a huge waste of volunteers time, as the only thing to come
out of that is for those tasks to be open to continuous micromanagement,
and bike-shedding, leading to an abhorrent "community" environment.

Cheers,

Rob

[Rob Spanton]

On Mon, 2015-01-12 at 04:11 -0800, Harry Cutts wrote:
> As others have noted, the order of these points is the issue here. As we
> said, the problem is that the review and vote we were promised [0] did not
> occur. If there were copyright issues with the solicitors, the community
> should have been notified of them, and they should have been resolved
> before the process continued.

Yup, I had to push the charity application on in order to ensure that we
would get funding for the SR2015 competition. Spending weeks in a
situation in which a group of non-lawyers "review" a legal document that
has already been written by a solicitor and is to undergo review by the
charity commission is not a good reason to stop that from happening.

If that review concluded [1], and was then subject to a vote, it would
be severely difficult for SR to continue in the event of a "no" vote.
Coincidentally, that is the situation we find ourselves in now, and the
people involved in sorting it out are no longer willing to sort it out.

> You make informing two (highly competent) volunteers that their fellow
> committee members have decided in secret that they are untrustworthy sound
> quite pleasant.

I'm glad that you find my statement pleasant, but you have misread it,
and then rewritten it with the concept of untrustworthiness injected.
That was not in our statement on the matter, as it talked about people
being comfortable working together.

> The initial trustees should be chosen by free and fair
> elections, which, as Andy noted, would have likely elected you four.

You are not at all guaranteed a functioning team through an election.
That would not be "fair" on the elected individuals, nor the teams that
they support. Furthermore, I believe it was quite clear in the initial
charity plan emails that the initial members would be seeded with the SC
-- and it is the members of a charity that select the trustees.

Thanks,

Rob

[1] As if there would be a way of concluding that which everyone would
be happy with.

[Rob Spanton]

On Mon, 2015-01-12 at 23:27 +0000, Scarzybrook wrote:
> A while ago I was asked to sign the forms to instruct Barclay's to
> change the treasurers to what is now the current treasury. This
> occurred before any vote on said treasury took place, and indeed
> before the community was even notified that a new treasury had been
> selected.

... because there is absolutely nothing stating that such a vote has to
occur.

Thanks,

Rob

[Rob Spanton]

On Sun, 2015-01-11 at 21:21 +0000, Peter Law wrote:
> Rob wrote:
> > I'm quite surprised by some people's response to this charity
> > registration. I feel that we've been as open as possible throughout
> > this process.
>
> I expect that many people will be frankly amazed by this statement.
> Are you really saying that some regulation prevented more information
> from being made public during the process?

No. I am saying that both my time, willpower, and finances are all
finite. Spending them on having arguments is not something I aim to do.

> I think the ordering of these three is the main point at issue. The
> community was promised both a consultation and vote on the
> constitution _before_ the registration took place.

Volunteers were not promised a vote on the constitution.

> Quoting from Committee2's "Steering committee rules" section:
> > 2. Changes to the steering committee rules, or the structure of the
> > steering committee itself require a general vote of Student Robotics
> > members. This vote must be open for at least one week.
>
> I would certainly consider the creation of a Student Robotics charity
> lead by trustees to be a change to the structure of the SC.

The Student Robotics charity was to be a completely new organisation --
that is how the legal situation works. It's not transforming the
current one into a charity, but rather creating a completely new
organisation and then transferring assets across to it. SC remains in
the old one.

> To further expand on this, it had not been previously made clear that
> the initial members would also be the initial trustees. In the past,
> the wording used had always been that the members would choose the
> trustees (which to me implied a community vote, though that is
> admittedly an assumption which I didn't verify), however it was clear
> that the initial trustees had not yet been chosen.

"Members" means the members of the charity. (Members of a charity are
the equivalent of shareholders of a company -- they have a different
name because there's no money involved, etc.)

> I therefore think the community deserves a public response to the question:
> * Why was the community not consulted (nor even notified) of the
> changes to the planned trustees/SC until after they had been made?

I don't feel that any changes were made.

Thanks,

Rob

[Rob Spanton]

I wrote:
> > If you feel that you would like to read through the constitution before
> > you sign up as a volunteer for the new charity, you are of course free
> > to do so. It’s available here [4], and is extremely similar to that of
> > other charities. It’s written by solicitors who are well-qualified for
> > such tasks, and will be reviewed by the charity commission before being
> > accepted.

On Sun, 2015-01-11 at 19:46 +0000, Andy Busse wrote:
> This paragraph reads a lot like "Well, it's done now, if you don't like
> it, don't join as a member of this charity". I hope this isn't what you
> mean (as I wouldn't join, but would like to keep volunteering).

It sounds like you're confusing members and volunteers. Being a
volunteer for the charity would not also bring membership of the
charity. I stated this explicitly in the original charity plan:

"It's important to note that becoming an SR volunteer will not
automatically mean one becomes a member of the charity: these
are two very different things."

> Are you saying mentors need to register as members before going
> mentoring?

No, mentors would have needed to register as volunteers.

> How does this affect getting new mentors involved?

They would have had to fill in some forms, get DBS checked, etc.

Thanks,

Rob

[Peter Law]

Hi,

Scarzy wrote:
>> A while ago I was asked to sign the forms to instruct Barclay's to
>> change the treasurers to what is now the current treasury. This
>> occurred before any vote on said treasury took place, and indeed
>> before the community was even notified that a new treasury had been
>> selected.

Rob wrote:
> ... because there is absolutely nothing stating that such a vote has to
> occur.

Nothing formal, no. though I would have expected the precedent from
the previous treasury handover [1] to have counted for something.

Peter

[1] http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.science.robotics.srobo.general/245