Linux Australia to tweak constitution

Sam Varghese
Thursday, 21 July 2011 15:09

Opinion and Analysis

Linux Australia, the umbrella group for Linux user groups in the country, plans to make some changes to its constitution, according to its president, John Ferlito.

The major change will be moving the organisation's financial year from one that is the same as the calendar year to one that begins on October 1.

"We need to change our financial year so we have time to put an audit together as we are now required to by NSW Fair Trading," Ferlito told iTWire.

The change would make it possible for completed, audited accounts to be presented to the annual general meeting which generally takes place in the last week of January, coinciding with the annual Australian national Linux conference (LCA).

"This means we need to bring our constitution in line with the changes that were made to association law in 2009/10," Ferlito said.

"The council felt it was easier to start again from the new model constitution and apply all the change to bring it up to speed with current practices."

Last year, the organisation conducted an online survey of members to find out what functions they expected the body to perform.

Ferlito said once the changes were effected, members would receive an email once a year, asking them whether they wished to continue their membership. This, he said, was to avoid a situation where the organisation had people on its rolls who no longer wanted to be members - some had even expired and could not be taken off the list due to the rules of the organisation.

While there was no plan to charge any kind of membership fee, he said that there were people who wanted to contribute in order to support the organisation.

A means of doing so was likely to be provided along with the registration form for the LCA; this was unlikely to be in place for the 2012 conference which is six months away but would be in place for the 2013 event.

The yearly LCA is by far the major source of funds for Linux Australia's operating expenses; it gives the organisation enough of a profit for it to expand partial sponsorship for a number of other, smaller conferences and also look after its internal needs.

The suggested changes will be voted on at an upcoming special general body meeting.