🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <michaelr.706417773@suite.sw.oz.au> michaelr@suite.sw.oz.au (Michael Rourke) writes:
>In <96@quark.ansto.gov.au> frank@iris.ansto.gov.au (Frank Crawford) writes:
>
>>One of my main reasons for
>>standing for re-election as Treasurer is that it takes some time to
>>learn the various aspects of AUUG's finances and a change in Treasurer
>>after only a year would be counter-productive.
>
>Is this a problem of documentation or are the terms of office too
>short (for other positions too)?

The documentation and the term of office are not a problem, rather for a
position such as Treasurer (or Secretary) it takes sometime to learn and
understand all the details, followed by changing the procedures of the
previous person to how you feel it should work.  Especially when dealing
with finances these changes are necessarily slow (e.g. wait for this
term deposit to mature, wait for N months for the interest to be paid,
etc).  By the end of a year you have only participated in once cycle of
AUUG's finances (and even now I'm only preparing for my first "end of
year").

There are a number of issues like term deposit timings (i.e. to
correspond with big bill) that I want to work on this year, along with
a budgets (we now have one for next year), cash flows and similar
financial checks and safeguards.

It would be nice to say that the term of office is too short as it does
take some time to learn, but as a safe guard to AUUG it is better allow
the members to elect a new treasurer even after the first year if they
are not doing their job (and I hope that the membership feels I am doing
mine :-)).

In terms of the other members, again it is necessary to have some long
term stability.  To completely change the committee (President on down),
without good reason, would cause more problems than it would solve, as no
one would be fully aware of ongoing projects.  As Andrew Gollan said at
his last meeting, when informed that ACMS are ready to send out
membership cards, "That was my first motion when elected to the
committee two years ago" (or words to that effect).

Finally, when thinking about how slooooowwwwwly AUUG moves, there are
currently only six executive meetings a year (and even that is hard to
arrange), and so very few opportunities to agree on decisions.
Certainly, discussion occurs between meeting and now, with a permanent
staff member and secretariat, other tasks being performed, but any great
(or not so great) idea may take up to 3 months (e.g. over Christmas) to
be approved.

>-- 
>Michael Rourke, Softway Pty Ltd			  Net:michaelr@softway.sw.oz.au
>PO Box 305, Strawberry Hills, NSW 2012, Australia Tel:+61 2 698 2322
>79 Myrtle St, Chippendale, NSW 2008, Australia	  Fax:+61 2 699 9174


							Frank Crawford