[pp.int.general] Fwd: URGENT: Bestuurswissel | Change of PPNL board

[Ole Husgaard]

Hi,

I guess many people here wonder what this is about. I wondered, and
called Samir to ask. and fortunately I do not think things in the
Netherlands are as bad as you might believe from this short message.

The problem, as I understand it, is once again about missing statutes. I
guess we all remember from the PPI conference how hard it can be to
agree on statutes later, after an organisation has stated to work
without formal statutes.

PP.nl did not have statutes until shortly before the Dutch elections.
Because a party going for elections in the Netherlands needs statutes,
some formal but temporary statutes were agreed upon in a hurry in what
Samir described to me as a non-democratic way, without a general
assembly. These statutes talk about a board and a member council, and
the member council is the highest authority. According to these
temporary statutes the board can be changed by the member council. If I
understand Samir correctly, the agreement the old board failed was to
propose new and better statutes on a certain date, and this is why a new
board was appointed by the member council.

In PP.dk we agreed on our statutes the same day our party was founded.
We were only three people at that time, and we kept the statutes
minimal. But for over two years since we were founded, there has been no
discussion about our statutes. IMHO this is because statutes is what we
need to fall back on as the last resort if there are disagreements -
otherwise nobody really cares about the statutes.

I would like all new pirate parties to listen to this advice: Get your
statutes in place ASAP, and there will be no major discussion about
them. But delay this boring but important work, and you will get a lot
of disagreement about the statutes at some later time.

Samir told me that he wants the PP.nl statutes to include some minimal
politics to avoid the party being hijacked. I disagree, and told him
that the members of the party should decide on policy in the general
assembly, and that if the members decide, there is no risk, as (almost)
only pirates are going to be members. Policy issues should be kept
separate from organisational issues.

I do not want to dictate how the PP.nl statutes should look, but I want
to give some advice: It looks to me like everybody in PP.nl wants the
members to be in control in a democratic way. This means that the
general assembly should be the highest authority, not the member
council. Some parties have a member council besides a board, but the
general assembly should elect both the board and the member council (if
a member council is needed - we do not need it in PP.dk).

To me it looks like a temporary crisis in PP.nl. It can only be
temporary because everybody agrees that the party members have the final
word, as in any democratic organisation. So I guess all of you agree
that the PP.nl members decide for PP.nl. Please act quick to hold a
general assembly to get your issues resolved and some real statutes in
place.

Since I have only heard from Samir besides this message to this list, I
would like to hear the opinion from the new PP.nl board.

Please do not start another flame war about internal party issues on
this list. I think most of us would prefer if both sides of this
conflict (if it even is a real conflict, I'm not sure) just state your
opinion here, and then move further discussions to another forum where
interested people can follow if they are interested.

Best Regards,

Ole Husgaard.

Wesley Schwengle skrev:
>
> I sent the e-mail with an incorrect mail address, one which is not
> allowed to send it to pp.int.gen, so here with a subscribed address :)
>
> Cheers,
> Wesley
>
> -------- Original Message --------
> Subject: URGENT: Bestuurswissel | Change of PPNL board
> Date: Sun, 25 Jul 2010 23:51:45 +0200
> From: Wesley Schwengle <wesley.schwengle at piratenpartij.nl>
> Organization: Piratenpartij Nederland
> To: Algemeen <Algemeen at lists.piratenpartij.nl>, Pirate Parties
> International -- General Talk
> <pp.international.general at lists.pirateweb.net>
>
>
> English version below
>
> Nederlands:
>
>
> All,
>
> Vandaag was een hectische dag voor de Piratenpartij. De Ledenraad heeft
> het bestuur gevraagd om op te stappen nadat deze wederom een afspraak
> niet is nagekomen. Alle bestuursleden zijn per direct uit hun
> bestuurlijke functies ontheven door de Ledenraad.
>
> De Ledenraad heeft, samen met de aanwezige leden, een ad interim bestuur
> aangenomen, bestaand uit de volgende personen:
>
> Dirk Poot (secretaris) <dirk.poot at piratenpartij.nl>
> Arjen Halma (penningmeester) <arjen.halma at piratenpartij.nl>
> Wesley Schwengle (voorzitter) <wesley.schwengle at piratenpartij.nl>
>
> Als gevolg van mijn benoeming tot voorzitter heb ik mijn functie in de
> Ledenraad opgegeven.
>
>
> Namens het bestuur,
>
> Wesley Schwengle
>
>
> English:
>
>
> All,
>
> Today has been a hectic day for the Dutch Pirate Party. The member
> council has asked the PPNL board to resign after failing to meet another
> agreement. All board members are relieved from their posts, effective
> immediately, by the member council.
>
> The member council has, in cooperation with members which were present
> at the meeting, installed an ad interim board, which has the following
> members:
>
> Dirk Poot (secretary) <dirk.poot at piratenpartij.nl>
> Arjen Halma (treasurer) <arjen.halma at piratenpartij.nl>
> Wesley Schwengle (chairman) <wesley.schwengle at piratenpartij.nl>
>
> Because of the appointment to chairman I have given up my position in
> the member council.
>
> On behalf of the board,
>
> Wesley Schwengle
>
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