UK Drupal Association - Proposal

I'm happy to get involved :-)

Count me in!

I think this is a very pragmatic approach to forming the association and to assigning a deadline - we are all busy people and if we have to much time for discussion it could drag on.

Tigerfish are on board with this idea. We need a central authority in the UK, if only because we need somewhere to bank and then spend all the money from tickets, etc.

I think that certainly the idea of being able to co-ordinate UK Drupal stuff is great. As long as it doesn't become burdensome on the committee members it should be great. I realise that this was mentioned some time ago, glad we can still try to move on with it.

I particularly like the idea that we just need to agree to have a UK Drupal Association. Personally I guess I already know UK Drupallers from 5/6 of the meetups (possibly more). Looking forward to hearing more and getting involved.

If memory serves, Finn Lewis and Colin Sherry have already done something on the financial side from our recent Oxford Drupalcamp. (Sorry if I've misunderstood this).

Re: meetings, personally prefer the idea of Skype/online ones and then meet up in real space every few months. If there are any decisions that need to be made, then it ought to be at a quorate real life meeting rather than virtual. Agree with that committee members should rotate to prevent burnout and keep momentum going. Jam was talking about putting together some sort of toolkit for organising camps.

Have joined group, let me know how I can help out.

Hi Guys, there is an alternative proposal for a Drupal UK Society. I believe it is trying to achieve the same objectives but sounds a bit more solid to me. There is also a poll there (that also links to this proposal), so vote if you like. The post has mechanism on how you can get involved or put yourself forward. Here is the link: http://www.drupal.org.uk/drupal_uk_society/feedback
Thanks to everyone who got involved and re-kindled this idea!

I like the sound of this proposal. I'm a great believer in the concept that it isn't a 'charged' service.

If I can help, please say!!

Rachel

My comments from Robert's site as it seems you have to be logged in to see them:

Hi Robert,

• 'Society' better reflects the collaborative nature of the Drupal community than 'Association'
  
  To me, 'Society' has much more of an elitist feeling about it, from my current impressions of various societies including having been privvy to a BCS award selection committee meeting when I was living out in Toronto.
  
  I also worry about consistency - Asssociation is used throughout the rest of the world and it strikes me as making things seem complicated from the outside even more complicated which is often seen as putting up unnecessary barriers to entry.
• The Drupal Association prefers local organisations not to use the word 'Association' in their name as it's possible this may cause confusion.
  
  Actually I got completely the opposite impression, and in keeping local associations in line with the Drupal Association makes it a lot easier for us to work to create materials which can easily be rolled out, still retain the freedom to localise, and help other local groups set up easier and more quickly.
  
  I was impressed with what the Mozilla Foundation are doing in setting up local entities - at the moment we duplicate a lot of work once we're not doing PHP, we could do with applying some DRY principles to the other stuff we do as well as code.
• Transfer all assets to the Drupal Association if wound down
  
  From my research over the years the "best" legal framework for a truly community-owned initiative is a CIC - Community Interest Company. This ensures all assets are owned by the community - a non-profit doesn't.
• Better representation of real members of the community
  
  Could you please clarify how your approach better represents the real members, including what your definitiion of a real member is? There are many times in my life when I wouldn't have been able to afford to spend £15 on something like this but I sure was doing a hell of a lot of community work.

Lastly, I've only heard of this other proposal today, I thought we were working towards a solution and this comes as a surprise and says to me that the community will always have differing opinions and instead of how I feel at the moment, which is "being held to ransom until my 40th birthday on 27th July by having two hard-and-fast choices or nothing at all. How about a third way and we work out what the issues are and come to some kind of thing that covers everyone in the community and not just those who have worked out how to get cash out of it.

my 2p

So, here's how I see this proposal being useful to members of the already fabulous Drupal UK community:

1. A central place to go get help from people in the UK to organise events with a Drupal specific twist. I.e. How did the Manchester folks do those lanyard things? How do I get wifi set up at my venue if it doesn't have it? Where are the best places to advertise a UK Drupal event.
2. An easy way to have a bank account for the various events that people want to run, without them all needing their own accounts.
3. A platform to build on for future things that the community may want to do.

It's probably worth noting that while I want it to do this, there's no reason that it has to, if people want to do something else with it, then so be it.

I'm personally very glad that you've started this thread, and would be very keen to offer some help (or at least opinions :P)

Running a group can be a bit haphazard and sometimes it feels like there's nowhere to go for support. Having yet another site to visit/join for me at least would be a right pain, so I'm happy to see a proposal to keep any future UK organisation on *.drupal.org. Paywalling an open source community is also pretty anathema to my own ethics, but I do appreciate that for some things costs need to be covered.

If there's a date/time for a public meeting suggested, I'd like to join in if possible.

A cross post from http://www.drupal.org.uk/drupal_uk_society/feedback#comment-4342:

Hi Robert

Thanks for this thread and related discussions (and to Steven Jones et. al. also).

An open, transparent and collaborative UK Drupal Society / Association has been a topic of discussion both offline and online for some time now. Personally, I would welcome its formation and be very willing to support and contribute time and resource - and I know of a number of other UK Drupal organisations and individuals who would feel the same way and whose voice ought to be represented.

The Drupal community in the UK contains people with a broad and deep range of skills - and this ought to be utilised by including as many of them as possible within a representative body, society or association.

However, I would suggest that it would be useful to take a step back and address two fundamental questions for this process:

1) The Aims of the organisation should probably by higher level than the initial post (http://www.drupal.org.uk/drupal_uk_society/feedback), and address concepts such as to:

i) represent, support, promote and set professional standards for practitioners of Drupal - be they companies, partnerships or individuals;

ii) engage, attract, and teach potential users of Drupal/future Drupal project stakholders;

iii) partner with relevant organisations and bodies across sectors, technology or geography.

Without wanting to be overly critical, what you currently have as aims are more akin to a subset of objectives to achieve the above (but I realise the inital post was a starter for ten - and hence this is a constructive contribution not a criticism).

2) The Benefits of membership - for all potential members will need to be fleshed out. A whole lot more. There are a wide range of benefits on offer from most societies and associations which charge a subscription - and so I would raise a concern as to whether charging a fee is even appropriate at this early stage if it (a) goes against (1)(ii) and (b) there is not enough tangibile benefit to warrant it.

On reflection I do have to say that I have a slight reservation towards creating an archaic, stuffy structure to govern something that is modern, innovative and fluid. However, if done in the right way, the plusses will inevitably outway the minuses.

Regards

Leon

Hi Tim.

I like what you said, but have a couple of thoughts:

• Because the organisation will have to handle money to do anything useful (contract to organise an event for example), I can't see how not becoming a formal financial / legal entity can be avoided.

We have already set up a bank account for the Oxford DrupalCamp without a formal constitution or legal entity, and other community groups and indeed software associations have set up and successfully traded in this way for many years, so I don't see that as a fait accompli. The bank account was set up with a name that would allow other regional groups to use it for their events, while awaiting a formal national organisation to take ownership of the account. There are other reasons why a legal entity would be a good logical conclusion, the main one in my mind being liability.

• Consolidating the debate in one place or the other would definitely remove one challenge from the conversation!

I agree that bringing the conversation to one place would remove a hurdle, but (as was discussed tonight at the Oxford Drupal User Group) the fact that it is being actively discussed in two places does highlight the fact that some people mainly use groups.drupal.org, some mainly use drupal.org.uk, and many people who use one are actually unaware of the other! So it is potentially a good thing that we are discussing it on both platforms: it reaches more people.

This perhaps highlights the fractured/segmented/discombobulated nature of the UK drupal community/communities which is something a national association/society might help to coalesce.

Hello Steven

I have a question regarding your point about geographic scope. You say with regards to Scotland and NI that 'we aren't trying to usurp them or take them over'. Why then do you propose that this be called a UK body? Wouldn't Drupal Association of England and Wales be more consistent with your proposed target area?

Many thanks

Diarmuid

I'm on holiday, camping, for the next two weeks, so my ability to discuss and push this further is very limited until the 22nd July.

Sorry new here, but is their a group in Newcastle upon Tyne. Can't find one. Their must be a group.