Montreal Meetup: Post-camp follow-up

I'll bring a proposal for the DrupalCamp video site to the meeting. (Think http://www.ted.com/talks)

We'll need the community's commitment to make it work, last meeting barely anyone showed up.

We already had a post-DrupalCamp meeting, and very few people actually showed up. It was, for the most part, a severe waste of time. I won't be able to attend this one.

Once all the sponsors have paid, I will post my report here. The most likely scenario at this point is the surplus funds will be donated to the Drupal Association, and will be earmarked for future use by the Montreal Drupal user group. This was discussed at length by those who showed up at the meeting on Nov 8th and I've been working with Jacob Redding and Daniel Finnerty to finalize the details of such transaction.

Setting up a non-profit is not an option in the short term. Such a process would take 12-18 months to bootstrap, according to Andrew Lindsay. Personally, I don't ever see it as being a viable option (too much overhead), but those who really want to pursue it should go right ahead.

Sponsors who have yet to pay:

• 63 reasons
• DrupalConnect
• Isuma Distribution
• Laboratoire NT2
• McGill University (10 attendances)

Getting aproved by the government for a non-profit takes 4 months and UP TO 18 months. It's pretty rare though to take it 18 months.

Looks like your non-profits were all incorporated. This is indeed a challenge. The more complex an organization, the longer it'll take to setup.

Well, this is not what we are looking for. We need to setup a small association for a small user group doing business in Québec only. And it takes days only to setup. And less than a day to do the paperwork.

ENTREPRISES À BUT NON LUCRATIF

Personne morale sans but lucratif

Son conseil d'administration est composé d'au moins 3 administrateurs. Elle poursuit un but culturel, social ou autre.

Elle possède un patrimoine et une personnalité juridique distincte des membres. La responsabilité de ceux-ci est limitée
au paiement de leurs cotisations et de leurs droits d'entrée.

http://www.formulaire.gouv.qc.ca/cgi/affiche_doc.cgi?query=&dossier=1302...

Association non personnifiée en vertu du Code civil du Québec :

THIS IS THIS NON-PROFIT FORM THAT I SUGGEST.

Son conseil d'administration est composé d'au moins 2 administrateurs. Elle n'a pas de personnalité juridique et 
elle n'est pas une personne morale. Son but est de réaliser des bénéfices non lucratifs

La responsabilité personnelle des membres quant aux dettes de l'association est limitée.

Groupement :

Il est composé d'au moins 2 membres qui se réunissent autour d'intérêt commun de toute nature. Ce n'est pas
une personne morale. Son but est de réaliser des bénéfices non lucratifs.

http://www.formulaire.gouv.qc.ca/cgi/affiche_doc.cgi?query=&dossier=4688...

COOPÉRATIVE

Elle est composée d'un nombre variable de personnes (membres);

ses membres ont des besoins économiques et sociaux communs (exploiter une entreprise pour profiter de ses services);

elle est une personne morale distincte des membres;

elle possède un capital social (parts sociales, parts privilégiées, etc.);

la responsabilité financière des membres est limitée à la valeur des parts souscrites. 

Of course, administrators must be liable in an association since this is the only way to make sure that there won't be any abuse. If we want to have all the benefits of a non-profit association, all the administrators must be responsible.

This is also why that type of association do not require any annual professional services. I've been involved in many associations, and one even had a budget of $30,000 $ per year. And at no occasions any professional services were required.

As for liabilities in case someone hurts himself at an event, the association can buy insurances. For example, when the $30,000/year association organized music shows, the association had to make sure that they had a valid insurance (and various municipal permits).

A small association is not required to sell memberships, sell shares or require any personal money. All that is required a people who want to organize activities together, responsibly. However, to make things really simple for us, we might consider selling memberships at, let's say, on dollar per year, or even five. These members would be able to elect the executive committee each year in a general assembly.

Once again, I'd be happy to discuss all this in a meeting, but December 1st is the only night I cannot attend. :-(

@omar: I am always interested to discuss this also. But I cannot make it Dec 1st.