General assembly of the FSF Europe Manchester Conference Centre University of Manchester Sackville Street Manchester M1 United Kingdom Saturday, May 27th 2006 15:30 Opening by the chair. By invitation sent on March 6th, 2006 we have come together to the general assembly in Manchester on Saturday May 27th, 2006. People attending the Assembly are: Bernhard Reiter Gareth Bowker Georg Greve [chair] Henrik Sandklef Jonas Öberg Karin Kosina Peter Gerwinski Reinhard Müller Stefano Maffulli Werner Koch [protocol] People not attending are: Georg Jakob The chair confirms that the orderly invitation has been issued in time and more than one third of the members are represented and therefore we are resolutionable. Agenda: 1. Greeting 2. Determination of resolutionability 3. Approval of protocol of general assembly held 7th of May 2005 at Vienna University of Technology, Institute for Software Technology and Interactive Systems, Favoritenstr. 9-11/188/2, 1040 Vienna, Austria 4. Confirmation of parting member(s): Alessandro Rubini 5. Membership confirmation of new member(s): Gareth Bowker 6. Report of Extended Executive Committee 7. Miscellaneous 8. Closing Re 1. Greeting -------------- Chair welcomes the atttendes. Re 2. Determination of resolutionability --------------------------------------- 10 members of 11 are present as well as two guest. The chair declares the general assembly as resolutionable. The invitation was sent out in time. Chair asks for addendums to the agenda. Jonas Öberg requests an addition to the agenda: "Exclusion of Peter Gerwinski". Vote on this addendum request: 9 yes, 0 no, 1 abst. It is therefore added to the agenda as point 6b. No further additions are requested. Re 3. Approval of protocol of 2005 general assembly ------------------------------------------------- The chair read out the 2005 protocol. The protocol is approved [9 yes, 0 no, 1 abst]. Re 4. Confirmation of parting members ------------------------------------- Alessandro Rubini terminated his membership due to private reasons on 2005-10-25 by signed mail. Chair regrets the termination of Alessandro and thanks him for all of his valuable work. Re 5. Membership confirmation of new members -------------------------------------------- Secret vote was not requested. Vote on membership of: Gareth Bowker Unanimously approved [9 yes, 0 no, 0 abst]. The general assembly warmly welcomes Gareth as member. Re 6. Reports of Extended Executive Committee --------------------------------------------- The president, Georg Greve, explained that the FSFE had a very successful and turbulent year. The work has been extended to many new regions. The new emloyees greatly help with the increased work. He thanks them, as they are in the room as guests. He further explained that we worked with our sister organisation, FSF, on the GPL version 3. The new member from the UK expandend the range of the FSFE and we are going to expand to Spain and probably Switzerland in the near future. The vice-president, Jonas Öberg, felt no need to add anything to the information given by Georg Greve.. The Head of Office gives a brief overview on the financial situation. The revenues in the year 2005 have been about 71000 Euros out of donations and 43000 out of the fellowship project. Major expenses in 2005 have been about 80000 for personnel cost. Planning for 2006 results in a profit of about 30000 Euro. The HoC explains the reasons for switching from a simple method of bookeeping to full bilancing, which is in progress since early spring of this year. This along with the simple bookkeeping used in the past are the reason for only being able to give rough numbers. Full bilance sheets should be available by mid of July 2006 and from that on monthly and on demand bilance sheets and related information will be made available. FSFE has a pretty well stand in financial regard and no problems are foreseeable for the current and the next years. The numbers and prelimary planning are available in Subversion archive directory Office/Administrative/Financial-Planning, revison 2869. 6b. Exclusion of Peter Gerwinski -------------------------------- Jonas Öberg requested exclusion of Peter Gerwinski on the grounds of non-participation and broken bound of trust. Chair asks for comments: No comments from anyone. Peter Gerwinski applies for secret voting. Vote done using blanket paper, 3 symbols agreed upon, similar pens are used by everyone. Plus sign means in favor of exclusion, minus sign means disagreement with the exclusion. "O" or a blank sheet means abstension. Ballots are folded twice and collected in a hat. The chair asks guest and present employee of the FSFE, Joachim Jakobs, to do the counting under the eyes of all participants. Result: In favor of exclusion: 8 Disagreement with the exclusion: 1 Abstaints: 1 Chair asked wether anyone wanted to recount. Nobody requested this. The exclusion of peter Gerwinski is therefore agreed upon. Chair asked whether anyone is against allowing Peter Gerwinski to stay in the room. This is granted. The chair expressed his regrets for excluding Peter Gerwinski. Re 7. Miscellaneous --------------------- There are no miscellaneous items raised. Re. 8 Closing ------------- 16:17 Closed by the chair. He thanks all members for attending and whish us a good and productive year. Additional notes ----------------- Karin Kosina left the room at 3:45 for personal reasons and entered again on 4:01. [ Werner Koch, protocol ] [ Georg Greve, chair, president ]