Policies

Policies are now held in a git repository hosted here https://github.com/linuxaustralia/constitution_and_policies

We welcome pull requests if you have any amendments to propose.

When

The council generally meet every 2 weeks via a teleconference facility. Other meetings are as determined by the council members.

Where

Teleconference meetings are usually the most convenient, as usually the LA council will be distributed across the country. Fortnightly meetings in the evening are usually enough to keep up.

Physical meetings are at the discretion of the council. Usually at least two face to face meetings are useful. One at the beginning of the term (as close to possible after the AGM), and one about 6 months in. Likely topics to cover are:

  • Direction of Linux Australia
  • LUG communication strategies
  • LCA decisions
  • National issues LA should/could deal with

Conferences – Linux Australia will generally cover the insurance liability of Linux Australia conferences in Australia. The conference team need to ensure they are aware of the insurance needs of any venues involved and communicate this back to the LA council for early resolution. Often a proof or certificate of insurance is required by the venue/s, this is not a problem, just let the LA council know with a little time to organise it.

Community – Linux Australia welcomes the opportunity to help community groups runs events by offering our policy to cover reasonable events. This saves the LUGs/SIGs the cost of yearly insurance policies that they may only have to call upon once or twice a year.

The normal reporting LA commits to is as below:

  • The minutes are publicly available for public interest and scrutiny
  • Every meeting the treasurer will give an update, with regular reports on financial status.
  • Every month there is a brief report on the months happenings
  • Each LA council member needs to be talking to the LUGs they are responsible for, to ensure there is reporting of LA activity
  • Half way through the council’s year (6 months after AGM) a half year large report is useful, as it informs the community, shows what has been happening with due recognition, keeps the council enthused and interested. Included items should have general news, a brief timeline of events, any big news, upcoming events, recognition of any outstanding efforts, and pictures to keep it interesting 🙂
  • At the AGM there is naturally a Presidents report and the Treasurers report.

The AGM reports and the half year report (along with possibly the month reports) are added to the reports website for ease of access.

Until 2018 Linux Australia used MemberDB to manange its membership. We now run CiviCRM.

The conference sites are run by the conference organisers and aren’t integrated with the rest of the LA site. This allows for greater autonomy and consistency among the years’ conference look-and-feel. When the conference is over, the site is archived as-is.