How to procure goods and services?
Nick S
Public
Seen by 34
I'm wondering about how we'd get new servers and backup space. I'm still uncertain about how we procure stuff.
It seems the process takes three weeks normally - not counting the time for a proposal to be drafted: 6 days for a vote here, then up to two weeks for Open Collective to pay.
Am I correct to infer that, as social.coop does not legally exist, we need an individual as sponsor to step as the official name on every contract or invoice we sign? And the implication then is that sponsor has to manage interactions, pay future bills, and claim everything via Open Collective? (One advantage of that is that the sponsor, if willing and able to, can pay up front once the proposal is settled.)
But notably, if there are any unexpected fees, fines, liabilities, or whatever, that sponsor is legally responsible for them?
That seems quite a lot to expect of someone, and I am wondering if SC needs to make this easier by becoming a legal entity and getting a bank account? (This of course would be a whole extra thing to sort out.)
Comments solicited!
Darren Sun 2 Sep 2018 11:50PM
You raise an interesting point @wulee
I've got limited experience with how this kind of stuff works on an international scale, as your in the UK, and I'm guessing you are concerned about your personal liability if you paid for new servers, I'll lay out how I think it is likely to work.
Possibly relevant, I do know UK corporations that have directors that do not hold UK passports.
To get an account on SC you have to click 'request membership' on the homepage. The homepage also talks about members co-owning SC and the byelaws lay down how things work pretty clearly regarding governance. All this should make it, what we call in the UK, an unincorporated association (UA).
To quote a UK judges definition of a UA -
“Two or more persons bound together for one or more common purposes, not being business purposes, by mutual undertakings each having mutual duties and obligations, in an organisation which has rules which identify in whom control of it and its funds rests and on what terms and which can be joined or left at will.”
Theres a great guide to this stuff produced by Coops UK https://www.uk.coop/resources/simply-legal
theres a good brief outline about contracts in UA on p.14
"If a contract is signed by one member acting with authority (for example, authority given to the members of a governing body in the organisation’s governing document), all members may be liable under that contract and, as mentioned previously, the liability is unlimited. Authority can be shown in a variety of ways, such as specific wording in the governing document itself or by the members approving the contract (for example, at a meeting of the members). Clearly it is important for people who enter into contracts on behalf of an unincorporated organisation to make sure that they have authority to do so. It is best practice to make sure that the governing document protects the
members as they will not be protected in law."
The Co-ops UK document will have been thoroughly checked by lawyers.
Looks to me like you wouldnt be liable - but I'm not a lawyer and I'm not giving you legal advice ;-P
It would be interesting to see how a legal team would attempt to pursue a claim against SC in its current form - I imagine it would be a complete nightmare for them.
Hope that helps.
Poll Created Mon 3 Sep 2018 1:37AM
[Urgent] Allocating $500 from the budget for emergent Tech upgrades. Closed Wed 5 Sep 2018 1:02AM
This proposal allocates up to $500 for emergent Tech stabilization/upgrades.
The funds are to be used as at the direction and discretion of the Tech Ops Team Coordinator provided that;
A post in the Tech Working Group and Finance Working Group of intended purchases are made 24hrs prior to their execution. Barring 2 objections it may proceed.
Detailed invoicing/receipts of the purchases are uploaded to Finance Working Group within 48hrs of the purchase.
The term of this allocation is 6 months any unused funds will roll back onto general budget.
-The budget allocation amount may be amended as needed by a committee/board empowered to do so if/when one if formed.
The proposal provides for the Tech Ops Team Coordinator to pre-invoice funds up to $100 in advance of large purchases.
The expedited term of this proposal in the Finance Working Group is to gather feedback and amend, while minimizing delays prior to submitting full group for binding vote.
Results
| Results | Option | % of points | Voters | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
|
Agree | 100.0% | 8 |
|
| Abstain | 0.0% | 0 | ||
| Disagree | 0.0% | 0 | ||
| Block | 0.0% | 0 | ||
| Undecided | 0% | 2 |
|
8 of 10 people have participated (80%)
Nick S
Mon 3 Sep 2018 8:25AM
This amount should be sufficient for immediate hardware concerns. Although maybe not potential labour costs if in a bad situation we need to delegate ~10s of hours of work to a 3rd party such as Web Architects. I think that would be payable in arrears, however, and maybe we would have other options.
Michele Kipiel
Mon 3 Sep 2018 12:56PM
This looks like a solid proposal to expedite expense approval given the current situation, let's proceed with this
Thomas Beckett
Mon 3 Sep 2018 3:54PM
Well formulated proposal.
Darren
Mon 3 Sep 2018 10:54PM
Ideally somewhere in the process would be a bit of time for discussion about what the money is being spent on, I appreciate this tends to happen - and I get that we are up against a deadline and ability to be agile may end up being crucial. I trust @wulee and like the way theyve been organising stuff.
Michele Kipiel Mon 3 Sep 2018 1:07PM
I proposed incorporating social.coop under Maltese cooperative law a while back, but some problems (the main one being a request for scanned documents of all members by the Maltese government as proof of existence) stopped the proposal in its tracks.
Nick S Mon 3 Sep 2018 2:28PM
I remember noticing that EdgeRyders were incorporated as an eResident in Estonia:
https://edgeryders.eu/t/terms-of-use-and-privacy-policy/44
However, I have no insights on whether this would be suitable for us or not, except that it is supposed to be relatively easy.
Matthew Cropp · Sun 2 Sep 2018 11:17PM
Yes, that's roughly the current set-up. For instance, the Loomio subscription draws from my card once per month, and then I submit the receipts via OpenCollective once every few months or so to be reimbursed.
Seems to work for the scale we're currently operating at, but if we're going to scale to the point where we have formal staff and bills running in the four or five figures, we'll need to transition to something more robust and professionalized.