Dear neighbours,

At the Nabuur Camp we agreed (Denis, Siegfried and I) to facilitate collecting and reporting the advices from the neighbours to the Board. There is still the old Board, but maybe it would be good to define the way how to gather the opinions from the neighbours and how to report them to the Board once it is in place.

We said that the three of us will split the work so that Denis works with local reps, me with facilitators and Siegfried (and others interested to give us a hand) with neighbours. But there is also a threat that the task will then become scattered all around the site (e.g. a task in facilitator group, LR group, here etc), so I guess we could try with one task here and see how it will go?
Pelle sent out an invitation to all the facs but directed them to facilitator group. I haven't created a task there, cause it seems to me that the discussion could become pretty messy.

The ideas we could collect in a wiki, which we could then turn into a document with advices for the Board?

Please let me know your wishes and ideas.

Have a nice day
Sonja

Dear Sonja,

Thank you for this new development of pointing out the task-force that
was created in NabuurCamp.
It is getting abit late because even Denis has never reported to
us for our inputs.
What is the way forward?
Time is getting short before June 1st.2010.

Hi Sonja,

Can you specify what type of information and/or advice you're collecting? Is this information pertinent to the current (and exiting) board, or will it be a 'wish-list' that the incoming board (beginning June 1) will need to address? (And by 'wish list', I mean strategic points that the community wishes to implement or see introduced as part of the future of Nabuur.)

I ask because, as you have pointed out also, there seems to be overlapping discussions in this group, with more than one thread addressing board issues. It's confusing and frustrating for me, so I'll presume it may cause some confusion in others as well.

Thanks,
Romina

Sonja-

I have been spending much time the last few days reading the constitution document. As I understand it, when Nabuur was originally formed, it's governance structure consisted of a Board of Directors and a Supervisory Board. As I understand it now, there is no longer anyone in place on the supervisory board and 3 remaining members of the current Board of Directors who will step down on June 1.

If Nabuur remains a foundation based in the Netherlands, what I do not know is if this structure is required by law, or if it is simply what was proposed at the time that Nabuur was formed. Based on the lack of a supervisory board (please correct me if I am wrong-but I see no evidence to the contrary right now) I am guessing that this was simply what was originally proposed. The Board of Directors held primary responsibility for communication with Nabuur staff - staff functioned as the Board's link to the volunteer base. Now that there are no more paid staff, my assumption is that what you are after is a conduit between the board and the volunteer base.

1. I think it is very important that the volunteer base be engaged during times of strategic planning. If that happens, the volunteers are provided with the opportunity to have their say and make suggestions for improving the organization as a whole. If I was an incoming board member, I would certainly appreciate knowing what the community thinks and views as necessary to move forward. I highly recommend that the entire Nabuur community be engaged in the strategic planning process as one means to communicate the needs of the "front line."

2. I think it will also be necessary to identify point people for certain things that need done to make the organization/site run. People need to know who they can go to with questions or concerns. While this may be only a volunteer role now, it is still critical that people know who to go to when they need help. These roles need to be defined and clearly posted so that anyone coming to Nabuur knows who to contact. These people could be invited to attend the Board meetings or elect a representative among them to attend in order to summarize/communicate anything pressing that needs to be discussed.

3. Perhaps there can be a group set up for regular communication to/from the Board. I think there are other means that could be considered as well, such as posting meeting minutes, community chats, conference calls - but, I think it's important to note that not all volunteers will ultimately want to be that deeply involved in governance issues. I know when I came here I certainly never expected to be figuring out how the organization should continue - I came to contribute and help the communities with projects posted here.

For now, those are my suggestions/ideas for how to best communicate the needs of the community with the incoming board.

Jennifer

Dear All,

With this kind of discussions, I do hope we are coming
closer to engage stakeholders in effective communication for the most
emerging issues.
Such issues include :
-the expected elected board which is representative of all constituencies.
-the the terms of reference for the board or boards.
-Jennifer has talked of a supervisory board and to me I can call it Board of Trustees.
-the structures or organs of Nabuur.
-the financial regulations or provisions.
Who at this time of transition is manadated to supervise the financial accountability
of Nabuur and is there any Nabuur Bank Account anyway?
In case there is none who then can honour the operations of Nabuur leave alone the
credibility of the entire organisation and its stakeholders?
-Jennifer it is good you have pointed out some salient issues particularly on the formation
of NABUUR. When it was formed there was constitution document.Is it possible for you to
post it on Nabuur website for Volunteers to know some of the contents which are contained
in it? These are new developments that need to be reflected for the way forward.
At this material time, we need a legal documents which bind all stakeholders to create and
sustain a credible institution that we shall all be proud of. I hope this is the right time to
have Team spirit leading to Team building for the good of Nabuur.

For now, there seems to be a light at the end of the tunnel.

Sulaiman.

Sulaiman-

The constitution has actually been posted for some time under "Nabuur constitution wiki" in the project room. It looks like there is nothing there so it is easy to miss. Here is a link to it:

http://www.nabuur.com/files/Statuten%20NABUUR%20eng.pdf

Jennifer

Dear all,
I'm in Tanzania with very limited internet access. Saw Jennifer's posting. have not seen all the other discussions. Just for clarification: there IS a supervisory board of 3 persons (Marius Enthoven, Peter Felix and Jessie Bokhoven) and an executive director (me). We've indicated that we'd like to hand over our positions somewhere in June.
better send this now before the power goes down again.
Siegfried

Dear All,

This is the kind of information that we are lacking.
Originally you were only refering to the "interim board"
and the "current board" without mentioning the supervisory
board.
Now that Mr.Siegfried is pointing out the supervisory board, it seems
it is not representative enough to reflect the interests
of the cross-section of all stake-holders.
What has been the functions of the supervisory board
vis avis the the current board and the key stake-holders?
How often has it been meeting?
Now that you also said there is a board that is going
to hand over? Have the two boards been having any joint
meetings concerning the future of Nabuur?
Is there any reports for such meetings?
What do Marius Enthoven, Peter Felix and Jessie Bokhoven have to say about the transition come June 1,2010?

Time is limited and we need to have strategic plans in place by coming up with a legally binding document(constitution) to propel us
in the future with programmes implemented by villages of Nabuur-Global which is credible, accommodative,transparent
and accountable to all its stakeholders.
At this time, our hands are tied because we can not come up with meaningful fundraising
strategies because of such formidable challenges.
The struggle still continues for all of us to come up with ideas of the credible Nabuur
we want which is internationally acceptable with functional structures in place.

Sulaiman.

Jennifer (also Sulaiman & other Ugandan rep Denis (?) he is fighting with)

What exactly have you explained here to others that has not been explained by quite a few others including me, who have legal qualifications?

I have a Masters in European Union Business & Trust Law and your reading of the situation is not the basis of Advise giving...

Its ridiculous to ask those who have legal education worth over $500,000 to have to get harassed by people "Guessing" at the law! This is time-wasting!

Nabuur has failed to meet funding target for 3 years +, in my world, you would be "dead as a doornail" after 3 months of Failed target!

Sulaiman is a professional doing his job and he is being "monkeyed around" by people LESS EDUCATED than him! Why? Because the basic "criteria for recruiting western volunteers" were stuffed!

You end up with unqualified ppl like Romina the admin secretary, yelling at and telling people with Doctors degrees in Africa what to do ! What a joke! Then people fight out of frustration!

There is no one to Blame but management who failed to meet target for 3 yrs, instead of Ugandans fighting with one another over this...that is WRONG.

Hey Siegfried, the names of those on "This supervisory" board changes from month to month.
First there is none, then there is 1 (with different name), now there are 3 people in a Supervisory board ?

When others suggested a wider-board inclusion to existing Board, you said NO, This Board NEVER existed.
Now it is "us" who were trying to "narrow down" people and you were trying to get us to do "wikipedia" LAW ???

Are you looking for a lawsuit for Nabuur by "playing" with Legal information like this?

Why not take the Responsibility for a failed venture and Admit "Sorry, I mismanaged some things in the past and now Volunteers are fighting because of this."

But instead, you actually sat by as a Executive director and did not issue one single "code of conduct or guidelines" on appropriate discourse to your own PAID staff on how to talk to volunteers, let alone giving acceptable "limits" on how volunteers should advise 3rd world developing projects e.g. HIV projects being given unscientific homophobic advise about Aids prevention, Romina sending character assasination to other volunteers hysterically, Some bizarre Christian project sending out request to "help barbaric Hindu people learn to dress properly".

This is Now an Internet Abuse Website that I can report to Watchdog.com! I am not joking.

Nabuur is Now just "monkey-ing around in the 3rd world" with Urgent needs! You are abusing their trust like this.

An educated guy like Sulaiman and Denis both from Uganda should not be fighting because of "Nabuur Management failures!"..you are dividing ppl, not helping them to help themselves. You are also just letting your 1st world volunteers run amok and say whatever rubbish that comes into their heads, even if they have NO Education whatsoever about the topic!

Keep going like this...and some European internet regulatory bodies will close you down anyway! So problem solved!

Good intentions? Well..road to hell is paved....
There's no discipline in this management style...so the "cream" has left" and the "abusive crap" stays.

Niels,

For your information: NABUUR is a community, not a commercial business. Next to that the 'business' of 'multi cultural online communities' is not a crystal clear one yet. Perhaps you can imagine that changes perspectives on being 'dead as doornails' or any changes that have taken place over the last few years. We're all here to give it our best shot to make it work. Please make yourself useful and help out with a decent governance structure and constitution.
These rants lead to nothing but insulted people and more fights.

Pelle

Dear all,

It seems there are a few things that still need clearing up (if there are still some of you around). Although there is a huge amount of info here: http://www.nabuur.com/en/group/nabuur-governance-team/project/task/nabuu...

There is a supervisory board of three people, that has been there for years. The board of directors consists of Siegfried himself. (see http://www.nabuur.com/en/board-management)

The 4 of them have announced they'd like to step down IN June (not specifically the 1st of June). What exactly happens then depends on the plans the community has made by then.

As far as I know the annual account 2009 is with the accountant right now. That should become available when Siegfired is back. I'm not sure how it will help this discussion move further though.
NABUUR Foundation shouldn't have any ongoing legal obligations (none that I'm aware of) nor will there be lots of funds. Some budget may remain of the support HIVOS gave at the beginning of the year, of which Siegfried proposed it go to the development of a new site (10k)

There have been talks about a remaining budget of 60.000,- which HIVOS could make available, provided there is a new NABUUR structure + plans on how to move forward.

Pelle

Dear Pelle,

Thank you for the clarifications made.
In moving forward as observed in herein, I did yesterday attach a draft working constitution for everyone's consideration.

It highlights some issues like board composition and election, role of the board and the CEO, membership to Nabuur (for those members or organisations like HIVOS who would like to associate with NABUUR in this regard), a statement on insurance among others.

I also observed that the CEO could be choosen by the Board or the Chair of the Board automatically becomes the CEO on volunteer terms.

Members should thus read this draft item attached herein for further deliberations.

Looking forward to a positive engagement.

Marsha Denis

Draft NABUUR Constitution.doc

Niels,

Romina is loved and respected by many many people in the NABUUR community for what she did as Facilitator for many years, as a volunteer and as a professional. I don't think it helps this discussion to blame her or any other volunteer. Please use your professional education to realise your dreams with NABUUR.

Gerdie

Dear All,

I have read the document posted by Denis which he has refered to as a draft constititution.
I have discovered that he has not followed some procedures:
- first of all knowing the constituencies he is addressing for his draft consitution.
- knowing that Nabuur global is no longer something that is based in Netherlands and now it is now international.
- methods of soliciting ideas,contributions,advice.
- constitition making follows a comprehensive consultatory process with all major stake-holders giving their views before one comes up with any draft. I understand, there was a draft-constitution committee selected at NabuurCamp and they all admitted that they were not legal experts or they lacked legal skills of
drafting a viable constitution.
I wonder if Denis is a Legal Expert or if he has enough exposure of coming up with a draft constitution.
What he has presented is a Memorandum and Articles of Association of a Company based in Uganda and not
in Netherlands or other countries because laws are not the same and so the implications varry from
country to country. The laws that work in Uganda may not necessarily apply in the United States of America or Tanzania
for that matter. I have been in the United States of America and Tanzania but the laws varry. But the two countries are bound by the international instruments and conventions. So, Denis should know this.
Denis, were you the one who drafted that document?
One must distinguish all this to avoid future contradictions. Nabuur is now global and must strictly follow the international laws and other related instruments that respect good governance and respect for
human rights free of exploitation by any person or groups of persons.

I have also realised in his 23 document paper, he is silent about the major stake-holders and that
is Village beneficiaries in different parts of the world, Local Representatives,Facilitators,Neighbours'roles,donor agencies and other development partners.
He has not talked about the Board of Trustees which is now refered to as Supervisory Body.
You can not ignore to mention about such Celebrities like President Bill Clinton if you are to
champion the humanitarian cause anywhere in this world because you have Clinton Foundation.
I have noted that you emphasise the Board of Directors and the issue of numbers.
Is number 7 a magical number? How representative is this number at regional and global level?
What is the composition and method of selection or election?
I understand Mr.Siegfried prefers selection using the selection process as he earlier proposed.
Have you considered the issue of gender in your draft?

All in all, I can say this is your document which is full of gaps and can be misleading.
Nabuur is turning global and we should have International Forum where we can have a
retreat to solicit ideas from major stake-holders other than rushing with un-baked information
and this can be dangerous in case of manipulation and exploitation of the poor in developing
countries.

So, I suggest we take a correct, concrete step at a time rather than so many steps when we are being led by
a blind person and making grave mistakes for which we shall all regret.

Sulaiman.