Regulations for SOL CORE STAFF & DELEGATES (always draft because always evolving)

2014.9.25 DRAFT/Potential IC Regulations.
2015.4.29 changed SOL to ODD

In all previous attempts to use loomio as a management tool it was found that when there are many members of the group there are many different ideas on how the platform should be used. For this reason the most active ODD people have decided to form this loomio group - Online Direct Democracy INNER CIRCLE - which is the core orchestrating group in the evolving total Online Direct Democracy (ODD) structure.

To be a political party, under the rules of the Australian Electoral Commission(AEC), ODD must have a constitution, executive, and membership. In reality it needs a core group of people who orchestrate the party goals and activities. This group is called the Inner Circle (IC). ODD is a hybrid of the official political system of Australia and direct democracy. The operations of the IC are similar in that it is an integration of normal associated body structure (with its executive committee) and the structure of the IC, which is a sociocracy.

The IC is an expansion on the duties of the ODD executive and it will make decisions according to the rules pertaining to the executive, as outlined in section 6 in the ODD Constitution. http://www.senatoronline.org.au/ODD-constitution.html It also empowers the sub-groups of ODD by essentially making them delegated members of the executive.

The AEC will only interact with the secretary of ODD and so this responsibility must remain the duty of the ODD executive. The ODD executive committee gives its other responsibilities to the IC but retains the ability to revoke this permission at an AGM and/or Executive meeting. (This must be documented in the minutes of an official Executive Meeting or could ratified by the eligible voters at the AGM).

The current executive of ODD are:
Berge Der Sarkissian, Adrian Zanetic, Francois Crespel, Nick Debenham, LB Joum

Any person in the ODD official Executive Committee has the right to be a member of the IC group, but they must agree to follow the basic rule of keeping to core business and sub-group creation procedure. It is not compulsory for members of the executive to be members of the IC. (or should it?)

The IC is a Sociocracy. (need to query whether the regulations of this group can exist within a sociocratic system)

Sub-groups of the IC are the ODD sociocratic department / circles structure. The creation of a sub-group requires 100% of IC membership consent (not an individual decision).

A subgroup must have at least 1 delegate and no more than 2 delegates. Subgroups set their own rules and elect their delegates. Delegates of a sub-group must be members of the IC.

Because the IC operates as a continuous process on the Internet, and makes proposals and decisions on THE fly, there is no need to announce a meeting to make a proposal and decision but the sociocratic rules of consent always apply. If a decision is made it is always possible for a member to change their mind and ask that it be taken to the next minuted meeting.

The maximum number of members in the IC is determined by the Maximum number of executive members (10) plus the number of sub-group delegates who are not members of the executive, plus a number of reserve, gender specific (women only), positions that are created when all available positions are occupied and there is a gender inequality greater than 3:1. Therefore the maximum number of members would occur when all sub-groups had 2 delegates and all the delegates and executive were men and none of the executive were delegates. maximum = subgroups*2 + 10 + (subgroups*2 + 10)*0.25
*example if sub-groups=12 (like now)
12*2 + 10 + (12*2 + 10)*0.25 = 42.5

When the ODD executive is less then its allowable maximum (10) and/or not all executive want to be members of the IC then the spare vacancies can be filled by people who participate in IC conversations through email. They are called “General IC Members”. We have allowed general members because the workload of the IC is too large for a small group of people. It is likely that the General Members will become executive or delegates and therefore the category may not be needed in future. It must be noted that if/when the the executive membership is 10 and all members choose to be part of the IC it could potentially displace a General Member, so we would review the membership criteria if this event occurred.

Membership to a sub-group is not limited to members of the IC. The sub-groups are the sub-departments of ODD. The creation of a new sub-group will be a collective IC decision and must have consensus.

Any delegate from a sub-group must be included in the IC group, but they must agree to follow the basic rule of keeping to core business and sub-group creation procedure.

The IC is able to add or r/eject any member of the IC other than members of the ODD executives or delegates from a sub-group. Outside of these conditions the IC can add any person as a General Member if they show evidence of participating by giving responses to our emails that we circulate, and a clear majority (70%) of a quorum (quorum number needs to be defined) of the IC member’s consent. We will not to discuss, or vote on, a person’s inclusion, to the loomio IC core group, in public. There are no restrictions as to who a member of the IC is allowed to included in emails to the members of our core group, because when there is a vacancy we encourage people to participate in the hope that more will join our core group.

The growth in the productivity of this core group due to this structure will propel ODD to its inevitable success.