[seedig] Pettition according to ToR, Art 7.

[Roberto Gaetano]

Dear all,
I am an observer here, but very much interested in the work of SEEDIG, and participate when I can. I have therefore a sort of look from outside - even if being born a dozen of kilometres away from the border of former Yugoslavia I feel close enough to the region :-)

My first comment is that SEE has more variety and differences than the rest of Europe - this makes it far more interesting, but also far more difficult to coordinate. Therefore, kudos to Sorina who has the ability to navigate in dire straits.

As a consequence, I would not worry too much about problems and differences that arise - those are things that happen in a diverse world. What is important is to be able to overcome disagreements before they become disruptive for the organization.
In other words, it is impossible not to have tough situations, they help the organization to grow - what is important is to use the difficulties to grow stronger, like a body that produces antibodies after a disease. I am therefore sure that SEEDIG will overcome this momentary situation and grow. And look forward to another successful meeting in 2020.

Last but not least, a personal plea to Dusan Caf. I don’t know you, and I do not want to judge whether you are right or wrong in this dispute, whether there are other people that have done good or bad things, but one thing I clearly see from the outside: you would render a very good service to the community, that you probably love, and of which you are for sure an important part of, if you resign from your current office and avoid having this very community to engage time and energies in dealing with the matter in a formal way. This will allow all to turn the page without too much casualties and you to  continue contributing - although not from a leadership position, but as the other couple of hundreds members who daily carry their own share of the job.

I am confident in a constructive solution to the present situation, and will mark the date for SEEDIG 2020 on my calendar as soon as it is announced.

And, BTW, best wishes for the holiday season coming up.
Roberto


On 16.12.2019, at 21:53, Sorina Teleanu <sorina.teleanu at seedig.net<mailto:sorina.teleanu at seedig.net>> wrote:


Dear SEEDIG community,

I reluctantly add my support to this petition, although I had hoped for many months that we would not get to this situation. Since it seems that the minimum number of supporters for this petition has been reached (22+ members out of 222 subscriptions to the list) for it to move to a vote, my support comes as a way to reinforce what has been said before, and because I feel I owe this to all community members who are standing up for SEEDIG these weeks.

Below are a few additional reasons why I back this petition:

1. For several months, Dusan Caf has ignored almost all requests for contribution to SEEDIG work and calls for Executive Committee meetings (this can be proven with e-mails I have sent and my colleagues received). Although, as we all saw, he had time to publish blog posts and send e-mails to our sponsors and partners without consulting or even informing any other ExCom member or the larger SEEDIG community.

The situation is the same now. As I informed you on Friday, I called for an Executive Committee meeting to discuss the current situation and pending SEEDIG-related issues. Our colleague has not yet responded to this call.

2. For the 2019 SEEDIG cycle, a part of the SEEDIG funds were managed via Dusan Caf's Digitas Institute in Slovenia (some sponsors decided to direct their contributions there, and there were also leftovers from SEEDIG 2018, when Digitas acted as host). Up to now, we still do not have an overview of the situation with funds left in Slovenia, despite several requests in this regard.

Like Sonia, I have also avoided bringing these and other issues to the attention of the community, as I was worried they would hurt SEEDIG as a whole. (Despite my being the target of many direct and indirect accusations and verbal attacks - a line that should not be acceptable to be crossed by any community or ExCom member.) But the e-mails sent by Dusan Caf to SEEDIG sponsors and supporting organisations (not to mention his blog post) have done exactly that. And, as a Chair, I was put in a very uncomfortable position to try to defend myself and SEEDIG from accusations made without the knowledge of the ExCom. Even assuming that his claims were true (although, once again, I strongly reject them), they should have been brought up openly, and my colleagues and I should have been given an opportunity to respond.

I am aware that the current situation is unpleasant, and is distracting us from the real work (preparing for SEEDIG 6, relaunching intersessional activities, etc). But I strongly believe that this community is able to restore trust and good faith in SEEDIG and its processes. The current challenges are also a win, as they allow us to test the strength of SEEDIG, the applicability of its core principles, and the resilience of its governance model (as now reflected in the ToR) and its anchoring in the community - all of which have been challenged (and, to some extent, undermined) recently.

On a more personal note, I do thank all those who have supported me and my work over the past weeks; they have encouraged me to stand up for myself and SEEDIG in ways I was not aware I can.

Regards,

Sorina






On 2019-12-16 19:22, Sonia H. via seedig wrote:

Dear all,

As a community member and outgoing SEEDIG Executive Committee member I fully support this petition.

In addition to what's outlined in the petition;

Mr Caf has made untruthful comments on why I didn't run for the ExCo after privately asking me why I wasn't running and receiving the answer (I had told him I couldn't commit as much time anymore). He saw no problem in publicly stating I (with other previous Ex Co members) was leaving due to transparency and governance issues.

I kept silent in order to protect trust in processes and the committee but now I see this only fueled more wrongdoings. Another reason I'm leaving the committee is Mr Caf's success in halting the work and progress which has personally frustrated me for months.

Dear Narine,

Before making suggestions I recommend you read the ToR and understand the processes involved. This is the part where we see whether the community agrees with the petition; Mr Caf has the right and time to make a defense and only later there will be a formal vote to see whether he is released from his duties or not.

Best regards,
Su Sonia Herring

On 16 Dec 2019 Mon at 19:44 Aleksandra Ivanković via seedig <seedig at lists.rnids.rs<mailto:seedig at lists.rnids.rs>> wrote:
I support the petition.

Best,
Aleksandra Ivanković

On Mon, 16 Dec 2019 at 12:31, Dušan Stojičević <dusan at dukes.in.rs<mailto:dusan at dukes.in.rs>> wrote:
Dear all,

It's always nice to see peaceful, politically correct mailings and calls for calming down, I tend to agree with them all by default, but the problem will not fly away itself, if we don't tackle the essence of the issues that you wrote about. It is seen in many initiatives with multistakeholder roots, it's not first time that I am seeing this in IG surroundings – move the problems under the carpet until the carpet reach the ceilings...
If some people like to think that my mailings are harsh and I am attacking people – so be it, I can easily step down as list admin and leave this community, as I already stepped down from any single role that I had in this initiative so far (exe com member, web admin, FB admin etc) leaving room for new fresh people. As someone who was contributing to this initiative from the very beginning, the growth of initiative should not depend on me. All those positions that I had were voluntary positions, and I don't have any personal benefit out of those roles, except work. And I am not keen to support the initiative where people likes to be in a position, plays as "wannabe politicians" and at the same time, they don't show intention to work. That's not what we was trying to build. Above that, to use that position to criticize someone else's work – this right is not earned just by position. Therefore, let see what is hidden under the carpet – let start with accountability of people in positions. This is part of democratic process, good practice, transparency and good governance, isn't it?

According to ToR Art 7., and as a voting member, I am initiating a petition for removing individual member Dusan Caf from executive committee.

Reasons:

1.      According to Art 4.1 of ToR, item d.

As organizer and official representative of host at Ljubljana meeting (his organization was paying the bills for meeting, known fact), and active member of executive committee, he didn't provide the financial report for more than a year. On the website, this report was seen after SEEDIG meeting in Bucharest, somewhere in 3Q this year (date of publishing is somewhere in late July 2019.).

Without any doubts, harm is done to the SEEDIG. For example, SEEDIG could have benefited from an UN grant (we heard about that in Bucharest); I hear that this did not happen and that the delayed publication of the report contributed to this.

Clearly, by delaying the financial reporting for so long, there can be raised fair suspicion and inquiry on how the host was handling the money. But, I still want to believe that laziness is the reason, nothing else.

2.      According to Art 4.1 of ToR, item g and h

Instead of consulting the community about all significant matters, this member of executive committee wrote a personal blog, raising concerns around SEEDIG in public. More than that, he was writing personal emails to the sponsors, without knowledge of community or, to the best of my knowledge, rest of executive committee. The emails was forwarded to me by some sponsors, with whom I have very active business. Blog can be found here https://blog.caf.si/2019/11/reflections-on-my-two-years-in-seedig.html.

If you are surprised with this blog from November, it's exactly what is regulated by those items g and h in ToR – you should not be, but you are. Also you can easily see that, roughly, half of this blog is not true (there are mailings in the archive that proves he wrongly explained certain moments in SEEDIG history, which he was not taking part) and half of the blog are alleged issues and problems which he NEEDED to share with community and colleagues in exe com. This way, without knowledge of entire community, he criticizes many thing, expressing his opinion based on mostly wrong facts, and he created fake news, the worst kind – mix of "a little bit of truth" and "a little bit of fake" makes the "perfect deal". More on that, the blog was shared on social networks by some of the sponsors with a lot of question marks about the future of SEEDIG, and by that, he was ruining hardly built trust between sponsors and SEEDIG as initiative.

I don't know how it went with members of exe com or other members of SEEDIG, but I was spending a lot of my time to answer to some of the sponsors, connected with them in my line of business, that truth is not written in that blog.

3.      According to Art 4.1 of ToR, item h

Recent meddling in election process, by asking for a report which is not regulated by ToR, and to the best of my knowledge, not in any decision of exe com, through the mail sent to the list: there is a concern that he was trying to intimidate the chair and all members of election committee. At least, by asking that, he was putting pressure to the election committee and all members, obviously not happy with the preliminary results, jeopardizing the whole election process and undermining the work of election committee. This is a very bad and dangerous practice shown from this exe com member, and he should be removed just for that.

4.      According to Art 4.2 of ToR

It's really questionable if this member of executive was fulfilling obligation of 5-6 working hours per week: If the regular obligations was not finished on time, as described in the reason under point 1., he obviously was not fulfilling this obligation also.
Conclusion – according to ToR, he is not fit to serve as exe com member, obviously he is not fit to work in a team and what is worse, he is putting the whole SEEDIG initiative in danger by his "personally initiated" (in)activities. It will be a big danger if he stays one more year of his mandate as a member.

In line with Art 7.3 in the ToR, I ask and invite community members to back up this petition - it needs 10% of the total number of members of this list to trigger a vote on removing Dusan Caf from the exe com. If you are concern about SEEDIG, this is a concrete way to express your concerns and clean up what is hidden under the carpet.

Cheers,
Dusan Stojicevic

--
Su Sonia Herring

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