Association/Incorporation

From CommonMap

To become an operating entity, CommonMap should establish itself as a body corporate.

Given the initial project team (Brendan Morley and Baden Appleyard) resides in Queensland, Australia, it makes sense to establish the body corporate there.

In Queensland, the most appropriate type of body corporate is known as an incorporated association.

According to the information in Starting an association, an association can only incorporate under the following conditions:

 We must:
 
   1. [be a] group with at least seven members
   2. [be a] not-for-profit association.
   3. vote for [incorporation] by a three-quarter majority
   4. lodge Association Incorporation Form 1 - Application for incorporation of an association (PDF, 337 KB)
   5. pay the $117.00 fee
   6. elect a president, secretary and treasurer (two different people must hold the president and treasurer positions)
   7. adopt a set of operating rules
   8. have an address in Queensland where documents can be personally served.
   9. [Have a name that] contain[s] only English characters
   10. [Have a name that is] not be easily mistaken for the name of another incorporated association, business name, cooperative name 
         or identical to an Australian organisation name
   11. [Have a name that has] the word ‘Incorporated’ or the abbreviation ‘Inc.’ at the end of the name.
   12. [Have a name that is not restricted in] the Associations Incorporation Act 1981 and the Associations Incorporation Regulation 1999.

Contents 1 Meeting the conditions 1.1 Group with at least seven members 1.2 Not-for-Profit Association 1.3 Vote by a Three-Quarter majority 1.4 Lodge Association Incorporation Form 1 1.5 $117.00 Fee 1.6 Elect a President, Secretary and Treasurer 1.7 Operating Rules 1.8 Address in Queensland 1.9 Contain only English Characters 1.10 Not be Easily Mistaken 1.11 Incorporated or Inc. 1.12 Not Restricted by Act or Regulation

Meeting the conditions

The following subsections demonstrate how we intend to meet these conditions:

Group with at least seven members

The CommonMap Association will conduct a general meeting that will coincide with the the OpenStreetMap Samford Mapping Party at approximately 19:00, on Saturday 16th January 2010, at the Samford Valley Hotel, Main Street, Samford, Queensland, Australia.

7 members of the CommonMap Association will need to be present at the meeting in order to vote on incorporation. If you are not a member of the CommonMap Association, you can join for free on the night, prior to the meeting. It only takes a few moments.

Please note, the OpenStreetMap initiative has no legal relationship with CommonMap. The time and venue was chosen simply as a convenience for OpenStreetMap contributors to also choose to contribute to CommonMap.

You do not need to be interested in OpenStreetMap to contribute to CommonMap. Any member of the public is welcome to the meeting.

Not-for-Profit Association

The CommonMap Association has been declared not-for-profit, and we expect the "self-nominated members" to also agree as part of self-nomination.

Vote by a Three-Quarter majority

For example, if there are 7 members of the CommonMap Association in attendance for the vote during the meeting, at least 6 must indicate they are in favour of incorporating.

Lodge Association Incorporation Form 1

We propose this response to Form 1 if the vote succeeds.

$117.00 Fee

Already pledged by the project team. Please save your donations for when the incorporation succeeds and we can accept donations through PayPal or GiveNow.

Elect a President, Secretary and Treasurer

Any takers? Brendan Morley will self-nominate for President.

Operating Rules

TODO - Rules to be based on the proposed Association Objects.

Address in Queensland

By convention this appears to be the workplace of whoever is elected Secretary. Nominees must be prepared for this information to be publicly available.

Contain only English Characters

We trust that "CommonMap Inc." is self-evident in its compliance.

Not be Easily Mistaken

We performed a Google search on "CommonMap" and "Common Map" - the response typically returns pages referring to the animal called the common map turtle. There is also a reference to map symbols that are common, and a map of Boston Common.

We attempted to reach websites with obvious derivatives, such as commonmap.com.au and commonmap.com. At time of writing, commonmap.com.au is unregistered and commonmap.com is a parked domain by hostgator.com.

An ASIC search shows entries for "The Common" and "The Common Man". We believe these names to be sufficiently differentiated from "CommonMap Inc."

Incorporated or Inc.

We trust that "CommonMap Inc." is self-evident in its compliance.

Not Restricted by Act or Regulation

At time of writing, we confirm "CommonMap Inc." does not appear to be restricted in this manner.