supporting our fellowship representative

[Christian Kalkhoff]

Hi Luke,

Am Dienstag, 28. August 2018, 10:18:11 CEST schrieb lukerogers at tutanota.com:
> No more elections?  My fellowship contribution isn't going to FSFE next
> year, give the money to a local group where everything is done by
> volunteers and not careerists in Berlin.

Thank your ongoing willingness to support the cause and local groups, even if 
you seem dissatisfied with FSFE at the moment. But i really have to ask you to 
not call the employees names.

When I joined the Fellowship back in 2011 I wanted to support Free Software.. 
As I got to know more and more people from the larger community, I was 
motivated to start a new local group in Munich. In the beginning I was a bit 
unsure about what help I could expect from the official body. But as the Wiki 
stated and still states, there are plenty of services and resources (not 
talking about technical services) Fellows/Supporters can use for their work.

As I used more and more of those services to help spread the word about Free 
Software in Munich and Southern Germany, I was really encouraged and supported 
by those very employees to request what we/I needed. A significant part of 
this support came from our today's president, who IMHO would have been a lot 
faster up the ladder outside of FSFE, if this was his objective. 

And of course he wasn't the only one: Ulrike, Erik, Rainer, Reinhard 
(volunteering full time), Karsten, many interns that since have moved on and 
people I have not yet met due my recent absence, do a fantastic job to enable 
me to work for Free Software in my (rare) spare time. 

Long story short: Up until today I haven't met every single member of the GA, 
who mostly are volunteers on their own. But what I was able to do in Munich, 
Augsburg and now Kiel wouldn't have been possible without the permanent 
support from the employees in Berlin/Düsseldorf (and of course many, many 
volunteers that stay unnamed here).

I am pretty sure that the support I received will be given to those who ask. 
So giving money to FSFE helps spreading Free Software in all of Europe, not 
only locally.

I just wanted to tell my story to a) free the employees of FSFE from untrue 
accusations b) show what FSFE IMHO really is about. It's about Free Software, 
not a yearly vote "forced" upon a community which just wants to work for Free 
Software

Of course, if the Fellowship votes would have been cancelled without any 
replacement, that would have hurt the checks and balances. But at the same 
time people are now invited to apply for membership, the larger community and 
every supporter by itself now can do this.

Just my two cents.

Christian