CONSEN SCE Euro-Coop (EN)

Purpose

 
CONSEN is a group of skilled voluntary people working to create and maintain high quality open cooperative resources for free discussion. This is done by creating and actively maintaining and further developing services open to the general public which can be used for information interchange.
CONSEN services are primarily aimed at its key target audience. At the time of writing this document, the technology used for these services is Information and Communication Environments (ICE). For creating and maintaining its services, CONSEN may use previously created technologies which it finds capable in technical and other ways. CONSEN may also modify these technologies to better serve the required purposes, or CONSEN may create the technologies needed on its own.
CONSEN’s aim is to emphasize on the quality of the provided service above all else. 

 

 
The main chairman is the commanding person of the network. S/he has a veto right in all decisions
and approves all major decisions alone. The chairman should make decisions based on the ruling
board’s suggestions. The chairman must, when requested, justify made decisions in writing. The
majority of all active operators and members of the ruling board may request change of chairman
with just cause and two thirds majority vote. The chairman should appoint a temporary substitute if
s/he is unavailable for an extended period of time.

 

Organisational Structure

CONSEN ccop is organised in four main Areas that are governed by the General Assembly of Members annually and its Executive Steering Board.

General Assembly of Members
The
General Assembly of Members is the highest body in the CONSEN
cooperative and meets once a year, usually in Febraury. All Members
should be represented in the General Assembly. The basic principles is
one member one vote and all relevants decisions have to be approved by
unanimity. The current Chairman of the General Assembly and the
Steering Board is Mr.Ferran Cabrer who acts as Executive president.
Steering Board
The
Steering Board is elected by the General Assembly and meets regularly.
It sets the overall policy direction for the CONSEN grouping and
handles the its coordination, priority setting and management, aided by
three Ad Hoc Groups on Operative Procedures, Budget and Regulatory
issues.
The Steering Board approves CONSEN specifications and
offers them for research, technological development, innovation and
business services to the relevant international organizations, bodies
and any potential client requesting advise.
Areas
The CONSEN is divided in four main areas, each covering a specific element of the work undertaken. The main areas are:
  • Commercial, Promotion and Communications development of a join catalog and a marketing task force.
  • Technical are the driving force behind the development of the CONSEN specifications and research results.
  • Scienfifical concerned to research in Information Society Technologies and Open Solutions issues.
  • Business dealing with the partnership programme and network promotion of CONSEN around Europe.

Working Groups
The
ad hoc Working Groups are where the real development of the CONSEN
activities takes place. Originating from the Four Areas and focussing
on specific topics, they work towards clearly defined goals. Made up of
experts they are the beating hart of the CONSEN grouping.

Community: Associates, Observers and Investors
The
main CONSEN coop force is the CONSEN trans-national community formed by
different companies and organizations that has punctual or regular
collaborative actions participating in CONSEN projects or events. A
number of organisations have been granted a non-voting Associates
status, including such entities from EU abroad. The Observers group is
a massive external population of organizations that follows the CONSEN
activities and participate sporadically in some event or project
proposal. The collaborators network is a very critical and relevant
group of organizations, universities and research centers who discuss,
collaborate and support the CONSEN activities. Finnally a small part,
less than 10%, can be partners investors non partcipating directly in
the services and actions of CONSEN but providing a consistent balance
sheet to reflect the guarantees needed for some projects, tenders and
grants.

Partnership Programme

Partners

CONSEN Partners
are organisations which have demonstrated a higher level of CONSEN
expertise and which have a commercial relationship with CONSEN company.
CONSEN Partners participate in the development of CONSEN
info-space and are able to help shape the future direction of the
distribution. Typically, they are small companies and that consider
CONSEN to be a key part of their business strategy at European level.

Benefits

  • Partner logo rights
  • Partner listing in the CONSEN Marketplace
  • Joint Partner / Canonical press releases
  • Lead generation and referrals
  • Participation in CONSEN Business Council (a forum to decide corporate technical and marketing requirements)
  • Discounted access to marketing materials for trade shows and conferences with CONSEN branding
  • Access to paid engineering services to ensure product compatability and full client services
  • Locale representative of CONSEN network

Requirements

  • ink to CONSEN homepage on Partner's website
  • Signed terms and conditions
  • Annual shared fee to support partnership programme