Motion to amend "grex" bylaws, article 3 section a (board of directors)

Nov 7 02:27 UTC 1999

I move (make a motion) that the "grex" bylaws - Article 3 section a - be
amended as follows:

At any time that a new Treasurer must be selected, such times including
but not limited to:

        -The previous Treasurer was an out-going board member
        -There are one or more new board members seated

The board, at its discretion, may appoint a grex member to be Treasurer,
in lieu of one of the board members.  The appointed Treasurer would have
the same rights and responsibilities as a Treasurer selected from the board,
and must agree to abide by all rules governing board members.

There would be no limit on term of service of an appointed Treasurer.

If a newly seated board member wished to be selected Treasurer, he/she would
be given preference to fulfill that office over an appointed Treasurer,
existing or prospective.

response 2 of 41:

Nov 7 02:41 UTC 1999

Do we wait for a second?

Move to amend the motion to set the term of office of an appointed Treasurer
to one year, ending on December 31st; a person can be re-appointed to
an unlimited number of terms.  Further, an appointed Treasurer would be
an ex-officio member of the Board, with all the rights and privileges
thereto pertaining, and must therefore be eligible to election to the Board.

response 4 of 41:

Nov 7 04:42 UTC 1999

a nitpick:  if the treasurer position is to be open to re-appointment for an
unlimited number of one-year terms, then why specify a one-year term at all?
if someone wants to be treasurer, then (given appropriate qualification) why
shouldn't they continue to be so for as long as both that person and Grex find
it to be acceptable, and when it no longer suits, allow for a training and
transition period whenever convenient instead of at the end of the year?

i think this makes much more sense...  it assumes that any outgoing treasurer
would be appropriately responsive to the need of the group and their
replacement, which would likely be a prerequisite anyway.  

response 6 of 41:

Nov 7 05:59 UTC 1999

I think we've always been lucky in getting some extremely good people to
serve as treasurer.  At the same time, though, I have to say that
there's a lot to be said for *not* becoming too dependent on any one
person, especially as treasurer.  Sure, it's a nuisance for a new person
to have to learn how to do the job, but that's something we should
always be willing to do anyways, and it's no bad thing to have the
practice of having done this every 2 years or so, and to have a pool of
more than one person in the grex membership at large who have had the
past experience of having done a good job of this.

For those who haven't had any experience with a bad treasurer, I need
look no further than m-net to point to as an example of just how bad
things *could* get.

So, while I think we'll all miss aruba's skills here, I think this
really is an amendment we should pass up.

response 8 of 41:

Nov 7 15:38 UTC 1999

Clearly, treasurer is the hardest and most demanding job, next is 
secretary.  Neither of which need to be board members, although it
is a good foundation for giving board members something more to do with
the organization than showing up for meetings.

I'm suspicious that the requirement of taking on one of these jobs
from the board pool might be reducing the volunteer pool for potential 
board members.  Perhaps that is a good thing, because then a certain
level of commitment appears to come with the assignment and it may
upgrade the quality level of candidates even though reducing the number.

response 10 of 41:

Nov 7 18:54 UTC 1999

Re #0: Your wording would appear to have the effect that if the majority
of the board would prefer to have a non-board-member as treasurer, that
any single board member can overrule them and choose to be the treasurer.
This does not strike me as a good thing; usually the will of the majority
of the board should be respected.

Re #2: If you say that someone must be eligible to serve on the board,
then this rules out people who are inelible because they have just served
two consecutive terms, yet I thought the point of this item was to (for
example) allow aruba to continue as treasurer even though he is ineligible to
serve on the board.

Overall, I'm inclined to consider the status quo adaquate.

response 12 of 41:

Nov 7 22:11 UTC 1999

True.  

From what little I understand, it seems that being treasurer, while 
certainly a very important job, is not extremely difficult or 
time-consuming.  Mostly it requires 1) being careful, 2) spending a 
certain amount of time on it regularly, and 3) being willing to do it.  
It seems to me that when someone agrees to serve on the board (or even 
accepts a nomination), they should do so realizing that they may be 
called upon to perform this service.  I think that if all seven board 
members are really unable or unwilling to be treasurer, then there are 
more serious problems at work than the bylaws.  
  (And yes, the fact that I've accepted a nomination means I have 
thought this through with myself in mind.  :)

response 14 of 41:

Nov 8 04:20 UTC 1999

Re #7 -- my impression was that the original purpose of this amendment
was to "get around" the 2 term limit on board members.  If the intent is
instead to limit the time even a non-board treasurer could serve, that
would indeed make it a very different animal.

If the intent of such an amendment is to enable a treasurer to serve in
perpetuity (board member or not), then I'd have to say I'm definitely
against it.  I think it's clear enough from our past history that we
would soon enough grown overly dependent on one person.  Being treasurer
is an important power -- it is, in the most literal sense possible,
"power of the purse strings", and is actually a much more important
responsibility than (for instance) root access.  We've been lucky in
that we've always found very good people for this job, but it's easy to
find examples elsewhere where people have really flubbed up big on this.

M-net makes a particularly nice example, in that at one point, it
essentially had a "dictator-for-life" person, who was the de facto
treasurer as well as everything else.  (There actually was another
"treasurer" position, but as it evidently didn't include access to the
bank account or records, I wouldn't say that this counted.) During this
time, m-net's bank situation went from really good (much more money than
grex has ever had) to really bad (at which point the
"dictator-for-life", for some funny reason, resigned.) This is the kind
of situation I think we want to avoid on grex.  The closest analogous
situation I can think of would be having grex in someone's house -- a
situation I happen to know Mary did not want for grex.

response 16 of 41:

Nov 8 11:18 UTC 1999

I totally agree with Marcus in that Grex shouldn't be put
in the position of "needing" any one person.

response 18 of 41:

Nov 9 01:01 UTC 1999

Officers do not have to be board members.  In fact, the Ann Arbor Bicycle
Touring Society, for example, has two distinctly different groups of
people--the board of directors and the officers which are appointed by the
board of directors.

Personally, I don't think we need an amendment, nor do I think we want an
amendment.  I like the idea of someone on the board being responsible for the
finances.  That person, however, does not have to do all the bookkeeping.  

The Treasurer is really responsible for ensuring that Cyberspace Communications
is financially healthy; the bookkeeping is just the grunt work associated with
that responsibility. The Treasurer can choose someone--member or non-member--to
do the bookkeeping, but is still responsible to see that it's done properly and
that the bills get paid on time.  The bookkeeper could be aruba--if he's
willing to continue doing it--but need not be.

response 20 of 41:

Nov 9 06:26 UTC 1999

What recourse does the board have if, for example, it is unhappy with 
the performance of the treasurer?  If the treasurer should let his/her 
membership lapse?

response 22 of 41:

Nov 9 15:23 UTC 1999

The treasurer is required to inform the board if any board member falls
behind on his dues, and the board is required to discuss the matter if
that board member hasn't paid up by the time of the next meeting. 

I haven't really known what to say to this item.  I guess I'll repeat what
I told the board last month, and what I told Kevin in email. 

I am ambivalent about ending my term as treasurer.  I have mostly enjoyed
the job, and I feel proud to have been able to serve an organization which
I think highly of.  Whenever it feels like I'm not accomplishing anything
in the rest of my life, I remember that at least I'm helping to keep Grex
healthy.  I am honored that so many people seem to think I've done a good
job - I tip my cap to you.  And I'm honored that you would consider
changing the bylaws so that I could stay on. 

I think that it would be better for both Grex and me, however, if we move
on.  I basically agree with Marcus and Mary that all the chores on Grex
should rotate through different people, so that Grex has a broad base of
support to stand on.  I don't want us to be like a big corporation, where
everyone is expendable, but I would like us to be adaptable, and not get
stuck in a rut of doing things a certain way just because no one new is
involved to offer new ideas. 

I sense that a number of people are afraid of what might happen if we end
up with a treasurer who doesn't do a good job.  I am afraid of that too. 
(You can't be obsessive about a job for 4 years without building up some
ideas about How Things Ought To Be Done.  Partly that's from familiarity
with all the strange situations that come up, and partly it's a matter of
ego - you convince yourself that your obsessiveness is necessary so that
you won't feel you're wasting your time.) 

But it would be vain and, I think, paranoid and possessive of me to think
that my fear warranted drastic measures like amending the bylaws.  There
are a number of people who are qualified to be both a board member and
treasurer, and I expect one of them to step up and volunteer.  I do
promise to do my best to help the next treasurer get off on the right
foot, and to do the job in the interim between the end of the year and
when a new treasurer is selected.  And I'll be around for the forseeable
future to answer questions about how I did things and what the
complications of being treasurer are.  I hope I get a chance to write that
into a sort of "treasurer's manual" before I go.

It's hard for me to give up this job, which has been an important part of
who I am, and made me feel important besides.  But it's time.

response 24 of 41:

Nov 9 15:53 UTC 1999

And for the record, I think that the current staff is doing a great job. :)