Proposed Bylaw Change - Board Size & Quorum

Sep 27 13:56 UTC 2010

This is a proposal to change our bylaws, reducing the size of Grex's Board of
Directors and the number of  board members necessary to meet quorum. 
Presently, there are seven board members and this proposal asks  that to be
changed to five. Quorum would change from five to three board members present.

This proposal would simply substitute the new numbers for the old.  The current
bylaws state: **************************** ARTICLE 3:  BOARD OF DIRECTORS

  a. The Board of Directors (BOD) shall consist of seven individual members of
  Grex, and shall include a 
chairperson, a secretary, and a treasurer.
 

d. The BOD shall hold face-to-face meetings on a regular, bimonthly basis, and
in addition may hold special  meetings if necessary.  A quorum consists of five
BOD members.  A board member will be considered to be in  attendance at a
meeting if he or she is physically present at the location of the meeting, or
if he or she  can, via a telephone or other electronic system, hear and be
heard by all the other attendees.

*****************************
With the proposed amendments the bylaws would read:
                
*****************************
ARTICLE 3:  BOARD OF DIRECTORS
 
  a.  The Board of Directors (BOD) shall consist of five individual members of
  Grex, and shall include a 
chairperson, a secretary, and a treasurer.
 

d. The BOD shall hold face-to-face meetings on a regular, bimonthly basis, and
in addition may hold special  meetings if necessary.  A quorum consists of
three BOD members.  A board member will be considered to be in  attendance at a
meeting if he or she is physically present at the location of the meeting, or
if he or she  can, via a telephone or other electronic system, hear and be
heard by all the other attendees.

*****************************

These changes are now up for discussion for two weeks.  During that time 10% of
the membership will need to  endorse the proposal in order for the proposal to
qualify for a membership vote.

We have very few members at present.  Very few.  Please consider sending in $18
to qualify as a voting  member and be part of the process.

The bylaws can be found at:
https://grex.cyberspace.org/cyberspace/bylaws.xhtml

response 2 of 49:

Sep 27 17:17 UTC 2010

I'm in agreement for these 2 changes.

response 4 of 49:

Sep 27 19:43 UTC 2010

Representation should be somewhat proportional to the constituency, especially
when Grex has no members....

response 6 of 49:

Sep 28 07:12 UTC 2010

  
reformatted:
  
 
 
 This is a proposal to change our bylaws, reducing the size of
 Grex's Board of Directors and the number of board members neces-
 sary to meet quorum. Presently, there are seven board members
 and this proposal asks that to be changed to five. Quorum would
 change from five to three board members present.
 
 This proposal would simply substitute the new numbers for the
 old. The curren t bylaws state: 
   
 **************************** 
   
 ARTICLE 3: BOARD OF DIRECTORS
 
  a. The Board of Directors (BOD) shall consist of seven individ-
 ual members of Grex, and shall include a chairperson, a secretary, 
 and a treasurer.
 
 
 d. The BOD shall hold face-to-face meetings on a regular, bi-
 monthly basis, and in addition may hold special meetings if nec-
 essary.  A quorum consists of fiv e BOD members. A board member
 will be considered to be in attendance at a meeting if he or she
 is physically present at the location of the meeting, or if he or
 she can, via a telephone or other electronic system, hear and be
 heard by all the other attendees.
 
 ***************************** 
 
 With the proposed amendments the bylaws would read:
 
 ***************************** 
 
 ARTICLE 3: BOARD OF DIRECTORS
 
  a. The Board of Directors (BOD) shall consist of five individ-
 ual members of Grex, and shall include a chairperson, a secretary, 
 and a treasurer.
 
 
 d. The BOD shall hold face-to-face meetings on a regular, bi-
 monthly basis, and in addition may hold special meetings if nec-
 essary. A quorum consists of three BOD members. A board member
 will be considered to be in attendance at a meeting if he or she
 is physically present at the location of the meeting, or if he or
 she can, via a telephone or other electronic system, hear and be
 heard by all the other attendees.
 
 *****************************
 
 These changes are now up for discussion for two weeks.  During
 that time 10% o f the membership will need to endorse the pro-
 posal in order for the proposal to qualify for a membership vote.
 
 We have very few members at present. Very few. Please consider
 sending in $1 8 to qualify as a voting member and be part of the
 process.
 
 The bylaws can be found at: 
   
  https://grex.cyberspace.org/cyberspace/bylaws.xhtml
 

response 8 of 49:

Sep 28 21:32 UTC 2010

I'd support that change.

response 10 of 49:

Oct 11 22:26 UTC 2010

Two weeks have gone by and we seem to have two members endorsing this going
forward. So I'm asking this bylaw change be put up for a membership vote.  This
is the text for the ballot:


MOTION:  It is proposed that Cyberspace Communications Bylaw Article 3,
subsections "a" and "d"
         be replaced as follows:
 
ARTICLE 3:  BOARD OF DIRECTORS
 
  a.  The Board of Directors (BOD) shall consist of five individual members of
      Grex, and shall include a chairperson, a secretary, and a treasurer.
 

  d. The BOD shall hold face-to-face meetings on a regular, bimonthly basis,
  and
     in addition may hold special meetings if necessary.  A quorum consists of
     three BOD members.  A board member will be considered in attendance at a
     meeting if he or she can communicate and be understood by all the other
     attendees.

response 12 of 49:

Oct 12 04:17 UTC 2010

I checked the bylaws listed in coop, and found that there are no 
provisions for the choice/election of chairperson, a secretary, and a 
treasurer, or their terms, or how they can be removed from office.

response 14 of 49:

Oct 12 14:49 UTC 2010

Personally, I'd prefer, "communicate WITH and be understood by," but
that is a minor quibble. :)

I endorse this proposal coming to a vote.

response 16 of 49:

Oct 12 16:30 UTC 2010

(Each item has to have its own endorsement, Denise.)

response 18 of 49:

Oct 12 19:17 UTC 2010

Thank you, Mary. :)

I still endorse putting this proposal to a vote. :)

response 20 of 49:

Oct 13 04:06 UTC 2010

You know, Grex is in such a state right now that it seems counter 
productive to quibble about anal details like those in resp:19.  I 
endorse this going to vote, as is, instead of starting another round 
of discussion that will delay it even further.

It it really needs to be addressed, it can be addressed at another 
time.  Let's not lose sight of the forest for the trees.

To reiterate, I suppose this proposal going forward to a vote, as is.

response 22 of 49:

Oct 13 13:07 UTC 2010

Hello, this is your friendly vote admin.  It looks like this
proposal is ready to go forward to a vote.

To be honest, this matter kind of snuck up on me.  It's been
quite a while since a member proposal has been formally
voted on, and so it's been quite a while since I've had occasion
to look at the vote program code for doing so.  It'll probably
take me until this weekend sometime to get that up and running.

To facilitate matters and move this forward more quickly, since
there are very few voting members at this point (less than 10?),
it might be reasonable to run this vote somewhat less formally
as an email poll, or something of the sort, if that's acceptable
to the voters.  Let me know how you'd like to proceed.

response 24 of 49:

Oct 13 15:52 UTC 2010

Yes, e-mail is fine by me.  Anything to speed this up as long as it
is properly counted and documented for future reference.