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Grex > Coop > #285: Proposed Bylaw Change - Board Size & Quorum | |
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| Author |
Message |
| 25 new of 49 responses total. |
rcurl
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response 4 of 49:
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Sep 27 19:43 UTC 2010 |
Representation should be somewhat proportional to the constituency, especially
when Grex has no members....
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jgelinas
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response 5 of 49:
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Sep 27 21:00 UTC 2010 |
Oh, it has a few, Rane. :)
I don't know that I'm in agreement with the proposal, but I do think it
should be voted on. :)
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tsty
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response 6 of 49:
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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
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jgelinas
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response 7 of 49:
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Sep 28 21:25 UTC 2010 |
Hmmm... Not quite what the item was intended for, but still . . . I'd
like to modify the attendance definition to eliminate the reference to a
specific sense. (What happens should we elect a deaf member to the
Board? OK; that's facetious, since the Director would likely be
physically present.)
I propose rewording the clause to:
"or if he or she can, via a telephone or other electronic system,
communicate directly and simultaneously with all the other attendees."
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mary
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response 8 of 49:
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Sep 28 21:32 UTC 2010 |
I'd support that change.
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cross
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response 9 of 49:
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Sep 29 16:26 UTC 2010 |
I like it. I'd change "hear" to "communicate" and remove mention of
telephone (or any specific technology).
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mary
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response 10 of 49:
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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.
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mary
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response 11 of 49:
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Oct 11 22:27 UTC 2010 |
Between text edit and Grex something seems to go very wrong with
formatting. Sorry, again.
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rcurl
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response 12 of 49:
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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.
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mary
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response 13 of 49:
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Oct 12 11:13 UTC 2010 |
True. That has always been left to the elected board to decide. Our
bylaws are pretty casual in terms of only addressing the broad strokes.
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jgelinas
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response 14 of 49:
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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.
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denise
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response 15 of 49:
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Oct 12 15:27 UTC 2010 |
So do I [along with the change in dues].
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jgelinas
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response 16 of 49:
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Oct 12 16:30 UTC 2010 |
(Each item has to have its own endorsement, Denise.)
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mary
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response 17 of 49:
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Oct 12 18:55 UTC 2010 |
I too like "communicate with" and will add that to the proposal, which now
reads:
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 with and be understood by all the
other attendees.
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jgelinas
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response 18 of 49:
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Oct 12 19:17 UTC 2010 |
Thank you, Mary. :)
I still endorse putting this proposal to a vote. :)
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rcurl
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response 19 of 49:
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Oct 12 20:22 UTC 2010 |
Re #13: "That has always been left to the elected board to decide. Our
bylaws are pretty casual in terms of only addressing the broad strokes."
Yes, pretty "casual": the bylaw don't even say that the Board can choose
the officers. No one can, as far as the bylaws go. Or anyone can? It
would be very simple and hardly constraining to add "..chosen or removed
by a majority vote of the Board." to the end of 3.a.
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cross
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response 20 of 49:
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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.
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mary
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response 21 of 49:
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Oct 13 12:04 UTC 2010 |
I agree. The vote admin has been notified in a casual fashion. ;-)
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remmers
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response 22 of 49:
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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.
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mary
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response 23 of 49:
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Oct 13 13:11 UTC 2010 |
I'm fine with email. More than fine. It's a practical way of moving this
forward.
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kentn
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response 24 of 49:
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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.
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cross
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response 25 of 49:
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Oct 13 16:44 UTC 2010 |
Hmm, email access for me right now is occassionally problematic. I
vote yes.
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denise
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response 26 of 49:
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Oct 13 17:30 UTC 2010 |
E-mail's fine with me; just let us know who to send it to.
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jgelinas
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response 27 of 49:
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Oct 13 20:00 UTC 2010 |
My only quibble is that people can pay their dues at any time during the
vote and have their vote counted as that of a member. If the VoteAdm is
comfortable collecting the messages and sorting the wheat from the
tares, I can live with that.
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rcurl
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response 28 of 49:
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Oct 14 03:39 UTC 2010 |
How does one become a member in order to vote? Members have not been asked
to renew their membership for a long time, so there are only a few members
now, who are a tiny fraction of the former membership. Are the the only ones
that can vote, when the whole idea of membership has lain fallow so long?
Just have the board declare all users that vote are members for the action
of voting on this amendment.
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