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25 new of 49 responses total.
rcurl
response 4 of 49: Mark Unseen   Sep 27 19:43 UTC 2010

Representation should be somewhat proportional to the constituency, especially
when Grex has no members....
jgelinas
response 5 of 49: Mark Unseen   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. :)
tsty
response 6 of 49: Mark Unseen   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
 
jgelinas
response 7 of 49: Mark Unseen   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."
mary
response 8 of 49: Mark Unseen   Sep 28 21:32 UTC 2010

I'd support that change.
cross
response 9 of 49: Mark Unseen   Sep 29 16:26 UTC 2010

I like it.  I'd change "hear" to "communicate" and remove mention of 
telephone (or any specific technology).
mary
response 10 of 49: Mark Unseen   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.
mary
response 11 of 49: Mark Unseen   Oct 11 22:27 UTC 2010

Between text edit and Grex something seems to go very wrong with 
formatting.  Sorry, again.
rcurl
response 12 of 49: Mark Unseen   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.
mary
response 13 of 49: Mark Unseen   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.  
jgelinas
response 14 of 49: Mark Unseen   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.
denise
response 15 of 49: Mark Unseen   Oct 12 15:27 UTC 2010

So do I [along with the change in dues].
jgelinas
response 16 of 49: Mark Unseen   Oct 12 16:30 UTC 2010

(Each item has to have its own endorsement, Denise.)
mary
response 17 of 49: Mark Unseen   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.
jgelinas
response 18 of 49: Mark Unseen   Oct 12 19:17 UTC 2010

Thank you, Mary. :)

I still endorse putting this proposal to a vote. :)
rcurl
response 19 of 49: Mark Unseen   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.
cross
response 20 of 49: Mark Unseen   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.
mary
response 21 of 49: Mark Unseen   Oct 13 12:04 UTC 2010

I agree.  The vote admin has been notified in a casual fashion. ;-)
remmers
response 22 of 49: Mark Unseen   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.
mary
response 23 of 49: Mark Unseen   Oct 13 13:11 UTC 2010

I'm fine with email.  More than fine.  It's a practical way of moving this 
forward.
kentn
response 24 of 49: Mark Unseen   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.
cross
response 25 of 49: Mark Unseen   Oct 13 16:44 UTC 2010

Hmm, email access for me right now is occassionally problematic.  I 
vote yes.
denise
response 26 of 49: Mark Unseen   Oct 13 17:30 UTC 2010

E-mail's fine with me; just let us know who to send it to.
jgelinas
response 27 of 49: Mark Unseen   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.
rcurl
response 28 of 49: Mark Unseen   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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