1443 Bylaws Rant

Saturday, August 18, 2007

Don't bother reading this. I'm just blowing off steam.

Just thinking about the bylaws is making me angry.

This guy who has appointed himself chair of the bylaws revision committee was in charge of the previous revision of the bylaws, about ten years ago. The usual process is that revisions are proposed, and published in the newsletter. Comments are gathered, decisions are made by the committee, then it is sent to the national office for approval, and the final version is again published for an approval vote of the membership.

The way the A55hole did it ten years ago, the general membership didn't see it at all until time for the vote. This "guy who knows best" didn't feel he needed any other input. I don't know how the hell it got approved (probably nobody actually read it), because it was full of errors. Stupid errors.

Like the head of the board has traditionally been called the "Local Secretary (a.k.a LocSec)", a British term. This guy happened to be the LocSec at the time, and he thought it didn't sound important enough, so he decided he wanted to be the President. So references to the LocSec were changed to President. EXCEPT, not in ALL places! So up front where the officers are defined, we have a President. There is no LocSec. But later, where responsibilities are assigned, the President apparently has none, and the LocSec (who doesn't exist) has many. The A55hole didn't even ask anyone else to proofread it!

In the section on the timing of elections, there is a nominating committee, and an option for petition nominations. However, when you lay out the election schedule (which is defined by specific month and day in the Bylaws) next to the newsletter cutoff and mailing dates (which are not in the bylaws, and change on the whim of the editor), there are perhaps THREE DAYS for the membership to see the recommendations of the nominating committee, decide to run as a petition candidate, get the signatures, and get the petition to the Board and to the editor.

There are only five elected officers, and if the nominating committee comes up with only five candidates and there are no petition candidates, then the five are declared elected. No voting.

The Board appoints the nominating committee. The nominating committee selects the candidates. There's no requirement to ask in the newsletter for candidates to volunteer, and not enough time anyway. There's no time for petition candidates. If the nominating committee selects only five candidates, they are declared elected. This looks like the previous board SELECTS the succeeding board. And that's exactly what happens. There has been no real election since this guy single-handedly revised the bylaws ten years or so ago.

How convenient.

There were other problems.

When I saw all the errors, I wrote them all up and submitted the corrections and recommendations, and was horrified when I was told that "There isn't enough time to make the changes. We have to submit it to National as is, because that's what they approved." (National makes you jump through hoops so you understand that it's not something you want to do often.) I was shocked when National didn't disapprove, but this is a small group, and I'll bet A55hole said in the application that we simply followed the skeleton from National, so they didn't bother reading it.

So, ok, A55hole has decided it's time to revise again. He asked me if I wanted to be involved, because he knew he damn well better. He also asked another member, probably randomly, I've never heard of her, and from the email discussions far, I gather she has no idea what bylaws ARE.

But, of course, neither does A55hole.

I'm also pissed because there was NO copy of the bylaws locally available (it is supposed to be distributed to new members, and to any member who asks. I've been asking for years, and have been rebuffed), so A55hole had to get HARDCOPY from National. He gave it to Roman, Roman scanned it, and ran it through a program that converted the scan to text, and emailed the cleaned-up script file to A55hole.

Now, it seems like we OTHER members of the bylaws revision committee should have received a copy, huh? Pretty soon, huh? So we could, like, maybe, review it? And think about what we'd like to see fixed?

He sat on it for weeks. Probably more than a month - I didn't mark the calendar. And it was pretty obvious that when he finally sent me and the other woman a copy, he'd already figured out what he wanted.

When I say he doesn't know what bylaws are supposed to do, here's an example. The Bylaws require that the board meets a minimum of once a quarter. All board meetings are open to the membership and announced in the newsletter. He wants to have an "Annual Business Meeting" required in the Bylaws.

I asked how is that different from other board meetings. He said it's open to the membership, and there's a pot-luck dinner, and a speaker. Is the business discussed any different? No. I pointed out that all meetings are open, and any one of them could include dinner and/or a speaker. He wants to REQUIRE dinner and a speaker at a board meeting once a year.

I pointed out that we used to have speakers several times a year, after board meetings, and it died for lack of interest, and a dearth of free but interesting speakers who will show up for five or six people. The general membership simply isn't interested. So if you put this requirement in the bylaws, once a year someone will have to find and schedule a speaker and coordinate a pot-luck dinner, and the only attendees will be the board members. And when they decide it isn't worth doing any more, they have to revise the Bylaws to get rid of it! If the Board wants to do this fancy meeting, all they have to do is decide to do it, then do it. You DON'T require it in the Bylaws! Bylaws should require only the absolute minimum for the proper functioning of the group.

A55!

I'm really angry, and I'm working myself up to do battle. He's VERY difficult to disagree with. He is always so positive he's right that he doesn't listen to reason. I'm going to have to use Authority, National guidelines and recommendations, against him - it's the only thing he might listen to.

Judging from his emails, he seems to think we're going to just fix typos, add a statement that President=LocSec, and rubber stamp some fancy requirements he wants to add.

Yeah. Sure. Little does he know....

Now pardon me while I go draw up an elections timeline, and find some authority for requiring that the nominating committee should come up with at least one more candidate than positions to be filled.

Snarl!
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