[LeapBusiness] proposed change to LEAP by-laws

[John Simpson]

at the 7/19 meeting, there was a suggestion to change the by-laws and  
add a clause which says, basically, that nobody may serve on the  
election committee for more than two years in a row. the four current  
board members who were present at the meeting agreed to it in  
principle, however there was no exact wording agreed upon, so legally  
it doesn't "count".

the by-laws state that in order for the by-laws to be changed, the  
following needs to happen:

- EITHER the change needs to be proposed at an executive committee  
meeting, and then voted upon by the executive committee at the  
FOLLOWING executive committee meeting;

- OR the change needs to be "sent" to all executive committee members  
(we've always assumed that email is okay for this, although the by- 
laws don't explicitly say one way or the other) and then voted upon  
at an executive committee meeting AT LEAST TEN DAYS AFTER the change  
was "sent".

- IF the executive committee votes to approve the change, the general  
membership then votes on it, at a regularly scheduled meeting. the  
"general membership" consists of all "members in good standing" who  
are present at the meeting where the vote takes place, provided (1)  
there are at least ten members present, and (2) less than half of  
those members are also members of the executive committee.

so as i told phil at the meeting, the executive committee needs to  
nail down the exact changes, word for word, that they wish to make to  
the bylaws- i'm guessing this will be a new item under article 6,  
section 2, probably between items 3 and 4. once the changes are  
agreed upon, they need to be "sent" to the executive committee (and  
while not required, sending it to the leaplist and leapbusiness lists  
would be nice as well) and then they can vote on it at the next  
executive committee meeting which takes place at least ten days after  
that.

if the current board is in a hurry to make the change, they *could*  
hold an exec meeting just before next month's general meeting, and  
then present it to the membership at next month's meeting. if not,  
this can all wait until after the new board is elected.

i would like to point out one thing, however... if this change is  
voted in by the membership BEFORE the election itself takes place,  
then the election committee itself will have to dissolve, because for  
all three of the election committee members, this will be our third  
year serving on the election committee. therefore, in order to  
prevent a "constitutional crisis", my suggestion is that the issue be  
tabled until this year's elections are done, and then taken up by  
next year's executive committee.

as for my personal feelings on the issue... i don't really think it's  
necessary, but if everybody else wants it in there, i'm okay with it.  
i know i've joked about volunteering for the election committee every  
year so that i can't be appointed as a director again, but the truth  
is that, no matter what happens, i can't be forced into taking a  
board position if i don't want it. if this passes and i can't do the  
election committee thing again next year, and somebody does nominate  
me for the board, i can refuse the nomination. i just figured that  
since i KNOW i don't want to be on the board, it makes sense for me  
to serve on the election committee, which frees up the chance for  
somebody else who may want to serve on the board.

and who knows, maybe next year i WILL want to be on the board  
again... but for right now, the memory of being on the board while  
the group was threatened with legal action left me very un-interested  
in being on the board again.

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| John M. Simpson    ---   KG4ZOW   ---    Programmer At Large |
| http://www.jms1.net/                         <jms1 at jms1.net> |
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| http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1656880303867390173 |
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