Between the prep call and presenting this agenda, a couple of items were discussed at the meeting. As the motions are not yet written, and as the Chair wishes Board members to be deeply involved in the motions they champion, I am seeking sponsors and seconds for the following motions for either e-votes or September's meeting, and to work with me on motion wording and then to lead a discussion with the Board for a vote. Unless the Board does not wish to proceed with these potential motions, I don't think they need discussing at this Board meeting, so this business should proceed quickly.
Sponsor and second sought for upcoming e-vote for Distinguished Lifetime Members
During the Board officer prep call, it was proposed that we rename "Lifetime Honorary Member" to "Distinguished Lifetime Member", and modify what happens when the Board gives one of these to an existing Lifetime Member. I've prepared a PR for this change to the bylaws. As this motion is not yet crafted, I would like a sponsor and second to work on a motion to adopt the PR as an e-vote in preparation for our 20th Anniversary. This is a bylaw change and will require a 2/3 majority.
Sponsor and second sought to review and present Consent package PR for policy spell check and other fixes
I have prepared a pull request to for very minor changes to content, spell and grammar check all our operational policies, conversion to GitHub Flavored Markdown (GFM), and cleaned up Markdown linting errors for more accurate rendering on more devices. The change log is:
Content Changes
- In the Awards and Scholarships policy, replaced a TBA URL with the correct link to the Conflict of Interest policy, which describes the ethical barriers we will re-use, rather than define new policy
- Added strikeout to the deprecated Community Engagement policy that is no longer in force so folks are not misled by now superseded policy. I would recommend a future update removes all depreciated or superseded policies, placing them in the historical policy folder. This hasn't been done to ensure that the changes are very minor.
- Fixed the Compliance Committee's contact details to be accurate
- Removed Bil's name from the Compliance Committee. I would recommend removing Fiona's too, as this is policy and it shouldn't need to be amended when new folks are added or existing folks step down. I didn't take that step to make sure the policy itself doesn't change.
Fixes:
- Spelling mistakes
- Grammar and punctuation mistakes as identified by Microsoft Word and Grammarly
Markdown linting:
- Migrated all files to GitHub Flavored Markdown
- Added missing lines
- Removed excess lines
- Removed trailing spaces
- Eliminated double spacing with extreme prejudice
- Hard tabs replaced with the correct number of spaces
- Fix insufficient and excess heading levels
The changes, although minor throughout, represent many changes in totality. I would like to bring this to a vote in September, and thus I would like to seek a sponsor and second, who should thoroughly review the requested change and introduce it at the next Board meeting as a Consent Package.
As a consent package, per a previous Board vote on implementing consent packages, a simple majority vote should suffice despite this amending many policies. Careful review by the sponsors is recommended.
Sponsor and second sought for proposed minor change to bylaws to prioritize adopted Chapter policy
Lisa identified an issue whereby the current bylaws refer to a long deprecated guideline document, as if it is adopted policy. I would like the Board to consider changing the bylaw to point at the approved Chapter policy, which in turns discusses the role of the current (in need of an update) Chapter Handbook as guidance only. This change would remove the old document and also bring the language into line with our current chapter policy of not having a "local chapter board", which is now undefined in the bylaws and chapter policy.
Section 5.02
"The chapter leader and local chapter board has to manage the local chapter according to the guidance and rules defined in the Chapter Leader Handbook. "
to
"Local chapter leadership has to manage the local chapter according to the policies defined in the Chapter Policy."
I am seeking a sponsor and second to lead discussion with the Board and see this through. As this is a bylaw change, requiring a 2/3 majority, I would not take this to an e-vote, but put into business for September's meeting.
Sponsor and Second sought for election timetable policy change to nearest business day
Dawn brought to my attention that during the prep for this year's election, the initial Call for Candidates, whilst released bang on time on August 15, fell on a Sunday. Not only did Dawn have to spend her Sunday working, this is not an ideal day to make a major announcement that has extensive consequences for the Board itself, and may result in low numbers of potential candidates, or if applied to the vote itself, obtaining membership in time, or voting. I would like to propose a motion in September to change the policy from:
"The timeline will include notices, important dates, and milestones."
to
"On the nearest business day, the timeline will include notices, important dates, and milestones."
There are a set of dates straight after this. This proposal will have the effect of announcing the Call for Candidates on a Monday if August 15 fell on a Sunday, or a Friday if August 15 falls on a Saturday, and so on. This will permit us to promote these deadlines or activities to a much wider audience than if announced on a weekend, and reduce the need for the staff to work on their days off.
The next vital date, selecting the voters from our membership list, falls after the next Board meeting, so it is ok for this to be voted on at the September Board meeting. As a change to published policy, this vote will require a 2/3 majority.
Slack