There will be a change discussed and voted on at tonight’s annual meeting to the member rights section. I wanted to post it up here so people can state whether or not they’ll vote for it and why, so members without background don’t feel like they’re coming in cold.
The change is here:
Current:
Member Rights
Members can vote at board meetings and annual meeting - see the calendar for schedule
Members are eligible to nominate, be nominated for, and hold board positions
Members may have personal storage space on request
Proposed:
Member Rights
Members can speak at board meetings and vote at annual meeting - see the calendar for schedule
Members are eligible to nominate, be nominated for, and hold board positions
(striking out the last bullet about storage)
That’s the change right now, the actual ballot will have the final proposal as discussed at tonight’s meeting.
Malissa is proposing the changes and will present them at the meeting, this thread is for discussion
I personally am going to vote for this change and would recommend that others support it too. The bylaws list a lot of financial matters that must be subject to board decisions, so it’s a conflict here to say that non-board members can vote at board meetings. Member storage will be a good idea when we have the space, but I do not consider it a “right”.
We could technically have lots of times when we ask members to vote, maybe we should just strike that bit and leave it at “members can speak at the board meetings”. That way it doesn’t contradict with the standing rules section that says “All members will go through a 30 day probationary period before they gain voting rights.”
That’s a little better than the original proposal.
But it still only says members have the right to speak at board meetings. Do members not have the right to speak at annual and quarterly meetings? So I would still delete the first bullet altogether.
Also, I would delete the second bullet. Do we really need to specify in the standing rules what is contained in the second bullet? If it’s needed, it really should be in the bylaws and not the standing rules, since it relates fundamentally to how we elect board members.
Curt, I have added “strike the whole section” as a “proposal B” to the changes so it can also go out on the ballot. And I’m going to vote for that, because I agree with you.
Voting is covered in the bylaws. Who can run for the board is covered in the bylaws. This section just confuses things and is taking up too much time.
I agree with proposal B, striking the entire section. Somewhat for the same reasons as Curt and Kim, but also because the few rights listed imply that members have no other rights, and obviously, to try to list all of them would be ridiculous.
I’ve always kind of viewed this section as a (not necessarily exhaustive) summary of the rights/privileges of MakeICT members. The actual rights/privileges may be spelled out elsewhere, but bylaws tend to be not a whole lot of fun to read. Maybe re-frame it as a helpful guide to the benefits of membership with links to the documents that grant them?
One reason (not THE reason, just one) why we had them was to be clear about what membership gave people because, at the time, the community was really all there was, and you didn’t need to be a dues-paying member to be a part of the community. So the members rights were really all we could offer. Obviously, this is no longer the case and hasn’t been for some time.
