John,
Your message in the Sept 2006 Marque did mention the problem, just as I did
in my original post here. Your proposed solution to "get everybody
participating and exercising the voice they are entitle to in forming policy
and making decision" was to me, clearly the right approach. Passing a
by-law revision giving the power to pass policy to whoever attends a
delegate meeting, even if it is only 1 individual, doesn't seem consistent
with your proposed solution to ensuring participating by all clubs. As was
stated in the June delegates meeting, the message being sent is to local
clubs is "we don't need you."
The president's message in the March 2007 Marque did in fact include notice
that the by-laws were being considered for revision to allow whatever
number of delegates that attend a delegate's meeting would constitute a
quorum. I am sorry I had either didn't remember that or never read it. I
wasn't even focused on trunnion bearings back in March.
Regardless, I still do not understand why the by-laws and minutes of the
delegate meetings are not available to the entire membership. The only
place they can be found is in an area on the web site that the general
membership does not have access. The impression is that it is a secret part
of the web site. Since the club has an official publication, why not
publish the minutes of every delegate's meeting, as well as any other
official meeting of the national club, in the magazine for all members to
read if they wish. Perhaps if those local club members, that currently do
not participate at the national level, had access to the minutes and read
them, they would understand the importance of the delegate's meetings and
might be inspired to participate by sending a delegate or a proxy..
Finally, why not make the by-laws available to the general membership as
well. Publishing them in the membership directory, while not a unique idea,
would seen easy and appropriate to me. I don't know what there is to hide
by making this information near impossible for any member to access.
Ron Ray
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