Article 5: Should there be other classes of members (e.g., inactive, honorary)?

For instance, can someone be inactive? Are there honorary members? Do rights and responsibilities of members change in these circumstances (e.g., inactive members have reduced voting rights and dues)?

I have no strong opinion about these matters. I could see inactive membership being a useful category, if membership is essentially defined by whether someone is a current or former DOE Computational Science Graduate Fellow.

Interesting... We have discussed a few kinds of membership (e.g. possible roles for current fellows), and I particularly like the way you've expanded the categories for alumni.

Hi @goxberry

We discussed this possibility and there was interest in having more membership classes. In the interests of expedience in opening the organization, we opted to defer adding classes of members to an elected board, which may create them via amendment. Essentially "member" is anyone who was on the Fellowship, and "voting member" means someone who has paid dues for the year and has voting rights. Welcome your thoughts on what we've changed here.

Thanks very much, j

Looks good so far! Thank you (and the rest of the committee) for drafting these!

One other comment: is it possible to resign from membership of the alumni association, or do you envision alumni who wish not to participate to instead withhold dues and become nonvoting members? I ask because the example bylaws included in Robert's Rules specifically mention procedures for resigning membership. As currently written, alumni are members of the society regardless of whether they are aware of its existence, or whether they wish to be members.

For instance, a corner case involves people who received funding from the fellowship, but did not complete the term of the fellowship because they dropped out of graduate school. These people are currently members if the bylaws are adopted as written, but historically, they haven't been active in the alumni community, so they may not be aware of the current effort to form an alumni society.

Great point Geoff!

I believe we intended the following

1) membership is open to all the specified individuals, but it is not automatic. i don't remember this distinction being addressed though.

2) members who wish to resign can become nonvoting members as they desire.

It seems possible we can address these cases in the bylaws via amendments early on?

Regardless, this is worth checking with people.

Thanks very much, Jay

On Fri, Jan 8, 2016 at 6:15 AM, Geoffrey Oxberry notifications@github.com wrote:

Looks good so far! Thank you (and the rest of the committee) for drafting these!

One other comment: is it possible to resign from membership of the alumni association, or do you envision alumni who wish not to participate to instead withhold dues and become nonvoting members? I ask because the example bylaws included in Robert's Rules specifically mention procedures for resigning membership. As currently written, alumni are members of the society regardless of whether they are aware of its existence, or whether they wish to be members.

For instance, a corner case involves people who received funding from the fellowship, but did not complete the term of the fellowship because they dropped out of graduate school. These people are currently members if the bylaws are adopted as written, but historically, they haven't been active in the alumni community, so they may not be aware of the current effort to form an alumni society.

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub https://github.com/jbardhan/csgf-draftdocs/issues/11#issuecomment-169968175 .

@jbardhan If you wish, you could address these cases now, so long as the bylaws have not been adopted by resolution. It is preferable to make these sorts of changes to the bylaws prior to adopting them because it requires a majority vote, whereas amending them requires both a two-thirds vote and giving members at least one month to review amendments prior to voting on them. Also, depending on membership enrollment and meeting attendance, the number of people voting on adopting the draft bylaws could potentially be smaller than the number voting on amendments, which would make it easier to garner the necessary votes.

One way to make membership require some active engagement among qualified individuals (alums, for instance), is to instead create a section in the article on membership that is something like

Anyone who previously received funding through the CSGF program and is not a current Fellow shall be eligible for membership in the Association, provided that such person shall be proposed by one member and seconded by another member. A proposal for membership, signed by the two endorsers, shall be sent to the Recording Secretary, who shall report it, together with the names of the sponsors, at the next regular meeting of the Association. Voting upon the admission shall take place at the next meeting thereafter. A two-thirds vote shall elect to membership. A person so elected shall be declared a member of the Association upon payment of annual dues for the first year.

(Adapted from Robert's Rules of Order Newly Revised, 11th ed., p. 584, ll. 6-18, example bylaws, Article III (Membership), Section 2 (Membership Eligibility and Admission Procedure))

Also, what is intended by "anyone who previously received funding through the CSGF program"? Do you mean "any former DOE Computational Science Graduate Fellows"? If Jim Corones received funding through the CSGF program to administer it as part of his duties as President of the Krell Institute, is he eligible for membership?

Hi Geoff,

1) Great point about the ambiguity in "previously received funding." We will correct that, thanks!

2) Ideally yes we would make all of these changes prior to adopting them. Our primary goal is to get the organization up and running before the next program review. As that happens only once a year, that time pressure is a major aspect, and we'll trade off some efficiency (in terms of effort) for the fact of having the organization going by then. (Our mostly unstated belief is that we'll do one large change set early on, Bill of Rights style)

Thanks very much, Jay

On Fri, Jan 8, 2016 at 6:47 PM, Geoffrey Oxberry notifications@github.com wrote:

@jbardhan https://github.com/jbardhan If you wish, you could address these cases now, so long as the bylaws have not been adopted by resolution. It is preferable to make these sorts of changes to the bylaws prior to adopting them because it requires a majority vote, whereas amending them requires both a two-thirds vote and giving members at least one month to review amendments prior to voting on them. Also, depending on membership enrollment and meeting attendance, the number of people voting on adopting the draft bylaws could potentially be smaller than the number voting on amendments, which would make it easier to garner the necessary votes.

One way to make membership require some active engagement among qualified individuals (alums, for instance), is to instead create a section in the article on membership that is something like

Anyone who previously received funding through the CSGF program and is not a current Fellow shall be eligible for membership in the Association, provided that such person shall be proposed by one member and seconded by another member. A proposal for membership, signed by the two endorsers, shall be sent to the Recording Secretary, who shall report it, together with the names of the sponsors, at the next regular meeting of the Association. Voting upon the admission shall take place at the next meeting thereafter. A two-thirds vote shall elect to membership. A person so elected shall be declared a member of the Association upon payment of annual dues for the first year.

(Adapted from Robert's Rules of Order Newly Revised, 11th ed., p. 584, ll. 6-18, example bylaws, Article III (Membership), Section 2 (Membership Eligibility and Admission Procedure))

Also, what is intended by "anyone who previously received funding through the CSGF program"? Do you mean "any former DOE Computational Science Graduate Fellows"? If Jim Corones received funding through the CSGF program to administer it as part of his duties as President of the Krell Institute, is he eligible for membership?

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub https://github.com/jbardhan/csgf-draftdocs/issues/11#issuecomment-170158538 .

Our primary goal is to get the organization up and running before the next program review. As that happens only once a year, that time pressure is a major aspect, and we'll trade off some efficiency (in terms of effort) for the fact of having the organization going by then.

I appreciate the urgency of your task. My belief is that some of these issues can be addressed more easily (e.g., "is membership automatic" could be explicitly addressed via boilerplate and some discussion) than others (e.g., I suspect the dues issue would need to be resolved by scoping out a yearly operating budget and the viability of additional fundraising, which in turn also requires fleshing out how the board wants the Association to carry out its purpose; I assume these discussions are ongoing within the board).

Where I believe issues can be addressed more easily, I have attempted to suggest expedient changes, or boilerplate changes that can be modified by the board as they see fit. Where I believe issues require more discussion, I have instead asked a list of questions intended to elicit from the board what they would like to do.

(Our mostly unstated belief is that we'll do one large change set early on, Bill of Rights style)

I appreciate knowing that, since it helps me understand where the board is coming from. Foreseeably, here are other changesets I could see the Association enacting, but that I didn't comment on before the January 6th deadline:

Executive Board: In Robert's Rules, it's a separate article, because it delineates the board's powers, when they meet, and what constitutes a quorum for a board meeting; furthermore, Robert's Rules treats these meetings as distinct from Regular/Annual/Special meetings of the entire Association. This would be one way to separate the verbiage of "there is an open portion for all Association members, and a closed portion including only board members": make the closed portion a separate meeting and schedule it for after the meeting open to the entire Association.
What method is used for the election of board members/officers? Ballot election? Voice vote? Rising vote?
What's a quorum for Association meetings? As it reads right now, an Association meeting can have 4 board members show up (and no one else) and they can conduct business. This point seems suspect for meetings to elect board members when the method of voting is unresolved. It's not clear that it can be done remotely, and in societies and organizations where I've been a member, remote voting is typically not done, although perhaps the board intends there to be remote voting.
Officers being elected by the board: why not elect the President, Secretary, and Treasurer directly by members of the association? As a potential member of the association, I'd like a vote to decide these positions directly, rather than let the board decide for me.
Committees: Also usually a separate article in Robert's Rules for standing committees and the appointment of special committees. It may not be worth having standing committees now -- that can be left to a later amendment. It might be useful to have a procedure for appointing special committees (e.g., in the case of disciplinary matters for an officer or member, or to investigate a particular issue of interest to the Association). There may also be a provision making the President an ex officio member of committees, except disciplinary committees.

These can be made separate issues, if so desired.

Geoff,

Thank you! These are exceptionally detailed and thoughtful comments, and I hope we'll be able to get to all of them before we move forward. If there are things that don't appear, or don't get a response in the next few days, I assure you it's because I ran out of time to assess.

I'm making a second document of your comments, to put things all in one place, and then make a list.

Jay

On Mon, Jan 11, 2016 at 6:16 AM, Geoffrey Oxberry notifications@github.com wrote:

Our primary goal is to get the organization up and running before the next program review. As that happens only once a year, that time pressure is a major aspect, and we'll trade off some efficiency (in terms of effort) for the fact of having the organization going by then.

I appreciate the urgency of your task. My belief is that some of these issues can be addressed more easily (e.g., "is membership automatic" could be explicitly addressed via boilerplate and some discussion) than others (e.g., I suspect the dues issue would need to be resolved by scoping out a yearly operating budget and the viability of additional fundraising, which in turn also requires fleshing out how the board wants the Association to carry out its purpose; I assume these discussions are ongoing within the board).

Where I believe issues can be addressed more easily, I have attempted to suggest expedient changes, or boilerplate changes that can be modified by the board as they see fit. Where I believe issues require more discussion, I have instead asked a list of questions intended to elicit from the board what they would like to do.

(Our mostly unstated belief is that we'll do one large change set early on, Bill of Rights style)

I appreciate knowing that, since it helps me understand where the board is coming from. Foreseeably, here are other changesets I could see enacting, but that I didn't get to before the January 6th deadline:

Executive Board: In Robert's Rules, it's a separate article, because it delineates the board's powers, when they meet, and what constitutes a quorum for a board meeting; furthermore, Robert's Rules treats these meetings as distinct from Regular/Annual/Special meetings of the entire Association. This would be one way to separate the verbiage of "there is an open portion for all Association members, and a closed portion including only board members": make the closed portion a separate meeting and schedule it for after the meeting open to the entire Association.

What method is used for the election of board members/officers? Ballot election? Voice vote? Rising vote?

What's a quorum for Association meetings? As it reads right now, an Association meeting can have 4 board members show up (and no one else) and they can conduct business. This point seems suspect for meetings to elect board members when the method of voting is unresolved. It's not clear that it can be done remotely, and in societies and organizations where I've been a member, remote voting is typically not done, although perhaps the board intends there to be remote voting.

Officers being elected by the board: why not elect the President, Secretary, and Treasurer directly by members of the association? As a potential member of the association, I'd like a vote to decide these positions directly, rather than let the board decide for me.

Committees: Also usually a separate article in Robert's Rules for standing committees and the appointment of special committees. It may not be worth having standing committees now -- that can be left to a later amendment. It might be useful to have a procedure for appointing special committees (e.g., in the case of disciplinary matters for an officer or member, or to investigate a particular issue of interest to the Association). There may also be a provision making the President an ex officio member of committees, except disciplinary committees.

These can be made separate issues, if so desired.

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub https://github.com/jbardhan/csgf-draftdocs/issues/11#issuecomment-170511535 .

jbardhan / csgf-draftdocs

Article 5: Should there be other classes of members (e.g., inactive, honorary)? #11