The Board of Directors recently took up the subject of making two changes to the Club Bylaws. The first change would allow for standing committees that persist from year to year. It was felt this was needed due to the fact that committees are normally dissolved at the end of the club year in May, even though they may have business that carries over into the following Year.

The proposed amendment for standing committees would be numbered Article VIII and would be inserted above the current Article VIII. All subsequent Articles would be renumbered to follow the proposed Article. The wording of the proposed amendment for standing committees would be as follows:

ARTICLE VIII Committees

Section 1 – Committees

Ad hoc committees may be created by the Board or by the President, as necessary. Such committees terminate when the subject matter addressed by the committee has been resolved, or the event has occurred. The Board may also create standing committees (including, but not limited to, the Mentoring Committee), which shall persist from year to year. In each case, the Chair of the Committee shall be appointed by the President. The Chair will recruit other Club members as needed to help carry out the work of the Committee. The Committee Chair is responsible for reporting to the Board at least annually. Terms, and term limits (if any), for committee members may be specified by the Board, or determined as needed by the committee members.

The second change would allow for meetings to be held using online platforms, such as Zoom. The Bylaws currently require that Club Business may only be performed by members being "present" in a single location. With the challenges presented by COVID-19 restrictions, group meetings have become all but impossible. 

The amendment for online participation would add three new sections to the end of Article VII (Meetings):

Section 3 - For the purpose of clarity, we define ‘present’ at meetings to mean ‘in person or remote participation’.

Section 4 - Acceptable means of remote participation are video conferencing platforms, including but not limited to Zoom, that enables the remote participant and all people present at the meeting location to be clearly audible and visible to one another. The meeting location will be determined by at least one board member or the video conferencing host.

Section 5 - Text messaging, instant messaging, email, and web chat without audio are not acceptable means of remote participation.

These Bylaw changes are subject to a vote by the Club membership at the April 14th meeting.