AHC Bylaws Subcommittee Meeting Minutes

11/30/2006 6:30PM-10:30PM

Kochi's place

Attendees: Rashed, Nasim, Kochi, Galib, Tahsin, Rana

Discussions on community input from Open forum, Emails and BAGA discussion forum.

Election:

There may be a possibility to put the voting methods on a ballot and let the community choose the right method.
multiple polling station, online polling, tie with big event. Void if only less than x% vote.

Putting the method on ballot will make the bylaws incomplete. AHC will discuss on this further.

Multiple station is not against the current bylaws. Online option may not be acceptable to all due to security issues. Voiding election based on a minimum number of voters may be unfair to the voters who voted.

There should be a provision on how to fill a vacant position within the Election Commission (EC). Blackout should be less than 2 months, since EC is being formed two months prior to the election. Blackout may be 30 days. Nomination withdrawal can be 7 days prior to the elections. There should be a blackout for EC as well. The first BOD election should follow the current By-Laws being drafted. A voter list should be prepared. However, there may be a provision to allow people to come and vote without being in the list. For the first election, there may be temporary member for election purpose until a By-Laws is adopted officially by the association. By-Laws should specifically mention that the voter list must be published by XX number of days.

EC blackout will be reworded.

There may be a bylaws election on Jan 15 before the BOD election. AHC will discuss on this further to make a decision.

AMENDMENT

10% number required for a petition requesting amendment needs more discussion and may need to be revisited to possibly 25% to 30% to limit frequent amendment petition.

There should be a maximum limit on the number of amendments for a year. The amendment process can be conducted a maximum of two times per year, but each time there can be multiple amendments.

If the signature requirement is increased to 30%, then special meeting should be called immediately to address the urgency of the petition.

In special case, if 50% (majority) people submit a petition for an amendment, a special meeting should be called immediately.

There should be a blackout period for conducting amendment process if too close to the Annual General Meeting.

Article XIII, Section 2: text describing online voting should be changed to “allow online and/or other voting”.

10% or 75 whichever is greater. Bylaws text is changed accordingly. As secretary will schedule the process, a separate blackout for amendment is redundant.

General:

Bylaws should include the formation of an advisory committee. This committee will consist of senior members of the community. The advisory committee will ensure checks and balance for the activities of the elected board. There should also be a guideline to state whether a director can serve two organizations in the community at the same time. Avoid self nomination. Keep provision for members to nominate other members. There should be a better mechanism for breaking tie for BOD election.

BOD may decide to have an advisory committee. Bylaws current text does not disallow it.

A Director can serve other organization as long as it does not conflict with BAGA.

A recommendation in the Operational Guide may suffice.

EC should verify withdrawal with particular candidate wishing to withdraw. EC should also come up and publish tie-breaking mechanism.

Process:

How the CEs were selected?

The members of the bylaws subcommittee recommended the names of a few community members who had recent experience with authoring bylaws. Among them, three names were initially chosen to start working together with the community members as well as bylaws experts.

Transparency of AHC By-Laws subcommittee deliberation is requested. Community members would like to know what discussions and what input are considered in the By-Laws Sub-Committee meetings. Publish discussions and deliberations. Request AHC to publish By-Laws Subcommittee meeting minutes. If needed, help is available to write minutes at these sessions.

More bylaws subcommittee meeting minutes will be published soon. Discussion and deliberation on each point may not be possible to capture to its entirety in the minutes; hence may seem superficial in some cases.

Additional Note: Quorum to be 6 hardcoded (majority of 11). Currently it says a simple ‘majority’ of BOD will constitute quorum.