As I have suggested earlier, If you're making a motion or proposal, please
specify this in your subject line.
Put the proposal or motion at the top of your email, followed by any
support text, so it's easy to find and read later.
Don't second a nomination or proposal if you are suggesting changes to it.
The final proposal, after all discussion has taken place, needs to be
resubmitted and then seconded. Then we put it to a vote.
The purpose of the "second" is just to show that at least one other person
favors the proposal, motion, or nomination. It needs to be stated so we know
it happened, but the details aren't important. Just that someone has
seconded it.
Knowing us, we will almost always discuss something before moving to a
vote. Don't get me wrong, it's okay if we don't though! But we have to make
sure we've completed the discussion and then restate the motion or proposal
before submitting it for voting.
To reduce the confusion, I will call for the official votes on things, and
then the voting will be tallied by the secretary. At the time of
announcement a deadline date will also be established, to give people a
chance to get back from out of town or otherwise to end things for people
who may not respond. Everyone is welcome to suggest when those dates should
be.
Unless indicated otherwise, all voting is "public", like the show of hands
that would be used at a physical meeting. Submit your votes either to
iuf-discuss or to all other members of the board so everybody can keep track
of votes as they come in.
At the end of the time period, the secretary will announce the results of
voting. The secretary will then record all motions, proposals, elections, or
whatever we vote on, so we can refer back to them in the future.
I or the secretary should provide running tallies, if necessary, to show
where we are with ongoing proposals, motions, or elections, in a method to
be determined.
Please try not to send duplicate messages. If you know the sender is on
iuf-discuss, remove them from the "reply to all" so they don't get two
copies (unless requested otherwise by the individual).
ROBERTS RULES OF ORDER:
We communicate with email, but sometimes we have to mix "business process"
stuff with our regular, informal emails. When it's "business process" stuff,
such as running a proposal through the process and to a vote, we should
standardize on a set of rules that we all agree on to run things.
We could use the official Roberts Rules of Order, or a similar
publication. Tom Daniels says he has a "well worn" copy of Roberts. I have
"The Standard Code of Parliamentary Procedure" by Alice Sturgis. This is a
simplified version of Roberts, which is a much older and more complex
reference. I recommend we use it as our official text. The publisher is
McGraw Hill, and the ISBN is 0-07-062522-0.
BY-LAWS:
Our by-laws are out of date. I believe we had planned last summer to
formally vote on our plan to elevate all officers to director status. This
did not happen in my presence, and Jacquie says she does not remember it
happening. Minutes would help. In any case, our by-laws need to be updated
with this, plus I believe it should get a thorough reworking to fit our
needs so we no longer have to argue about procedure. This can be a long-term
project, on which we can decide one element at a time if necessary.
