Overview of the proposal
The goals of the proposed updates are:
- Review things that have not been working particularly well and make appropriate changes.
- Provide for better flexibility to meet changing needs and use changing methods.
- Improve clarity and eliminate outdated wording.
Specifics of the proposal
Changes to make things work better
- Eliminate the requirement for an annual meeting of the membership. The original intent of these was to conduct Association business, but no business has been conducted at them for years. Instead, business has been conducted electronically and by mail. In recent years the meeting has been used to introduce new directors and officers, honor volunteers and so forth. These things might better be accomplished at the Fall Meet and Greet or some other ASURA event.
- Change the terms of office for Board members and officers to coincide with the membership and fiscal years. The terms of office would be July 1 through June 30 rather than from annual meeting to annual meeting.
Changes to provide more flexibility
- Allow surviving partners of former ASU employees to be members whether or not their deceased partner was a member.
- Allow the nominating committee for new Board members to specify steps and dates needed to achieve the goals. This means removing some of the specific dates and steps that are in the current bylaws.
- Allow the Executive Committee to create and eliminate committees as needed. Instead of specifying standing committees, the proposed bylaws specify objectives to be achieved by groups of committees. An "Operations" objective is added to cover the committees performing day-to-day operational tasks.
- Update and streamline the duties of the Executive Officers. This mainly involves removing some outdated wording and improving the format for listing duties. The duties of the Treasurer have the most modifications.
- Allow the Secretary and Treasurer to serve as long as they are on the Board, as opposed to the existing constraint to 2 consecutive terms.
Changes to improve clarity
- Specify who the "officers" of the organization are. This involves renaming the current "officers" to "executive officers" and adding an article that specifies that executive officers and committee chairs are all officers of the organization. The change makes it clear who is covered by the Association's Directors and Officers liability insurance.
- Make it clear that vacancies on the Executive Committee can be filled in a manner similar to vacancies on the Board -- i.e., nomination of a replacement by the President and approval by the Board.
- Remove redundancies, update terms and punctuation.