3/31/08 notes
Article III - Membership
What is status of KCTCS Central office representative, e.g., with regard to membership?
While the purpose and nature of such membership appears to be different, LALINC does provide for non-voting "affiliate members." Generally, this is seems to be directed toward providing a form of membership for libraries that do not choose to, or cannot be, full members. But perhaps we could designate such a category and name the Systems Office of KCTCS as one such member, with others to be admitted by a 2/3 vote of the membership. (LALINC's By-Laws does not designate any particular affiliate member--they just establish the category and the rules for them).
No statement regarding dues or fees at this time.
Dues: Both LALINC and CARLI mention dues, or membership fees, as part of Article III, "Membership." While CARLI says that such fees will be assessed, LALINC says that they may be assessed and adds that a 2/3 vote of the membership is required to establish or modify such a fee. Although we know we don't want to have such a fee now, do we want to put the mechanism for establishing one in the by-laws, rather than having to first go through a by-laws revision when and if we get to that point? It might be good to do so.
Is this the best place to define the Membership Council?
We do, unless we want to make this section about membership, pure and simple, as opposed to the Membership Council. It seems like they are two different things. We could only discuss things involving *members* here and move things like "responsibilities of the Membership Council" below. But if we keep the latter here, we do need to say what the Membership Council is. My instinct is to think that the Membership *Council* is more a function of governance and might well be discussed in a later section. CARLI, which follows Sturgis Standard Code of Parliamentary Procedure (rather than Robert's Rules), does list membership responsibilities here. Obviously one responsibility of membership would be to send a representative to the Membership Council (i.e. the summit), but that is not the same thing as Membership Council responsibilities (of course). LALINC's membership section is purely about membership.
Do we need a statement regarding removal from Membership Council?
Do we need a statement regarding resignation? Is it in the MOA?
The last two are addressed in the CARLI by-laws as shown below. This would be a good guideline--if we want to "go there."
7. Termination of Membership.
a. Any member may resign by notifying the Executive Director in writing by
December 31 in the fiscal year before the separation is to take effect. All
separation will occur on June 30th of the fiscal year in which the termination
takes place. The separating institution is and will continue to be responsible
for any financial obligation incurred during its entire membership period.
b. The Consortium may terminate a member of the consortium for cause with
written notice a minimum of 180 days before the end of the fiscal year in
which the termination would take place. The separating institution is and will
continue to be responsible for any financial obligation incurred during its
entire membership period.
Additional note regarding 3.3 (maybe): The "Purpose" section (Article II) has a "Central Purpose" section, somewhat like what we have so far and then a "Cooperative Programs" section. The latter lists areas in which cooperative programs are likely. It also has a Section A which states: "Each member shall determine the degree to which it chooses to participate in any Consortium program; participation in specific programs is not mandatory for membership." I don't know that we need to put this in the "Purpose" section, but it seems to me that a statement like that needs to be somewhere in the by-laws. (Rather than here, I tend to think it would be appropriate to make this clear further down, under "Membership"--we state was *is* required, but we could also add that participation in specific programs is *not* required. How about if we state this under 3.3--not as a new bullet, but on its own?)
Article V - Meetings
Quorum description okay?
I think so. That seems the most functional, though it's not a typical "quorum bar."
What about special meetings?
I wonder if we need this. Are we like to call such meetings and is it likely to be practical, given what it takes to get everyone together? It seems like the electronic "meetings" would be more likely to come off, enabling us to handle specific business that could not wait until July.
Electronic meetings okay?
Article VI - Executive Committee
Elections: how should this be put?
Need statement of duties for committee, chair and secretary. Elsie will work on chair's duties.
What about removal from office? Removal by constituent groups? Executive committee?
Articles VII and VIII
Need work.
For Article VII, I'm really at a loss when it comes to suggesting details about standing committees at this point. It is noteworthy that LALINC, which uses Robert's, lists no standing committees, but instead uses it to address "cooperative agreements" and the rules for initiating and approving those (approval of 2/3 is required, though an agreement must only involve as many as two participating libraries). If we put that here, this might be the appropriate place to state that participation in such agreements would not be a condition (or requirement) of membership.
For Article VIII, I took the liberty of copy/pasting the wording from CARLI, as there doesn't appear to be any real problem with using that wording. As noted before, they use Sturgis. If we want to stick with Robert's, just change it to that. But I've been looking at our copy of Sturgis (4th edition), and it does look appealingly simple. It's the Avis of the world of parliamentary guides. Looking at both formats, I think we would do well to keep in mind that their by-laws sections are not directive. Roberts calls its format "A Suggested Form for Bylaws." Sturgis only gives a sample format in its Appendix. We should keep that in mind and approach this task with flexibility.
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