[NCUC-DISCUSS] Bylaws: Join With Us!

[Edward Morris]

Hi everyone.

Bill and Tapani have been having an important conversation concerning the
procedural aspects of getting a new Bylaws approved. I'm a bit concerned
that that this procedural talk might put off folks thinking about helping
with the Bylaws revision. I've had an e-mail this evening from someone
thinking along those lines. Please, everyone,  don't let that be the case.

Regardless of the exact method the revision is enacted, and I'm sure
reasonable people will find a way to do this as expeditiously as possible,
that we need a new Bylaws is beyond question. When I first stared to assume
my position on the E.C. I e-mailed Bill a bit confused, for I had
discovered both a Charter and a Bylaws for the NCUC online  and I didn't
know which one was authoritative. Bill's only surprise was that I had yet
to discover the other 2 or 3 documents that were out in cyberspace. The
fact that we're talking about revising a single document is actually quite
an accomplishment!

It is a flawed document, though. Did you know we have dues? Neither does
our treasury, but they are there in Article X. Revising the Bylaws, if not
done by the E.C., requires a petition signed by 10 per cent of our members
(Article VII(A) ) or 5 percent of our members (Article III(G)(5): take your
pick. Of course, that's to revise our Charter when we actually don't have
one: we operate under Bylaws, not Charters. California legal requirement.
Our GNSO Counsellors and NCSG EC members: Congratulations! You are members
of the NCSG Policy Committee ( Article V(B)). You probably didn't know
that. Then, again, it comes to a surprise to most of us that we have a
NCUCPC.  And so on...

Folks, we can't in good faith continue to operate under this document.
We're going to have to work out the process of getting a new Bylaws
approved and one way or another we will. We have to if we're going to take
our proper place within the ICANN community. What we need to focus on now
is writing the document itself:

Once again I'm asking anyone who might be able to contribute to go here:

http://www.ncuc.org/bylaws-revision-committee

and join our effort. Anyone with experience in drafting governing documents
for their own nonprofits are particularly welcome. We can use your help and
the help of anyone and everyone willing to assist in the project. It should
be as representative as possible of the incredibly diverse and accomplished
Constituency that is the NCUC.

Thanks for considering...

Ed Morris




On Sun, Aug 25, 2013 at 6:53 PM, Tapani Tarvainen <tapani.tarvainen at effi.org
> wrote:

> On Sun, Aug 25, 2013 at 05:54:48PM +0300, Tapani Tarvainen (
> ncuc at tapani.tarvainen.info) wrote:
>
> > We could even postpone the vote on the bylaws until December or
> > January if necessary
>
> Actually it seems we couldn't, as our current bylaws (VIII A) state that
>
> "the Executive Committee by majority vote may propose an amendment for
> consideration at the next regular election"
>
> without any option for a special vote just to change the bylaws -
> it has to happen at the regular election. So if we miss that now,
> it'll have to wait for another year.
>
> On Sun, Aug 25, 2013 at 12:27:30PM -0500, William Drake (wjdrake at gmail.com)
> wrote:
>
> > I'm among those who will be massively preoccupied in October by the
> > IGF, and the suggestion that we end finalize F2F in BA reflects such
> > considerations. But if we tie it up on 15 November, it may be
> > unrealistic to expect that the board SIC and staff will review our
> > homework, have no tweaks to request, and sign off in time for us to
> > put it to members in an election held like two weeks later.
>
> We could speed that up by keeping in touch with the staff during
> the process, so they won't have to start from the beginning
> once we're done.
>
> > Hence I've asked staff whether they think there'd be a way to make
> > that work, including with the in process comm you suggest. If not,
> > either we finish earlier, in October, so the SIC can do it's thing
> > with turn around time, or we postpone the bylaws vote.
>
> Or vote without board & SCI approval and hope they'll approve later.
> Yeah, I don't like that either but if we've kept them in the loop
> it might work out.
>
> --
> Tapani Tarvainen
> _______________________________________________
> Ncuc-discuss mailing list
> Ncuc-discuss at lists.ncuc.org
> http://lists.ncuc.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/ncuc-discuss
>
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