From owner-constitution@andromeda.68k.org Tue Aug 12 00:01:07 1997 Date: Tue, 12 Aug 1997 02:00:30 -0500 From: owner-constitution-digest@lsmsaaa.org (LSMSAAA Constitution Digest) To: constitution-digest@68k.org Subject: LSMSAAA Constitution Digest V1 #2 Reply-To: constitution@andromeda.68k.org Sender: owner-constitution-digest@lsmsaaa.org Errors-To: owner-constitution-digest@lsmsaaa.org Precedence: bulk LSMSAAA Constitution Digest Tuesday, August 12 1997 Volume 01 : Number 002 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 9 Aug 1997 16:49:58 -0400 (EDT) From: Dennis Voss Subject: Membership I suppose it's time for the Virtual Constitutional Convention to "come to order." People have had plenty enough time to volunteer if they wish to participate. When the summer ends we can ask for volunteers again if you'd like. For the VCC, I will be working off of a constitutional draft that I've drawn up over the last month. This draft has a slightly different organization from the old Constitution, one that contains fewer redundancies and a more logical organization (e.g., the old Const. throws membership and dues into the same section, yet includes two sections called "Statement of Purpose" and "Creation" which to my eye are redundant). My working outline is as follows: I. Statement of Purpose II. Membership III. Dues IV. Officers of the Executive Committee V. The General Assembly VI. The LSMSA Director VII. Officer Succession VIII. Area Chapters IX. Amendment Procedure X. Transitional Provisions Any reference I make to section numbers will apply to this outline, and not to the current LSMSAAA Constitution, unless otherwise noted. I thought we could start with the membership provisions of the LSMSAAA Constitution. This is actually Section 2, but Section 1 is the organization's Statement of Purpose, and I would like to save that for near the end (probability of unproductive debate much higher). My initial proposal is not terribly different from what the current LSMSA constitution contains, with two exceptions: (1) I have added "supporting" and "lifetime" members into the constitutional framework, rather than leaving them in the by-laws. My thinking is that people will be more willing to shell out the extra $5 (or whatever) if they have some kind of guarantee. Plus, if you shell out extra money to the LSMSAAA, you deserve some protection. (2) I defined a category called "adjunct member" to hold LSMSA grads apart from other members of the LSMSA community. Distinguishing Adjunct and Supporting members from other Active members will allow us, later, to define rights and privileges unique to LSMSA grads or to those who've paid higher dues, should we wish. I realize that some people may not like the idea of giving different rights and privileges to these different categories. No need to debate that now. If we never vote to make distinctions of this sort, we can always go back and yank out the superfluous membership category later. Our working proposal: 2. MEMBERSHIP Anyone ever associated with the Louisiana School -- either as a student, a member of the faculty, or a member of the staff -- is automatically a member of the LSMSAAA. 2.1 Types of Membership The LSMSAAA will have five levels of membership, as follows: (a) Inactive Member - Any member of the LSMSAAA who has not paid dues for the fiscal year, according to the requirements of Article 3 below. (b) Adjunct Member - Any member of the LSMSAAA who is not a graduate of the Louisiana School but has met the dues requirements (regular or lifetime) of Article 3 below. (c) Active Member - Any graduate of the Louisiana School who has met the regular dues requirements of Article 3 below, but is not a Lifetime Member. (d) Supporting Active Member - Any graduate of the Louisiana School who has met the lifetime dues requirements of Article 3 below, but is not yet a Lifetime Member. (e) Lifetime Active Member - Any member of the LSMSAAA who has met the Article 3 dues requirements for Lifetime Membership 10 times (whether consecutively or not). 2.2 Unregistered Members Any member of the LSMSAAA who has not provided the LSMSAAA Recording Secretary with an active electronic or U.S. mail address becomes an Unregistered Member, regardless of dues status. An unregistered member of the LSMSAAA temporarily loses the right to any communications from the LSMSAAA and its Executive Council (but does not forfeit any other rights or privileges concomitant with current dues status). Upon registering a valid address with the Recording Secretary, the LSMSAAA member reverts to the applicable membership level. Falling into Unregistered Membership does not cause an LSMSAAA member to lose any credit toward Lifetime Membership. So, have at it... Remember to address all comments to: constitution@lsmsaaa.org steve - ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- D. Stephen Voss (dsvoss@wjh.harvard.edu) Eat your beans, then some mutton, Department of Government, GSAS don't pee ... and go on looking Harvard University after you obsession! Oh! my hypothesis! M-38 Littauer Bldg. Oh! my fame! I shall be immortal! Immortal! Cambridge, MA 02138 Doktor (from Wozzeck) - ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 11 Aug 1997 19:16:38 -0700 (PDT) From: "Andre' DeHon" Subject: Re: Membership > My working outline is as follows: > I. Statement of Purpose > II. Membership > III. Dues > IV. Officers of the Executive Committee > V. The General Assembly > VI. The LSMSA Director > VII. Officer Succession > VIII. Area Chapters > IX. Amendment Procedure > X. Transitional Provisions Sounds plausible. Of course, I'll reserve judgment until I've seen the details (hard to figure out what section VI contains by guessing). > I thought we could start with the membership provisions of the LSMSAAA > Constitution. This is actually Section 2, but Section 1 is the organization's > Statement of Purpose, and I would like to save that for near the end > (probability of unproductive debate much higher). On the other hand, having a firm agreement in hand as to the purpose of the organization for which we're drafting a constitution would be helpful as a standard against which to judge/debate the merits of the proposed structure. ...on the other hand, we do know what the old constitution said so maybe we have some common starting/reference point. ...and you're probably right that debate over purpose (and wordsmithing purpose) is likely to be more lively [but then, lively might not be bad as we try to get everyone here engaged in the process...]. ...anyway, having raised my concern, I will defer to the chair's judgment for now. > My initial proposal is not terribly different from what the > current LSMSA constitution contains, with two exceptions: > > (1) I have added "supporting" and "lifetime" members into the constitutional > framework, rather than leaving them in the by-laws. My thinking is that > people will be more willing to shell out the extra $5 (or whatever) if > they have some kind of guarantee. Plus, if you shell out extra money to > the LSMSAAA, you deserve some protection. > > (2) I defined a category called "adjunct member" to hold LSMSA grads > apart from other members of the LSMSA community. > > Distinguishing Adjunct and Supporting members from other Active > members will allow us, later, to define rights and privileges unique to > LSMSA grads or to those who've paid higher dues, should we wish. > I realize that some people may not like the idea of giving > different rights and privileges to these different categories. > No need to debate that now. If we never vote to make distinctions of this > sort, we can always go back and yank out the superfluous membership > category later. > > Our working proposal: I suspect you picked this to start with as one of the least contraversial...so I'll mostly pick nits. At a high level, this sounds reasonable to me. > 2. MEMBERSHIP > Anyone ever associated with the Louisiana School -- either as a > student, a member of the faculty, or a member of the staff -- is > automatically a member of the LSMSAAA. Ok. > 2.1 Types of Membership > The LSMSAAA will have five levels of membership, as follows: > (a) Inactive Member - Any member of the LSMSAAA who has not > paid dues for the fiscal year, according to the requirements of Article 3 > below. > (b) Adjunct Member - Any member of the LSMSAAA who is not a > graduate of the Louisiana School but has met the dues > requirements (regular or lifetime) of Article 3 below. The wording in (b) about dues seems more explicit than that in (a). The question I had in reading (a) was what does it mean to have dues paid for the fiscal year---i.e. are lifetime members considered to have their dues paid for the fiscal year? (b) doesn't mention fiscal year explicitly but does say that dues can be met either by lifetime or regular payment in accord with article 3. So, is it significant that these two are worded differently? If not, perhaps (a) should be wordsmithed to use similar wording to (b). > (c) Active Member - Any graduate of the Louisiana School who > has met the regular dues requirements of Article 3 below, but is > not a Lifetime Member. > (d) Supporting Active Member - Any graduate of the Louisiana > School who has met the lifetime dues requirements of Article 3 > below, but is not yet a Lifetime Member. > (e) Lifetime Active Member - Any member of the LSMSAAA who > has met the Article 3 dues requirements for Lifetime Membership > 10 times (whether consecutively or not). > > 2.2 Unregistered Members > Any member of the LSMSAAA who has not provided the LSMSAAA > Recording Secretary with an active electronic or U.S. mail > address becomes an Unregistered Member, regardless of dues > status. An unregistered member of the LSMSAAA temporarily loses > the right to any communications from the LSMSAAA and its > Executive Council (but does not forfeit any other rights or > privileges concomitant with current dues status). Upon > registering a valid address with the Recording Secretary, the > LSMSAAA member reverts to the applicable membership level. > Falling into Unregistered Membership does not cause an LSMSAAA > member to lose any credit toward Lifetime Membership. What's the purpose of this distinction? It seems to codify what must happen. I guess this makes explicit that it is the individual member's responsibility to keep the origanization updated with their address (rather than the organization's to keep track of the individuals). If that's the case, maybe we should start it out by saying such. "Recording Secretary" -- are we reverting to two secretaries? or are we now calling the one secretary recording? Perhaps it's to be addressed later, but what about voting status? i.e. do these people count against quorum? (should we ever need to discuss quorum...) If we're going to explicitly state that the organization won't communicate with an alum who has not provided a current address, do we also need to explicitly state that the organization won't provide back-communications upon registration? > Any member of the LSMSAAA who has not provided the LSMSAAA > Recording Secretary with an active electronic or U.S. mail > address becomes an Unregistered Member, regardless of dues > status. An unregistered member of the LSMSAAA temporarily loses Individual members of LSMSAAA are responsible for notifying the organization of their current address(es). Any member of the LSMSAAA who has not provided the LSMSAAA Secretary with a current, valid address (electronic or U.S. mail) becomes an Unregistered Member, regardless of dues status. Andre' ------------------------------ End of LSMSAAA Constitution Digest V1 #2 ****************************************