As Cascade's Board of Directors is getting ready for fall elections, we would like to present our membership with some revisions to the club's bylaws.
Members will be asked to vote on these proposed changes during the October election. These revisions will appear collectively on the ballot along with this year's candidates for the board of directors.
Intended to improve the governance process, the Board proposes to:
- Separate the election of board members from the annual business meeting while moving the annual business meeting to the first quarter of the year
Rationale: The bylaws tie the election of the board of directors to the Annual Business Meeting. We seek to separate the two so that elections are still held at the end of the year, but the annual business meeting is held during a different part of the year. The October Annual Business Meeting is very sparsely attended. We want to have the opportunity to hold the annual business meeting during Expo to boost attendance at the business meeting. The proposed change also moves the election from early October to early December, allowing the opportunity for having the end-of-year volunteer party also serve as the time for membership to meet and talk with board candidates ahead of the election.
- Lower the minimum number of times the board must meet each year from twice a quarter to once a quarter
Rationale: The bylaws were written at time when the board was a working board and not an oversight board. An oversight board does not need to meet as often as a working board. In practice, we suspect we will end up meeting 5 or 6 times a year plus an annual retreat.
- Change the budgeting process to eliminate the need for a board meeting in October
Rationale: The Finance Committee, chaired by the board treasurer, subsumes the bylaws mandated “budget committee.” The Finance Committee works with staff to develop the annual budget. The October board review mandated in the bylaws is, in practice, done by the Finance Committee (with opportunities for any interested board member to supply input to the process), reducing the need for the full board to weigh in during October.
- Remove conflicting definitions of the Executive Committee
Rationale: This section of the bylaws contradicted Article XIII, Section 3 regarding the makeup of the Executive Committee. The change removes this contradiction by making reference to that section.
- Change the quorum requirement for actions at membership meetings from headcount based to ballot based
Rationale. The quorum requirement was 25 members attending a meeting. It is being changed to 300 ballots received during an election or membership decided issues.
- Update what happens to club assets should it cease to exist
Rationale: The organizations that are to receive our assets have changed their names since the bylaws were created. This change simply replaces the archaic names of the organizations with their modern names.
Electronic voting will be available to all Cascade members in October. Visit www.cascade.org/about/board-directors to learn more about the Board, Board elections, Cascade governance and more.
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