New Bylaws, posted for comment

[Alpine 1789]

The club’s bylaws have not been amended in quite some time and are very out of date. Revising them has been a key objective of the Board and, although it has taken us longer than we anticipated to get to this point, we have now completely re-written them and are presenting them here for membership review and comment. We tried to keep the spirit of the bylaws the same, while making changes necessary to reflect the evolving nature of the club. Some of the primary changes you will see in the attachment are:

• We have removed a lot of content this is simply no longer relevant to the Club. For example, a lot of the original bylaws were devoted to local chapters, something we don’t have anymore. This has been eliminated.
• There is much less here on the annual Invasion, which hasn’t been held in far too long, but we left a mention of it in, just in case we need it.
• We changed some of the language around membership categories. There are now two broad categories, sponsoring and non-sponsoring. Current tiers of sponsoring membership is formally attached to the bylaws as Attachment 1. The Board voted to keep the current tier structure and contribution levels in place.
• One of the most significant proposed changes to the bylaws is the requirement that only sponsoring member would be able list items on the For Sale section.

Along with the bylaw changes, we have also completely re-written our rules for forum behavior (Attachment 2). The club owes a big debt of gratitude to Kevin McLemore/Puff4, who shared the forum rules used by The MacGregor Sailors Forum as a good starting point for us. We borrowed very liberally from the MacGregor rules for ours. One thing I particularly liked in that forum was that they have public rules for administration, something we have copied.

The proposed bylaws and forum rules are presented here for membership comment. I will leave this thread open for comment for a week (or so, depending on how active it becomes), make any necessary revisions and then post a formal vote to adopt the changes. I don’t expect the new bylaws to have much of an impact on the day- to-day functioning of the club, but hopefully it will help position us for continued growth in the coming years.

One last thing: We normally post the minutes of Board meeting, but most of the meeting was devoted to reviewing the new bylaws. We wanted to have the bylaws reviewed by an attorney (pro bono) and that took a little longer than expected. I didn’t want to create any confusion while the review was ongoing, so held off publishing the minutes until the revised bylaws were ready for posting. We’ll publish the meeting minutes shortly.

 

[Barry]

Jim,

PM sent.

 

[jdoclogan]

Accolades to the Board! A well written set of bylaws provides a keystone document by which an organization/club may function.

I will comment on a recommenced edit in the section XII. Events. The phrase "support to relevant Marque events (e.g. SUNI)" appears to cover that singular Sunbeam International (SUNI) USA event. I'm not certain what the international membership might be to warrant the following suggestion. However, I believe it would be a globally robust and all inclusive recommendation. By a simple inclusion of the term international to the statement, "Upon request, the Club will provide limited financial and logistical support to international, national or regional events with sufficient attendance, but shall not be liable for any loss or damage arising out of the use by any person of their vehicle or property on the club business." will set a worldwide embodiment of all Sunbeam/Rootes owners. I champion our past support for the Rootes Archive in Coventry, UK and this suggestion follows that benevolent jester.

 

[John W]

One of the most significant proposed changes to the bylaws is the requirement that only sponsoring member would be able list items on the For Sale section.

sponsoring member ?

So all that means is that you have to pay dues to sell things? Or is there something else involved? What level of dues qualifies as "sponsorship?"

What if someone who isn't paying dues answers a want ad? "I'll give you a hundred dollars for that, less your dues." ?

 

[Alpine 1789]

The phrase "support to relevant Marque events (e.g. SUNI)" appears to cover that singular Sunbeam International (SUNI) USA event.

Thanks for that. I had considered adding more examples to my "e.g." list, but never got around to it. I like your suggestion and will incorporate some version of it in the next revision.

John: right now the difference between "sponsoring" and "non sponsoring" members is as little as $5. The Board didn't consider that too much support to ask to help keep the lights on for someone who is using our forum to sell parts and even cars. One of the Board members suggested that people sometimes come here to give away merchandise they have acquired along the way, which is why we added the "Free to a Good Home" section. That would remain open to anyone, sponsoring or not.

 

[hartmandm]

sponsoring member ?

So all that means is that you have to pay dues to sell things? Or is there something else involved? What level of dues qualifies as "sponsorship?"

What if someone who isn't paying dues answers a want ad? "I'll give you a hundred dollars for that, less your dues." ?

I assume a non-sponsoring member can send a Private Message to the member selling an item.

Mike

 

[Alpine 1789]

Hmm. We'll have to consult with Greggers. Our intent wasn't to prevent non sponsoring members from buying, just selling. We'll have to make certain we don't inadvertently prevent that.

 

[MikeH]

1. Can a non-sponsoring member send a PM?

2. On another car forum that I am a member of, even though they don’t collect dues or sponsor fees, a member has to have a minimum number of posts before they can add anything to the for sale section. This is to prevent spam and other nonsense from being posted in the sale section.

 

[Alpine 1789]

1. Can a non-sponsoring member send a PM?

We have never discussed turning this feature off for non-sponsoring members and I don't know of any reason why we would need to do that. We didn't want to overly limit their ability to use the forum; we just felt like those who use it for e-commerce should also help support it.

2. On another car forum that I am a member of, even though they don’t collect dues or sponsor fees, a member has to have a minimum number of posts before they can add anything to the for sale section. This is to prevent spam and other nonsense from being posted in the sale section.

I suppose we could institute something like this if necessary, but I think Greggers has done a good job of stopping spammers before they ever get access. I would suggest holding off on something like this unless it is needed.

 

[Gordon Holsinger]

The club’s bylaws have not been amended in quite some time and are very out of date. Revising them has been a key objective of the Board and, although it has taken us longer than we anticipated to get to this point, we have now completely re-written them and are presenting them here for membership review and comment. We tried to keep the spirit of the bylaws the same, while making changes necessary to reflect the evolving nature of the club. Some of the primary changes you will see in the attachment are:

• We have removed a lot of content this is simply no longer relevant to the Club. For example, a lot of the original bylaws were devoted to local chapters, something we don’t have anymore. This has been eliminated.
• There is much less here on the annual Invasion, which hasn’t been held in far too long, but we left a mention of it in, just in case we need it.
• We changed some of the language around membership categories. There are now two broad categories, sponsoring and non-sponsoring. Current tiers of sponsoring membership is formally attached to the bylaws as Attachment 1. The Board voted to keep the current tier structure and contribution levels in place.
• One of the most significant proposed changes to the bylaws is the requirement that only sponsoring member would be able list items on the For Sale section.

Along with the bylaw changes, we have also completely re-written our rules for forum behavior (Attachment 2). The club owes a big debt of gratitude to Kevin McLemore/Puff4, who shared the forum rules used by The MacGregor Sailors Forum as a good starting point for us. We borrowed very liberally from the MacGregor rules for ours. One thing I particularly liked in that forum was that they have public rules for administration, something we have copied.

The proposed bylaws and forum rules are presented here for membership comment. I will leave this thread open for comment for a week (or so, depending on how active it becomes), make any necessary revisions and then post a formal vote to adopt the changes. I don’t expect the new bylaws to have much of an impact on the day- to-day functioning of the club, but hopefully it will help position us for continued growth in the coming years.

One last thing: We normally post the minutes of Board meeting, but most of the meeting was devoted to reviewing the new bylaws. We wanted to have the bylaws reviewed by an attorney (pro bono) and that took a little longer than expected. I didn’t want to create any confusion while the review was ongoing, so held off publishing the minutes until the revised bylaws were ready for posting. We’ll publish the meeting minutes shortly.

I think the new bylaws pretty well cover all issues. In the future the board may have to make amendments however that is not a big issue. I did like JDOCLOGAN’ S comments I think it makes clear the issue of international.

 

[husky drvr]

I think the new bylaws pretty well cover all issues. In the future the board may have to make amendments however that is not a big issue. I did like JDOCLOGAN’ S comments I think it makes clear the issue of international.

I think introducing "international" assistance might cause some complications with any US based club insurance.

 

[Gordon Holsinger]

I think introducing "international" assistance might cause some complications with any US based club insurance.

That’s a point, that’s why the board want feedback.

 

[jdoclogan]

I think introducing "international" assistance might cause some complications with any US based club insurance.

Good point Don. However, support/donation can be given for the exchange of a written liability release to the Club from the organizers of any event. For example, SAOCA's donation to the Rootes Archive does not imply in any way SAOCA's inclusion to any liable action taken by an individual toward the Rootes Archive.

The support section states: Upon request, the Club will provide limited financial and logistical support ....but shall not be liable for any loss or damage arising out of the use by any person ...

 

[Alpine 1789]

It has been almost two months since I posted the proposed new bylaws, considerably more than the ‘week or so’ I intended to lapse between posting them for comment and then for a formal vote. What can I say? You had good recommendations and life got in the way of incorporating them. But, we have reviewed the comments that were made here and in private messages to Board members, and made quite a few changes. A pdf of what we hope are the final bylaws is attached. In addition to some general clean-up, the major changes are:

The biggest changes were to the membership section (Article III). As one member pointed out for me in a private message, the original was a “self-contradictory mess.” He was correct (and kind to say that privately) and that section has been extensively revised and re-ordered. Hopefully, it is now internally consistent.

• The suggestion was made here that we include potential support of international events. On review, the Board felt that sponsorship of events in most other countries was a bridge too far for us. But that discussion made us think about our Canadian members. It was an oversight not to include them and, in addition a few other minor wording changes, the Events section (Article X) now refers to North America, as opposed to just "America.” (We don’t currently have any members south of our border, but we’ll be ready when we do!)
• Revising the Events section made us realize that we really ought to codify our support of the Rootes Archive Centre. It didn’t fit under Events, so we added a new section (Article XI. Rootes Group Support).
• Finally, the original wording at the end (“Every member shall be furnished a copy of the SAOCA By-Laws upon joining.”) was a carryover from the original bylaws but wasn’t correct or consistent with the modern digital nature of the club. It was changed it to “These bylaws will be published on the home page of the Club’s website and will be available to all members and prospective members.”

I’ll hold off a bit before requesting a vote, just in case anything pops up that we missed. I know I see something new every time I read them, so our sharp-eyed members have one last chance for comment prior to the vote.

 

[Paul A]

It has been almost two months since I posted the proposed new bylaws, considerably more than the ‘week or so’ I intended to lapse between posting them for comment and then for a formal vote. What can I say? You had good recommendations and life got in the way of incorporating them. But, we have reviewed the comments that were made here and in private messages to Board members, and made quite a few changes. A pdf of what we hope are the final bylaws is attached. In addition to some general clean-up, the major changes are:

The biggest changes were to the membership section (Article III). As one member pointed out for me in a private message, the original was a “self-contradictory mess.” He was correct (and kind to say that privately) and that section has been extensively revised and re-ordered. Hopefully, it is now internally consistent.

• The suggestion was made here that we include potential support of international events. On review, the Board felt that sponsorship of events in most other countries was a bridge too far for us. But that discussion made us think about our Canadian members. It was an oversight not to include them and, in addition a few other minor wording changes, the Events section (Article X) now refers to North America, as opposed to just "America.” (We don’t currently have any members south of our border, but we’ll be ready when we do!)
• Revising the Events section made us realize that we really ought to codify our support of the Rootes Archive Centre. It didn’t fit under Events, so we added a new section (Article XI. Rootes Group Support).
• Finally, the original wording at the end (“Every member shall be furnished a copy of the SAOCA By-Laws upon joining.”) was a carryover from the original bylaws but wasn’t correct or consistent with the modern digital nature of the club. It was changed it to “These bylaws will be published on the home page of the Club’s website and will be available to all members and prospective members.”

I’ll hold off a bit before requesting a vote, just in case anything pops up that we missed. I know I see something new every time I read them, so our sharp-eyed members have one last chance for comment prior to the vote.

It has been almost two months since I posted the proposed new bylaws, considerably more than the ‘week or so’ I intended to lapse between posting them for comment and then for a formal vote. What can I say? You had good recommendations and life got in the way of incorporating them. But, we have reviewed the comments that were made here and in private messages to Board members, and made quite a few changes. A pdf of what we hope are the final bylaws is attached. In addition to some general clean-up, the major changes are:

The biggest changes were to the membership section (Article III). As one member pointed out for me in a private message, the original was a “self-contradictory mess.” He was correct (and kind to say that privately) and that section has been extensively revised and re-ordered. Hopefully, it is now internally consistent.

• The suggestion was made here that we include potential support of international events. On review, the Board felt that sponsorship of events in most other countries was a bridge too far for us. But that discussion made us think about our Canadian members. It was an oversight not to include them and, in addition a few other minor wording changes, the Events section (Article X) now refers to North America, as opposed to just "America.” (We don’t currently have any members south of our border, but we’ll be ready when we do!)
• Revising the Events section made us realize that we really ought to codify our support of the Rootes Archive Centre. It didn’t fit under Events, so we added a new section (Article XI. Rootes Group Support).
• Finally, the original wording at the end (“Every member shall be furnished a copy of the SAOCA By-Laws upon joining.”) was a carryover from the original bylaws but wasn’t correct or consistent with the modern digital nature of the club. It was changed it to “These bylaws will be published on the home page of the Club’s website and will be available to all members and prospective members.”

I’ll hold off a bit before requesting a vote, just in case anything pops up that we missed. I know I see something new every time I read them, so our sharp-eyed members have one last chance for comment prior to the vote.

Great work Jim - and others. Thanks for all you do on behalf of the rest of us. Pete