On the bylaws review, it's sometimes tough to decide which clauses are show stoppers and which are meant to show intent.
If you require previous board experience, what happens if (years from now), you find yourself with no one who is eligible to run? What if those with experience have become a misguided president with friends holding all the key positions and what the masses want is change? You may have boxed yourselves into a corner.
On the other hand if you leave a loophole, that allows for situations like you experienced this year - a good Board in place and a candidate out of nowhere with no track record tries to take control.
Even the verb you choose can make a big difference. Suppose you are indicating that presidential nominees are to have 2 years prior Board experience.
Nominee must have (required)
Nominee shall have (required)
Nominee should have (desired, but not required)
There are clauses you want to write as absolute, others that allow wiggle room, and still others that are specified but can be overturned with a certain percentage of votes.
"Significant" volunteer experiences is going to be difficult to quantify. Who is better, the volunteer who takes on a minor job requiring 1 hour per month, doesn't really get involved, but does that job for 2 years or someone who came in the last few months of the year but took a strong leadership role, maybe chairing a complex, major event with numerous personal interactions? (On paper, that could be 2 years experience compared to 2 months of experience.)
I'm not pushing you one way or the other - but consider every possible scenario when you re-work the bylaws.
Whew.........The elections were last night and our executive board remains intact! I'm so excited that the record turnout of voting members resulted in those with experience remaining in office! Our first order of business following the election was to appoint a 7-member bylaw committee to review and recommend changes to our current bylaws. As president, I will be serving on this committee and my first request will be that only those that have significant volunteer experience and who have chaired committee(s) in the past be allowed to run for the president or vice-president position.
This has been an incredible learning experience for me. Thank you to everyone here who posted words of encouragement in the time leading up to elections.
And to all those who GIVE BIG everyday to make our schools and communities better places - THANK YOU.
I'm not a big fan of the nominating committee process. Our Bylaws do not have this. All ours indicate is that any active member who wishes to run for a position should present their desire to the President prior to or at the meeting that the elections are being held.
What I do is send out an e-mail to all of the active members prior asking anyone to contact me if interested, explaining that all positions are available. Then I fill in the names of interested individuals for the specified positions and send the list around at the meeting. If there is ever a conflict we vote. So far it has not been an issue.
According to our bylaws, the nominating committee is charged with selecting a candidate for each position and presenting the slate to be voted on by the general (paid) membership. Nominations can be made from the floor prior to the election and then a written ballot will be used.
I really do have a alot of support and folks are well aware of all that I have done as a volunteer and leader and I'm told I will be nominated from the floor. Each candidate has 5 minutes to speak prior to the vote.
Is this similar to other group's bylaws? We read about 100 sets of bylaws prior to writing ours and this seems standard.
I would feel the same way OntheGoPto! I have worked my buns off this year to turn our PTO around and I would be very upset too! HANG IN THERE!
We are a PTO and per our bylaws, anyone can be nominated that wants to step up, we could have 10 people running for Pres. it does not matter, but it is up to a vote by our paid members, period! Don't you all have to vote? When are your elections?
I am sure it will all work out and you will be fine. Do some campaigning maybe! Let others know just how important this is to you. Some people just step up to make themselves look good as a person, but there are not a lot of dedicated people like you out there!
Keep that smile on and just keep moving along!
