Weekly Meeting - VOTING DAY!

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Comment by Theresa Swanson on May 19, 2009 at 1:52pm

Sorry to hear that you cannot be present for the meeting. We have previously discussed alternate days for the meeting, I will mention this again this week. As for absentee voting, I have brought this question to the attention of the leadership group and we are working on it at the moment. I will post something here when we know!

Comment by Peter Trippett on May 19, 2009 at 9:28pm

It is OK if you cannot make it. The bylaws allow for a proxy vote. If you signed the membership form at the last meeting, you are eligible to vote. If you cannot be at the meeting, please contact someone who is going, and give them your proxy. You can give them a proxy to vote as they wish, or you can specify who you wish to vote for. Either provide a signed paper, stating your intention, or contact Theresa Swanson (the acting Secretary) via the email system on this web site, and let her know how you wish to vote.

Comment by Del Boarts on May 19, 2009 at 9:32pm

I had hoped to attend, but have been called out of town thru the weekend.

Comment by Ruth Krebs on May 21, 2009 at 8:13am

I'm feeling shut out of things and it's simply because I cannot attend meetings on Thursday evenings. Regarding the voting to take place tonight, and the bylaws allowing for a proxy vote - if I can't attend the meetings on Thursday evenings, how could I have signed the membership form "at the last meeting"?

Comment by Theresa Swanson on May 21, 2009 at 9:43am

Ruth, please do not feel shut out. There are a few people who have mentioned not being able to attend a Thursday evening meeting, however; the majority are still able to hence keeping the Thursday date. Changing the day is something we have discussed and is something that I plan on mentioning again. Is there a weekday that is better for you? I would like to get everyone's input here as we reevaluate meeting times.
As for the membership card, you wouldn't have been able to sign one if you were not present last week. I am not sure how to handle that but will think about it. If you would like to vote, please send me a private message through the mail system here on the site with your choices and I will gladly submit your votes in your stead.

Comment by Theresa Swanson on May 21, 2009 at 10:23am

Theresa, please do take offense or become defensive because you have been unable to attend and partake in what has been occurring at our meetings. There is not any infighting that is going on, some concerns have been brought to the attention of the group as a whole and we are all actively working on finding solutions.
When you gather together as many people as we have it is difficult to please everyone. Most all involved in this group are working adult professionals who have schedules to adhere to and at times those schedules render it impossible to be in attendance for a meeting. As I told Ruth, the majority of the group is still able to attend the Thursday evening meeting and they do. The option of moving to another night continues to be discussed.
By-laws and voting did not happen over night. It is a process that took a great amount of time and dedication by those who were involved in the process of writing them. They deserve thanks for doing such, not scrutiny.
If you have taken the time to read the by laws, which are readily available on the site, you would see that tonight's voting is not a permanent leadership structure, it will be provisional. Something to provide our group, which is still in it's infancy, some organization. Though you cannot be present this evening you are more than welcome to submit your votes via proxy, you can send me a message with your choices and I will gladly submit them for you.
Everything that has occurred yet far has been posted on the site, nothing has been done in secret. We have been more than open and up front about all of our activities. The leadership/ steering committee has a section here on the site that you could have/ can join and add your thoughts to. All of our voices deserve to be heard, even if we cannot be present at the meetings.

Comment by Peter Trippett on May 21, 2009 at 12:33pm

I feel badly that there are some people with hard feelings. This sequence of events has been planned for more than a month. Every single revision of the bylaws has been posted on this site, for review by all members of this site, and we have invited (and received) input.

It was clearly necessary that we get some organization in place. I know for a fact that we have already lost members, simply because we had no formal organization. Our largest meeting to date had many people who had attended for the first time. When those new people saw how disorganized we were, they decided not to come back!

So, yes, we have been trying to get an organization structure in place, and have tried to move quickly to do so. But we are fully aware that we are not perfect, and that there are people who might have good ideas that were not included. So, we made the bylaws provisional, and very easy to ammend for the next several months.

We also reallize that we are all new to one another. So we made the first two terms of the officers very short. So, once everyone realizes what a crummy President I am, they can get rid of me in two months :)

Everyone please realize that there is no nefarious purpose here. We are a group of people who are all here, because we decided to agree on a core set of principles and values. Among those values are Honesty, Sincerity, Humility. As one who belives in those values, I am asking you to trust that we are not trying to set up a Dictatorship or Oligarchy. Not only do we request input from everyone, WE NEED IT!

To Theresa Nelson - having been involved with this process for the past several weeks, I can assure you, there is no way we could have accomplished anything, had we continued to discuss the bylaws in the larger group. It would have taken a year or more to write just these 7 pages!

Thus at the last meeting in April, we decided to set up a committe to come up with the bylaws. That committee worked hard to do so, and had many lively discussions. We feel what we have come up with is a simple, core set of rules, that allows for an organized process by which the larger group can contribute to the evolution of a better set of rules.

So, I ask all of you, PLEASE DO NOT GIVE UP ON THE GROUP, or feel that we are intentionally excluding anybody. I doubt that, with a group of this size, we can choose any meeting date where all of us will be able to attend.

But, we will do our best to set up a system wherein those who cannot attend have a mechanism to vote and contribute. We already tried to do that with the proxy vote rule. Maybe we need to do something better.

Comment by Peter Trippett on May 21, 2009 at 12:41pm

TO THOSE WHO HAVE NOT SIGNED THE MEMBERSHIP FORM

Please send Theresa Swanson, through the email system on this site, an email stating you agree to the core principles of the group:

- That you agree to support and defend the Constitution of the United States of America, and the Bill of Rights. (written this way to exclude the ammendments above the tenth).

- That you agree with at least 7 of the 9 Principles of the 9-12 Project.

- That you agree with all 12 Values of the 9-12 Project.

- That you oppose the initiation of force to achieve political or social goals.

Also please provide Theresa with instructions on how you wish to vote. You are allowed to specify a write-in candidate.

I will make a motion at tonight's meeting, that such entries be considered as valid proxy votes for the election.

Comment by Ruth Krebs on May 21, 2009 at 2:22pm

I didn't mean to be difficult. My issue was not that I can't make Thursday night meetings, though I really wish I could. My issue was that the way provided for those of us who could not come to the meeting to vote was to have been at the last meeting to sign a membership form. If I can't come on Thursdays, I can't come on any Thursday. There must be another way.
Which also brings up another concern that even though I thought I had joined at the very beginning through the web site, I guess I haven't joined since I haven't signed a membership form!

Comment by Peter Trippett on May 21, 2009 at 2:42pm

Ruth,

Please see the comment I wrote, right before your last one, suggesting how you can submit a proxy vote.

We had to decide on a method to identify a 'member', that did not depend on this web site. The reason we did that is - over 200 people have signed up on this site. Some are in foreign countries, and cannot attend meetings. Some have become inactive, since they originally signed up.

On any matter that requires a vote, there must be a Quorum of voting members present. This rule is common in organizations such as this, to prevent a minority from radically changing a group, during a time when lots of people are on vacation.

If we depended on a percentage of members on this site, it would be very difficult to ever have a Quorum. So, we chose to have people sign a form, to establish membership, and make a voluntary contribution each year, to maintain active status.

With the understanding that you and others cannot make Thursday meetings, I have now suggested an alternative method, that I think is still consistent with the ideas in the bylaws.

As we proceed, we will try to improve our ability to allow everyone to contribute.

-Peter

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