Write-In Campaign / SoA President-Elect

[bdschobel]

What a complete waste of my time. Good grief.

Bruce

[Arthur Kade]

Glad I missed it.

[tbakos]

What I find interesting is that the SoA is taking this matter of the Nominating Committee overstepping any authority it has granted to it in the Bylaws so seriously that they have addressed it first in both the Interactive Leadership Forum on July 10 and, now, today in the Candidate Forum. It is really good to see that!

It is upsetting that neither candidate seems to believe their fellow voting members are intelligent enough to select for themselves qualified leaders. They endorse the "party line" that the Nominating Committee of 9 members appointed by the Board should select for you candidates you are be allowed to vote for. They, really, are both the same and seemed to stumble over each other to express agreement with the other. But, what do you expect from the process? You might as well flip a coin (or, not bother to vote at all). Does it really matter who wins?


There was some premonition from Tonya that the SoA was working on an explanation for why FSAs no longer have a right to make nominations and why the Nominating Committee has a right to reject a properly nominated candidate and leave a place on the President-Elect ballot empty.

But, here is the question they need to answers:

1. What specific language was added or amended in the Bylaws in 2007 that modified the right FSAs had to "make nominations"?
2. What language was added or changed when the Bylaws were amended in 2007 that gave a Nominating Committee the right to vet, select, and reject candidates nominated by FSAs on the basis of a set of "qualification" requirements they had established?

I can't find any. Can you?

That was certainly what "they" intended in 2007, but they never told the FSAs voting on the Bylaws amendments. The amendments in 2007 were, principally, to combine an old set of Bylaws with an old Constitution into a new set of Bylaws. The FSAs voting on it were never informed that they were voting to give up their right to make nominations.

So, if the SoA produces an explanation that says you FSAs voluntarily assigned your right to select and vet candidates yourself through an election process, make them point out exactly the amendments you voted for in 2007 that did that!

You can find a copy of the SoA Bylaws here.

[twig93]

Originally Posted by tbakos

I am sure it can be done. I am only pointing out that expecting anyone to listen to 12 hours of recording to find something of interest is not the most efficient process. It is too easy to bury things in a process like that.

It would be much better to adopt another idea I had which would be to have one or two reporters at the meeting to report intelligently to members on the discussion and outcome. They might even interview Board members on their positions.

If whatever equipment is doing the recording has a timer that is visible, have a reporter take down what is being discussed and report on when various stuff is being recorded. Then make the whole thing available and people can listen to what they choose to listen to.

i.e. the reporters notes might look like this:

0:00 Recording starts
0:02 Meeting called to order
0:03 Accepting minutes from last meeting
0:04 Discussion of Topic X
1:47 Vote on Topic X (list outcome, who voted how)
1:50 Listen to committee report on Topic Y
... etc...

Then people can fast forward to the 1:50 mark if they're not interested in Topic X but are interested in Topic Y. I realize that this level of transparency is horrifying to the current powers that be. I'm just saying what would be ideal.

[bdschobel]

Originally Posted by tbakos

...The amendments in 2007 were, principally, to combine an old set of Bylaws with an old Constitution into a new set of Bylaws. The FSAs voting on it were never informed that they were voting to give up their right to make nominations.

Here's the history behind the 2007 Bylaws changes. (Note that I was on the SOA Board continuously from October 2001 through October 2010, so I was there for all of this.) The SOA did a legal review of its Constitution and Bylaws around 2004 or so. Lisa Stegink, who had recently taken over as general counsel from the retiring Alan Lazarescu, conducted the review. She found that the corporate documents, which had not been updated in quite a long time, no longer complied with Illinois law as it applies to not-for-profit corporations. We needed to make many changes, just for compliance with the law. While we were at it, we decided to go ahead and combine the Constitution and Bylaws into a single document, called the Bylaws, in accordance with modern practice. That's how the process began. As secretary-treasurer during 2005-06, I chaired the task force that worked on this.

We were encouraged to make lots of changes beyond those required by law. Those were categorized in various ways and discussed at great length by the Bylaws task force and the Board itself, through voluminous list-serve discussions. Many of the proposed changes were controversial. An example is reducing the size of the rather large Board; some folks advocated shrinking it to 16 or so members, from 28. There are lots of other examples, and each one got a full vetting -- at least at the Board level. In the end, we decided to make only the most minimal changes, partly because doing anything else would cost votes, and we needed two-thirds of the voting FSAs to approve the changes. Ultimately, 93% did approve them. Tom, no doubt, still has the documentation that went to the voters; although I don't have it any longer, I'm sure that it was very clear that we were changing the words and the format but hardly any of the substance of the previous documents.

The 2008 Bylaws change, which was perhaps the crowning achievement of my presidency, was very simple and extended voting rights in Board elections (but not votes on Bylaws amendments) to 5-year ASAs.

A 2011 Bylaws change permits joint discipline, something else that I advocated early on.

The Nominating Committee, in essentially its current form, was instituted in 2006, before any of the recent Bylaws changes. The 2006 change could not have affected substantive members' rights, because they never voted on it! Making such a substantive change without a vote would violate Illinois law. The notion that the 2007 Bylaws codified the 2006 change is fine, but the 2006 change did not remove members' right to nominate candidates for the Board.

What the SOA has done to Tom Bakos over the past 3 years is an abomination. I am deeply ashamed of the organization.

Bruce

[Hojo]

[campbell]

Extra as online voting opens tomorrow

[knowles]

done and done. Shake it up!

[tbakos]

Just a reminder ... if you are an FSA or a 5-year ASA and are unhappy with the choices for President-Elect the SoA allows you to vote for, then write me in!

See link here: http://www.bakosenterprises.com/2012

If you are happy with SoA leadership and your ability to influence the directions they take, then, please, ignore this.

But, if you are unhappy, then this write-in vote is, perhaps, the only way you have to express your concern. Not to worry either, The chances of the SoA recognizing a write-in winner are south of nil.

[Zakk Wylde]

1. I don't know who Tom Bakos is or why he is running
2. I never vote in SoA elections
3. I got a whiny, offensive email from Bradley M. Smith telling me what a bad person Tom Bakos is
4. I sent my write-in vote for Tom Bakos