HELLO GUILD. BELOW (IN BLACK) IS THE PROPOSAL I PUT FORWARD RECENTLY FOR THE
CHANGE IN THE GUILD STRUCTURE. I HAVE USED COLOR TO SHOW DIFFERENT PEOPLE'S
COMMENTS TO DATE IN THIS ON-LINE DISCUSSION. IN GREEN, I TRY TO CLARIFY
SOME OF MY SUGGESTIONS AND RESPOND TO YOUR COMMENTS. PLEASE SEND YOUR
FURTHER COMMENTS EITHER TO ME DIRECTLY (WHERE I CAN SHARE THEM WITH THE
GUILD WITHOUT USING YOUR NAME) OR YOU CAN SEND THEM TO THE EMAIL LIST
DIRECTLY -
Michael Nelson
President, SFBAPG

MODERATOR'S NOTE: COLORED TEXT DOES NOT SHOW UP HERE, SO I AM WRITING THE COLORS AS THOUGH THEY WERE CHARACTERS IN A PLAY. BLACK IS MICHAEL'S ORIGINAL, GREEN IS MICHAEL'S NEW COMMENT, AND BLUE AND RED ARE GUILD MEMBERS' COMMENTS.

BLACK: I would like to propose that the guild consider adopting a nine member
board, with board members' terms being 3 years each and three new board
members being elected every 3 years.

BLUE: If we are attempting to rid ourselves of the "change in officers hiccup"
that happens each time we vote for new officers, I would suggest that The
Nine be staggered. Meaning that we have elections each year to replace
three. A bit of work, yes. Keeping ideas fresh AND having a steady path,
yes.

RED: 3 years is too long! 2 would be sufficient for a commitment & life changes.

GREEN: My original thought was nine members with 3 elected each year, as blue
suggested, so there are always 6 who are remaining on the board in any given
year. Two years could be possible...it would work better with say, six, but
there would be less representation with six than with nine. The question of
how many and how long would be up to the membership to decide. I used the
model of UNIMA-USA when choosing nine, with 3 coming on each year and 3 year
terms for each. If we went to 6, then it could be 2 members elected each
year, with each having a term of 2 years. Then there would always be 4
incumbents on the board. That scenario would only give one more board
member than we have now. To my way of thinking, 9 would be better
representation of the membership.

BLACK: This board would then be charged with making the guild decisions that in the
past were done in the town meeting style of membership meetings.

BLUE: I would suggest a once a year town meeting to air any ideas, grievances,
problem solving or concerns. Disconnecting the majority of the guild from a
voice in the governance of the guild could promote a resentment for The
Nine.

RED: Adding board member is ok but not allowing for input from the general
membership is not ok. This will exclude others & be a little incestuous, esp
if you
get a group that might be self serving. I have just seen this with another
org I
belong to & it's not pretty. Coffers are being depleted & they have made
themselves the STARS. Bad bad bad. Remember it isn't always a perfect world.

GREEN: There was never any idea of disconnecting from the guild or eliminating the
members voices. As a current officer of the guild, I am coming to this idea
from the point of view that we are currently running the guild with
basically 5 (the officers) making the decisions, as the membership has not
participated much in recent years in the month to month running of the
guild. My whole idea behind getting nine board members was to INCREASE the
number of guild members giving input, not lessen it. There have been
decisions that have come up that the board has felt uncomfortable making as
we are such a small number of the guild, but meetings have had such low
turnout that a town meeting type decision was rendered next to impossible.
This situation tends to paralyze the guild. I think that any guild member
who wanted to participate in the governance of the organization who came
forward would be welcome. If any of you feel cut off from the decision
making process, please come forward and be heard! We are looking for you.
Also, I had thought it a good idea to have membership meetings as well, on a
regular basis. I would hope that this change might help encourage more
members to take an active part in guild activities.

BLACK: A 9 member board would offer more diverse points of view during discussions
as well as spread out the work load of the guild among more people.
Meetings could then be less frequent (as the guild
just voted at the last meeting)

BLUE: WHoa. The Nine should meet monthly. Either by voice or in person

GREEN: By meetings being less frequently I was thinking of membership meetings, not
meetings of the board. These I would think would be as often as deemed
necessary to run the guild.

BLACK: and when we have general membership meetings
they could be more program and social oriented, and not have to include
business meetings. The board could communicate with the membership through
the newsletter, the guild website and the guild email list. And, of course,
guild members could take
any business they wished to be considered either to the board or the
membership at large (there would still be at least one regular guild
membership meeting a year and possibly short meetings as needed or requested

at any regular guild event.)

BLUE: No. Not 'as requested'. This sounds like you could bring up a topic for
debate at a meeting and then have it discussed at the same meeting. Yes to
requesting a topic for debate in the next agenda at the next meeting.

GREEN: Good point.

BLACK: Guild officers would be elected by the board, from within the board, for 1
year terms.

BLUE: What is the difference between the Officers and The Nine? The Nine watch
over the Officers so they don't do.... what?? The Nine should be the
governing body of the guild. The Nine could elect a Chairman that reports to
the Guild for a period of a year. As I see it, the only position that is
needed is Finance.

GREEN: The nine would be the board of directors. The board would then within
themselves elect a president to preside over meetings and oversee the board
business, a vice president to take over if the president is absent, a
secretary to record, and a treasurer to handle the money (this position
perhaps should be treated differently as it is more difficult to pass on
yearly). Each office would be just for the year, until a new board is
elected and convened, at which point the new board would then again select
officers. This would be basically as outlined in Robert's Rules of Order,
currently the ruling order of our guild.

BLACK: This is a change in the basic structure of the guild, but it is a change to
a model that many other similar organizations already use with much success.
I am proposing this suggestion in the newsletter and on the guild email list
(which will then put it onto the guild website.)

BLUE: I also believe that the newsletter should be abandoned as the major news
organ of the guild and replaced with a web page based service. Easier to
search. Easier to archive. Faster to look at. Requires no newsletter editor.
(not that you're not good at it - but why should any one have to prod people
to get information and then arrange this information into a readable format,
add pictures - if there happens to be any - and then send it out to in both
hard copy and pdf every month?)

GREEN: Guild member may have varying opinions about the usefulness of the
newsletter. Also, we must keep in mind that however this discussion goes
our email list, that a number of guild members receive the newsletter in
print because they (for whatever reason) do not have or want Internet
access. Their voice will not be heard in this online discussion

BLACK: Let me know your thoughts, concerns, or ideas. It is my thought that should
the membership look
favorably on this idea, that when the guild membership renewal forms are
mailed out in August, there would also be a
proposition ballot updating the bylaws of the guild to make this change in
structure. This gives us some time for discussion before making our
decision. --