Assistant Secretary Position

[Sonja Strom]

In today's meeting (ref. http://forums.slcds.info/viewtopic.php?f=25&t=2548) we talked about the possibility of creating an Assistant Secretary position for the Guild. One of the things we discussed is that the New Guild Charter should be amended to allow this to happen.

From our discussion, it seems to me like the best way to do this would be to make these changes to the Charter:

* Add an item 16b which says “An Assistant Secretary may be elected separately to help with the functions of the Secretary.”

* Add an item 17b which says “In the absence of the Secretary, the Assistant Secretary may call meetings, determine Quorum, and holding votes within the meeting. All decisions or actions of the Assistant Secretary are subject to the override of the Secretary.”

* Change item 19 to say “The Secretary of the Board and the Assistant Secretary can each be recalled by a 4/5 majority vote of the Board”

* Change item 20 to say “The Faculty may veto a Board vote to remove the Secretary of the Board or the Assistant Secretary with a 2/3 vote of the Faculty”

* Add an item 20b which says “In the case of a recall of the Secretary, the Assistant Secretary will guide the election of the new Secretary.

If you have any thoughts about this or how best to do it, please post them here.

[Timo Gufler]

Good to read, that new offices are created and burden of busy people eased.

[Cindy Ecksol]

Hmm, interesting. Conceptually a really good idea. But of course the logistical considerations raise the question of who "the Board" and "the Faculty" are right now and how they are selected. Aside from a meeting of whoever happens to be available every six months approving Moon as chair and a similar acclamation of a secretary to take minutes, I don't recall any mention of other "Board members." Which makes "4/5 of the Board" statements rather problematic. And I don't think I ever did know exactly who was considered Faculty although there have been a few conversations about Faculty over the last two years.

Cindy

[Sonja Strom]

Timo, thank you.

Cindy, thank you also for your input.

I can see I could have been more clear in what I posted above. The changes I suggested would be to the New Guild Charter (to be found at http://forums.slcds.info/viewtopic.php?f=25&t=1875), all only in its Section 3. In §3.1 it states “The Board is the General Assembly of the New Guild.” How I understand this statement in practice is, all CDS citizens present at the meeting where the voting takes place are considered to be Board Members and are able to vote. This sort of strange organizational structure came out of changes in the Guild over time. At one time only certain citizens could vote, but then this was opened up so everybody participating in the Guild could vote. It is like saying "Only So-and-Sos can vote. A So-and-So is Everyone."

I have to admit I don’t really understand the Faculty part of the Guild, and I also don’t know who the members of it are. To be clear, I have not suggested any changes to the Faculty aspects of the Charter.

I am sorry if this is confusing for anybody. Personally I find it a little bit confusing myself, and it has taken me some time concentrating on it in order to arrive at how to suggest these changes (although, in reality they are nothing more than a possible way to implement the suggestions made in the Guild discussion). At the end of the day, the only one thing I am trying to do with them is to make it so there could be an Assistant Guild Secretary - if the participants in the Guild elect one - in addition to the Guild Secretary. The current Secretary (Moon Adamant) also thinks this could be a good thing to have, and I have incorporated her suggestions into mine.