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Coop members weigh governance issuesby
Deborah Trupin About 60 HWFC members
gathered on February
26 to discuss issues that have come up over the functioning and
structure of
the Governance committee. The committee was formed when the current
Bylaws (a
complete revision of the former, much-amended Bylaws) were passed in
2003.
According to the Bylaws Section 460.2, the “Governance Committee shall
be a
standing committee of both the Membership and the Board.” Bylaws
Section 467
specifies the committee’s duties, including: “monitoring HWFC policies
and
governance procedures to ensure that they are consistent with existing
Bylaws
and policies”; assisting the “Secretary in maintaining a current record
of the
Bylaws and official policies of HWFC”; and reviewing notices of
membership meetings
and referenda before they are distributed. Bylaws Section 467.4
authorizes the
Governance committee to call a Special Membership meeting if the
committee concludes
that there has been a violation of the Bylaws. Once the Governance
committee was established,
committee members realized that details of its structure were not
included in
the Bylaws, and drafted proposed Bylaws changes to account for these
details.
These Bylaws changes were tabled at a membership meeting in June 2005,
in part
because of a lack of clarity about the Governance committee’s authority
to
draft Bylaw changes, as well as disagreements over the size of the
committee. Since June 2005, the
Governance
committee and Board of Directors had tried to resolve these issues; but
finding
it difficult to do so, they decided to bring them to the membership in
February. The assembled Coop members held a lively and focused
discussion about
the pros and cons of the Governance committee, how it should be
structured and
how it should function. Since the meeting had been presented as a forum
for
discussion, no votes were taken. |
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