All,

Thanks kindly to Jonathan R. for this important observation and commentary. Upon review, it's clear that I brought changes to the attendance requirement up to a vote prematurely. I had a feeling, hence the solicitation for more input. I'll bring this up as a ripe banana on Thursday.

Jonathan's comments about meetings not necessarily equaling advances towards our mission statement resonates with me on a theoretical level. However, my experience with our board has shown that our current membership and our current models rely on regular meetings to (at the very least) make sure we're on the same page. Participation in virtual check-ins has been minimal to non-existent -- but that doesn't have to be the reality if we want to shift away from our current administrative structure.

I've heard a lot of feedback over the past couple years about the inconvenience of our meetings -- be it their frequency, their length, or their evening / dinner time slot. If we look to the Pedestrian Safety Board's model, we see that many more direct and ex-officio representatives are able to attend shorter meetings held during the workday. Those are still held monthly, but maybe we could adopt a hybrid model -- bicycle board leadership meeting every month for an hour during the day to check in with ex-officios and coordinate communications; the larger, community-based board meeting quarterly to coordinate committee actions and vote on executive changes. As I type it, that appears even more bureaucratically complicated -- something I don't know would benefit us.

We've devoted a significant portion of our meetings over the past year to exploring these and similar changes without committing to anything. Perhaps we can take the discussion up here? Or on our slack clone (essentially a chat room)? I'm afraid we'll lose membership if we require folks to participate virtually -- but maybe we will gain others whom we've been excluding? Certainly the flexibility afforded by allowing committees to meet whenever a subset can and others a chance to chime in virtually is tempting.

Again, all -- soliciting input!

Best,

Drew

On Thu, Jan 25, 2018 at 10:32 PM, Jonathan Rosenbaum <jr@wvcompletestreets.org> wrote:

On 2018-01-25 17:11, Drew Gatlin via Bikeboard wrote

We voted to change the attendance requirement from "the ability to attend no less than four meetings per year" to "the ability to miss no more than four meetings per year." Also: "Members will proactively notify the officers in the event they miss a meeting and provide updates to any outstanding action items under their ownership – ideally before the meeting, as possible"

I believe this change is essentially invalidated or made redundant by this wording in the bylaws:

"Meetings shall meet monthly or no less than quarterly."

The original intent was that there be at least four meetings a year with the assumption that members would attend those four meetings, rather than requiring people to attend 8 meetings per year. Which leads to this question, why don't we have less meetings? Is it really necessary to have a meeting every month? A lot could transpire between "executive meetings" through the work of committees with decisions approved by electronic communication via email or via our Slack clone - https://chat.bikelover.org .

For a long time, I have been on both sides of the equation, serving in Officer positions (Chair, Vice-Chair, Treasurer, Secretary), and as a regular board member on several Boards, so I know what is motivating this bylaw change from plenty of experience. However, we would get more accomplished if we re-thought our approach by focusing on what we really want to change which is to become a more effective force in delivering on our mission statement by getting more people on bikes!

Do we accomplish that just by getting board members to come to more meetings? NO, we accomplish that by getting our Board members more involved in making our mission statement a reality!

-Jonathan

-Drew

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