Bylaws and minutes

[Guest Bezmena]

Here’s what happened: 

The chair of our national organization called for a committee to revise our bylaws in 2016 and present them at our triennial conference that year. The assembly spent hours going over the revisions of the bylaws. Some sections were approved as revised, others were scrapped and others were rewritten. 
 

At the next conference in 2019, the minutes from the 2016 conference were sent out and in the section regarding the bylaws committee, it only said “The assembly spent four hours going over the bylaws. New copies of the bylaws will be printed and sent to each chapter.” There was no notification of who made motions, seconded, what the vote was, what parts of the revisions were or weren’t passed, etc. Additionally, no printed bylaws were sent to the chapters.

The approval of the minutes was tabled until the next conference set for 2022 so the secretary could work on rewriting them. It appears that she had wanted to do it the right way but someone told her to do it this way. The chapters were also promised that the printing of the bylaws wouldn’t occur until the minutes from the 2016 assembly were approved.

The chapters received the newly printed bylaws in the mail the other day and there are many discrepancies between what was presented by the revisions committee and the final copy. There are minor issues like capitalization, but there are other issues like keeping or removing or rewriting paragraphs of the bylaws not included in the committee’s proposed revisions. 

My questions are:

1) How are we to know what was passed and are accurate bylaws? 

2) If the revised minutes from the 2016 assembly eventually show that the most recent printing of the bylaws is wrong, what would happen? 

Thank you in advance!

[Hieu H. Huynh]

The minutes could be corrected to reflect what was adopted. Perhaps a committee could be created for approving minutes.

[Richard Brown]

Guest Bezmena (and all other guests reading this thread), consider this a perfect example of why it is critically important to elect a capable secretary, especially if you have conventions, and for the presiding officer to make sure, far in advance, that the secretary fully understands what is required of convention minutes and is able to do the job properly.  The appointment of an unofficial "assistant secretary" (or assistant to the secretary) is often a good idea.  That person can even be a hired professional.  It could be a court reporter or stenographer.  Making recording of the proceedings can be very helpful.   Having good minutes from a convention is critical, especially when it comes to such things as bylaw amendments and other important motions and resolutions.

I saw this very thing happen at a convention very recently.  The chair told me after the convention that the secretary's minutes on critical points are practically useless.

[Bezmena]

12 hours ago, Richard Brown said:

Guest Bezmena (and all other guests reading this thread), consider this a perfect example of why it is critically important to elect a capable secretary, especially if you have conventions, and for the presiding officer to make sure, far in advance, that the secretary fully understands what is required of convention minutes and is able to do the job properly.  The appointment of an unofficial "assistant secretary" (or assistant to the secretary) is often a good idea.  That person can even be a hired professional.  It could be a court reporter or stenographer.  Making recording of the proceedings can be very helpful.   Having good minutes from a convention is critical, especially when it comes to such things as bylaw amendments and other important motions and resolutions.

I saw this very thing happen at a convention very recently.  The chair told me after the convention that the secretary's minutes on critical points are practically useless.

So there’s basically no recourse? 

[Weldon Merritt]

17 minutes ago, Bezmena said:

So there’s basically no recourse? 

Nobody said that. The recourse is to attempt to create an accurate set of minutes that properly reflect what was done, as suggested by Mr. Huynh. Then create an accurate copy of the bylaws based on those minutes. 

[Bezmena]

5 hours ago, Weldon Merritt said:

Nobody said that. The recourse is to attempt to create an accurate set of minutes that properly reflect what was done, as suggested by Mr. Huynh. Then create an accurate copy of the bylaws based on those minutes. 

Thank you!