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Bob Armstrong
10-01-2010, 07:28 AM
Item # 27 - Concluding Address

This address will be posted by President Bob Gillanders about an hour before the close of this meeting at 10:00 PM EDT on Thursday, Oct. 7. Thanks from the Posting Secretary to all those attending, and for their contributions.

Bob Gillanders
10-13-2010, 12:18 AM
For those who are breathlessly awaiting my closing address, there will be a delay. I was thrown a curve ball at the 11th hour, literally at the 11th hour. :(

Closing remark sometime between 1am and 2am EDT. :)

Bob Gillanders
10-13-2010, 02:22 AM
Thank you to all Governors who attended the online meeting. At last count, I believe we have 42 in attendance. This is an astounding success, special thanks to Bob Armstrong and Lyle Craver for keeping the wheels on the cart. We had a very full menu and I certainly had difficulty keeping up to date on all threads. In fact, I couldn’t keep up. I will be going back through various threads to see what I missed. I know I want to spend some time reviewing the thread on the youth program and the rating system. These can be complex topics.

I was quite literally thrown a curve ball at the 11th hour. At a quarter to midnight, as I was writing my concluding address, I received an email from Lyle. He advised me of an email from Les Bunning: that a quorum of 50% of eligible governors must cast a vote in order to pass a constitutional motion at an online meeting. I don’t know whether that is correct or not, so I will leave it to our many constitutional experts to sort out. But it does leave the outcome of amended motion 2011-3 (Life Governors) in limbo.

This was our first official online governors’ meeting. As expected we hit a few snags. A few comments:

Trivial motions – we passed a motion authorizing an expenditure of $50. In hindsight, I think we can all agree this is trivial and better left to the executive.

Motions in haste – a motion was introduced that may have fundamentally altered the membership fee / rating fee structure of the CFC without adequate discussion. Instead we agreed to form a committee to study the issue. The online meetings have given us the vehicle to speed up the decision making process. We need to be careful not to become reckless drivers.

Public disclosure – we need to discuss what is considered public vs. private content. The meeting is on the private governors discussion board, but we do publish a summary on the website along with the GL’s.

Length of meeting – we are still experiencing complaints about the length of the meeting. Also having to extend the meeting to accommodate the amending motion, raised some issues. It would seem attendance dropped off for the extended period. :(

All in all, barring the constitutional snags, I think the first online meeting was a success. As it is getting very late, I will save my comments on various topics for GL2 coming soon.

One final note, regular dialogue on a variety of topics occurs between the quarterly governors meetings. I would encourage all governors to visit the board on a regular basis, not just during the quarterly meetings, to keep current on the issues.

Thanks again everyone for participating.:)

Egidijus Zeromskis
10-13-2010, 10:14 AM
Public disclosure – we need to discuss what is considered public vs. private content. The meeting is on the private governors discussion board, but we do publish a summary on the website along with the GL’s.


Every year there are some new governors. What are their status regarding reading the previous year notes/threads? (to make matters more complicated - the new Executives - and the previous-Executive meetings' minutes.)

Christopher Mallon
10-13-2010, 12:46 PM
Does it actually say 50% have to VOTE on a motion? I would assume it would be like any normal meeting - ie anyone "present" who does not cast a vote is considered to have abstained.

As for the length, I think I'd prefer to see a full seven days for discussions, with all motions submitted no later than the 4th day thus giving three full days of discussion on any motions. (Amendments by the 5th day perhaps). Then open the voting at the end of the 7th day and people can vote whenever they want over say the next 5 days but discussion is pretty much over.

Bob Armstrong
10-13-2010, 07:25 PM
Hi Chris:

Why was this item of the on-line meeting left out of the archiving of the Fall Quarterly On-line Meeting ( and the summaries )?

Bob

Les Bunning
10-13-2010, 07:46 PM
Unfortunately the constitutional amendment for life governors did not pass because it did not receive a two thirds majority of those present. Apparently 42 governors were in attendance but only 18 voted in favour of the motion. Initially I thought that it required 50 % of the total number of governors to vote but it appears that the motion passed at the annual meeting last summer , although labelled as a replacement for the GOVERNORS LETTERS voting system, also contained a clause which I suspect went unnoticed and which effectively gave an online meeting the same status as an annual meeting as far as constitutional amendments were concerned. I suspect that it will be as difficult to pass a constitutional amendment at an on line meeting as it was under the old GOVERNORS LETTERS system. That may not be such a bad thing. I think that the whole system should be re-examined. The on line system requires a great deal of effort on behalf of the President and Secretary and if Bob Armstrong was not around to shoulder some of the work it would require more effort than many would be prepared to give. Perhaps motions after a suitable vetting process could be discussed and voted on by regular e-mail rather than the more cumbersome Governors on line meeting.
Les Bunning

Bob Gillanders
10-14-2010, 08:56 AM
The issue of motion 2011-03 (Life Governors) has been resolved. The motion is defeated. Constitutional motions require that 2/3 of Governors attending the meeting vote Yes. We had 42 governors in attendance, so it required 28 yes votes to pass.

So nothing has changed, but what have we learned? :confused:

We already knew constitutional changes were difficult. They are supposed to be. What we have learned is that a significant numbers of governors are not happy about the status quo. The defeat of this motion is not a satisfactory conclusion. The outcome is at odds with the wishes of the majority. :(

On the bright side, the inaugural flight of the online governors meeting has been a success. We need to work on a few problems, but IMHO, a vast improvement in governance.

So with that, we close the quarterly online meeting. Lyle can you close this thread please and archive it. :)