2011 PrideCommittee Bylaw Changes

2011 Pride Committee Bylaw Changes

This page documents the changes to the Halifax Pride Society Bylaws leading up to their approval at the 2011 AGM.

Highlights

Short history of the Pride Bylaws

June 10, 1999
Bylaws filed with the RJSC. They were amended on March 12, 2001 and November 7, 2002.
December 4, 2008
the committee approved a new set of bylaws ("the 2008 version") but (1) they were never filed with the RJSC and (2) for some reason they do not include the 2001 & 2002 amendments. They made some other amendments, but they were lost. Although they were never filed, Pride was operating under these rules.
2011 - summer
Officially still the 1999 bylaws with the 2001 & 2002 amendments

Here are links to the two documents in question:

[Text in square brackets are commentary by DanielMacKay.]

In General

Article One

"Mission & Values" and "Our Pride Values" are now Article 1; previously they weren't in a section.

Article Two

2:01 g)
Definition of "Board of Directors" added
2:02
Robert's Rules of Order added [Robert's Rules are American; really they should be using "Parliamentiary Procedure".]

Article Three

This section is new; it defines the name and a few procedures for the Committee

3:06
has reduced the number of required public consultations from four to one.

Article Four

This section contains the old bylaw items 21 - 30 and defines the Board of Directors

Item 24 of the 2008 Bylaws says that Directors shall hold term of office "for three (2) years"; this is clarified as two.

In the 2008 Bylaws, quorum was defined in one place as five boardmembers, and in others as 1/3; this is now 50%+1 of the Board (not, 50%+1 of the board present at that meeting.)

4:01
Board size has been reduced from fifteen to twelve.
4:03
includes "Officers of the Society shall be elected ... from those who are members of the Board of Directors" [I'm not sure if this is exactly an election within the Board of Directors; I think the Board of Directors just discusses and decides.]
4:05
Removal of Directors has beens slightly reworded and requires a vote of 2/3 of the votes cast at a Board meeting [note, not 2/3 of the Board, just 2/3 of those present at a meeting.]
Added: A clause for automatic removal, with no action from the Board required if a boardmember skips meetings.

Article Five: Board Officers

This is a reformatted version of the "Roles And Responsibilities Of The Board Of Directors" section from the 2008 document, which had extensive guidelines for all of the Directors' general duties. These are gone, and in fact the 2011 version has no definition for the expectations of a Director.

5:01
Previously Treasurer and Secretary boardmembers could be combined; the new entry specifically says that no one can two hold more than one position.
5:02:01
For a while, Pride had Co-Chairs; in the 2008 version this was done away with in and Chair and Co-Chair was reinstated.
5:02:4
Auditor: the previous bylaws had an extensive section about the Auditor's job; this has been reduced.

The 2008 version had a large section on the responsibilities of the Executive Committee; this has been reduced to just a mention (at the end of 4:10:1) that such a thing may be created.

The 2008 version had a notion of a Full Member and Associate Member (who got half a vote at meetings.) The latter is gone. "Associate Member" status was instituted to encourage other community organizations to have a presence at meetings, sort of an outreach to other organizations in the community.

Also, the 2008 version had a notion of a Member At Large, which is gone.

Article Six

6:01
Previously membership was defined as having attended two meetings in the previous year OR being nominated at a regular meeting. A member is now defined as a person who has paid their dues, $10 per year, which may be waived in particular cases.

[This is a very practical move; keeping track of who had attended meetings in the previous 12 months was virtually impossible.]

Article Seven

The AGM date has been moved up to within 45 days of the Pride Festival. [In previous years this was unattainable because the expenses and income information was not available in time for the Treasurer to do the report.]

7:08 and 7:09
The number of people required to request a "Poll" has been changed from three to eight. There is an implication that a "Poll" is an official record of how many people voted for and against something.