Steve Kennedy asked me to submit some proposals I had in mind, in time for the Fall BoD meeting, so they could be discussed not only by the board, but fully discussed by the membership, so we have something coherent to present at the AGM. I'd like to present them here for debate, so that we can hopefully reach a consensus on a small number of proposals rather than presenting scores of them at either the Fall BoD meeting or the AGM.
Before we build on what John Horen started under the heading of "AGM Proposal," let's take a calm deliberative step back and try to identify the causes of the Driven Division issue and remedies for those specific problems.
One is already handled, in principle, with little opposition from any party. We didn't have a Parliamentarian present at the last AGM and we should have. I'm sure someone has made a proposal, but as I was reading the By-Laws, I realized that the ground rules for setting up an AGM are not being followed. Per ARTICLE IV. MEETINGS, Section 1. Annual General Meeting: "The annual general meeting of the members shall be held annually. Location will be a regular AGM agenda item and determined by the delegates present at the AGM a minimum of two (2) years in advance by the availability of a qualified host JCNA group."
We've barely had the last few AGMs scheduled by the conclusion of the prior AGM, so scheduling them two years out seems to be an unreasonable expectation. And what if we don't have one set in the time frame outlined in the current By-Laws? There is no direction on that point.
Here are my proposals for revisions to Article IV:
Section 1. Annual General Meeting (AGM): The annual general meeting of the members shall be held annually. Selection of a JCNA-affiliate host club will be a regular AGM agenda item two AGMs prior to the one the selectee would be hosting. The host club will be selected by a majority vote of the AGM delegates from among those clubs offering to host the AGM. If no clubs offer to host the AGM two years in advance, the question will be tabled and voted on again at the following AGM, along with the a vote for the club to host the AGM approximately two years hence. If no qualified host JCNA-affiliate club is available by the adjournment of the prior AGM, The responsibility will fall to the JCNA Board of Directors to determine a site at least six months prior to the AGM, with or without the assistance of a JCNA-affiliate host club.
Section 2. Annual General Meeting Notices and Deadlines: The JCNA Secretary shall post the dates and places of future AGMs on the JCNA website and in the official JCNA publication to be mailed, postpaid, to each JCNA member at their address of record no later than ninety (90) days following such determination and in every subsequent issue of the official JCNA publication up to the date of the AGM.
All proposals to be presented at an AGM must be submitted to the JCNA Secretary by a published deadline of the Secretary's choosing, but no less than sixty (60) days prior to that AGM. It is the duty of the JCNA Secretary to remind the members regularly of the submission deadline.
The Secretary must post the final agenda on the JCNA website and in the official JCNA publication or by direct mailing, to be mailed, postpaid, to each JCNA member at their address of record, at least thirty (30) days before the AGM.
Section 3. Permitted Business at the Annual General Meeting: The final AGM agenda comprises all the new business to be conducted at the AGM. Germane amendments to the agenda items may be offered, but no wholesale revisions or new agenda items will be permitted from the floor, unless there is no objection from any of the delegates present.
[renumber sections 3-8, 10 and 11 accordingly]
Last section. Parliamentary Authority: Robert's Rules of Order shall be the parliamentary authority of the JCNA. A Registered Parliamentarian shall be procured for all General and Special Meetings.
Translation:
Section 1: We'll try to schedule the upcoming AGMs 2 years in advance, but it that doesn't work, we'll do it the year prior. If we still have no takers, the BoD has to organize it.
Section 2: Within 90 days of scheduling an AGM, we start notifying the members of both the meeting and the need to present proposals. That might be 21 months out if all goes according to plan, but at least no one can say they didn't know. Early on, it can be something as simple as a calendar entry. The Secretary coordinates with the Jag Journal editor to set a deadline so that the final agenda can be published at least 30 days prior to the AGM.
Section 3: (the critical one). No new agenda items nor non-germane amendments to existing agenda items can be introduced at the AGM unless absolutely no delegate objects. If one delegate objects, the item or amendment will not be heard, and will have to be introduced at the next AGM.
Last section: We must have Parliamentarians at all general and special meetings.
Comments? Questions? Suggestions?
Submitted by silver007@shaw.ca on Sat, 12/27/2008 - 16:56
Submitted by rcmaury@bellso… on Fri, 10/10/2008 - 13:17
Re.:
Actually looks like I did say that there could be more than one proposal at the AGM. Hopefully we can narrow it down to one, two at the most. To many do make it complicated. Any proposals that will be presented at the AGM on this issue will be well known in advance of the AGM so no suprises. Plenty of time to discuss and fine tune. Hopefully there will be a new ruling that everyone can be happy with.
Submitted by rcmaury@bellso… on Fri, 10/10/2008 - 08:20
Re.:
Mark, I did not propose that there would be more than one new proposal at the AGM. There will only be one. However, to get there, input no matter how many ideas would be helpful to come up with the final proposal. Also consider that no matter how much a few vocal people are agaisn't the current rule, it did pass by a majority even if you took out Steves proxys. Simply putting in a proposal to put it back like it was will probably not pass by the necessary majority as there are a lot of non vocal people that support a change, just not to the extreme of the current one. If a proposal is put before the AGM and it does not pass, then we are still with the current ruling for the next year. If anyone has a problem with their regional director, remember, they are holding an elected position. Let them know what you think. I know that I listen and welcome comments even from other regions.
Submitted by mark1mark@jagu… on Fri, 10/10/2008 - 03:09
Re.:
(Darn, my session timed out again. Here it is again. Pascal, you can delete the anonymouns post. -MS)
Dick,
While I agree with you in theory, in practice, the more proposals to solve a single problem, the more confusing things get and the more likely none of them will pass. (Perhaps that's the point -- divide and conquer.) Suppose we bring the proposals up one after the other, and 25% each favor Proposal A, B, and C, and 25% favor no new rule? Do the 50% who favor B, and C not vote with the 25% who favor A because they'd rather see their favorite voted in, or do they vote or A in case there aren't enough votes for B or C to pass. When we get to C, if A and B haven't passed, does everyone now vote for an unwieldy, poorly conceived C because A and B have gone down in flames? Or, are we left with no rule change because the membership didn't have the opportunity to craft a single proposal that was acceptable to the majority of members.
It is far better to present proposals here, discuss them, answer objections and build a consensus for one proposal. I can guarantee that if we have 2 proposals things will be confusing and if we have more than that, it will be chaos.
If we make the proposed By-Laws changes, we won't be able to make major changes to any proposals from the floor, so we have to come up with a good one that has majority agreement before we get to the AGM.
Yes, there were a lot of bad feelings about the Driven Division rule change and the way it was passed, but much of that was precisely because it came out of nowhere without input from the membership. Now you're suggesting that we repeat the mistake by having 10? 20? competing proposals and someone behind the scenes deciding what to pull from each one? I disagree that we have to avoid hard feelings. Too late, they are already here. The only way they are going to be assuaged in an open forum where people can discuss and agree on a proposal to redefine Driven as "driven."
Honestly, while the regional representatives are supposed to represent us, I'm not so sure I trust the directors this point. The BoD was the ones who got together, violated Roberts Rules of Order and ramrodded this change through at the last AGM. I have much more faith in the JCRC to come up with a good rule, but even then, some of us who feel strongly about the rule change no matter which side we're on, would like to have some input. If we want to confine the discussion to a single-purpose forum so we don't disturb the other members and Pascal wants to set it up, that would be fine with me.
Whether or not anyone enters a trailer queen in Driven is inconsequential. Someone will, at some time and it will ruin the concours experience for everyone in that class and at the grumbling will detract from that show. If someone enters a trailer queen at multiple shows and wins a JCNA Class, you are going to see the people with true drivers disappear in disgust.
Dick Cavicke, the JCRC and a number of JCNA members have been doing their best create and impose standards on the concours process. Having a definition for a driven Jaguar in contrast to a trailer queen is a standard. If we are going to sacrifice standards in a misguided attempt to improve participation, we'll end up with neither standards nor participation and we might as well give up any pretense that JCNA concours are a competition.
Lets get all the ideas on the table so they can be discussed. We have about four months to create a single proposal that contains the best of all the suggestions that everyone has, that we can present to the JCRC. I have examined your brilliantly simple proposal and run through a bunch of scenarios to see if it breaks down. It doesn't. A Driven entry will have to be driven. The worst case scenario would be a place like Arizona where anything without Air Conditioning is garaged in the summer, and I figured out how I could easily qualify for concours. At the same time, it answers all the objections that people had to the previous rule, like instances where people must trailer for logistical or safety reasons. I'd be interested to hear what objections have been raised. The only ones I can think of would be from people who don't really want to drive their Driven Division Jaguars.
Please e-mail me the objections off line if you don't want to post them here. You have my e-mail address, I believe.
Submitted by rcmaury@bellso… on Thu, 10/09/2008 - 08:21
Re.:
HI Mark, although I though the idea was nice, it needs a bit more ironing out. It has been discussed. There are other ideas out there and a lot of "behind the scenes" discusssions going on. The one thing certain is that there will be one or more proposals at the AGM for voting and as soon as they are finalized, they will be posted here and in the Journal for consideration in advance of the AGM. If anyone has any ideas, please send to your regional representative. Every idea will be considered even if it is not the final solution. I have seen some of these forums get out of hand about how things are without coming up with any solutions. That really does not help things but only stirrs up hard feelings. The Board of Directors is an elected group of volunteers that represent the members. They (we) go over issues and make decisions based on what we hear from the members. When we don't hear anything or make decisions on new items, we must use our best judgement. Remember, we are also Jaguar drivers and club members also and want what is best for the club overall. I have yet to see any issue pass at the AGM with 100% majority. It is hard to please everyone but if only a few are the vocal ones, that is what we hear. Input is welcome.
Submitted by cordag@aol.com on Thu, 10/09/2008 - 01:00
Re.:
Edited on 2008-10-09 1:01:53
Re: Driven Division -- I'm Looking forward to Dick's ideas. I think a lot of our members have overracted negatively to this change, and I wonder how much it is actually being abused. The more cars the better. I don't care how they get there, and think we should be as inclusive as possible! Less and less older cars are coming out.
Re: Parliamentarian -- It was my understanding that a Parliamentarian was a requirement (at our expense) for the 2005 AGM we hosted in Orlando. I never looked it up, and just hired one to comply. I guess it wasn't actually in the By-Laws. If not, I think we need to add it. There are quite a few out there...
http://parliamentarians.org/ ; http://parliamentarians.org/instantprp.php
http://www.aipparl.org/findparliamentarian.html
http://www.aipparl.org/about_regions.htm
http://www.parliassoc.com/
http://parliamentarians.org/tx/page5.php ; http://parliamentarians.org/tx/
http://www.houstonparliamentarian.com/
http://www.hudginsgroover.com/Parliamentary.htm
http://www.aipparl.org/green.htm
Good info on this site, too:
http://www.csufresno.edu/comm/cagle-p3.htm
Any proposals relating to either Concours, rally or slalom should be directed by their proposers directly to the relevant committee, this was the reason these committees were formed............Items need to be submitted well ahead of the agm to allow for discussion by the relevant committees....... This is my proposal.. short and simple........