Hedonist
Premium Member
Let me try this again, I hit hte wrong key 
Adaptable is good, but so is continuity... if people know it is on x day of every month with obvious exceptions for holidays, then they can plan on it ahead of time, ask for the day off if need be, get a sitter ahead of time etc...... if it is left up in the air all the time, it gets confusing and one cannot plan as well..... It is vey tricky to make the meet convienient for everyone, downright impossible if you want to meet monthly
We all have other things we like to do and those dates vary.. this can be the one constant that can be planned around.. JMO
again this is IME and IMO, if you intend to have the entire membership make the decisions, you will get bogged down... most do not really want to be bothered with the details, just want to have fun.... by all means, they have input and SWAM should always take their suggestions into consideration, however it should be up to the BOO to make the final decisions, it will be more efficient...that is why we have elected officials so to speak.
I have in my head members who vote for the BOO ( and maybe misc stuff like logo design, best tank of the year etc..) BOO who makes the decisions based on hhe input of the members and what the club is capable of doing
Maybe clarify the type of decisions that you would have all members vote on....
HTH and I HOPE the colors worked...
Denise
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=8631418#post8631418 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by jessiesgrrl
Hey! LOL, Ok, now I am confused!! Does this help?
A.
" As for the Membership policy, I also think we should not discriminate against those who have FOWLR tanks, Invert tanks or Reef systems
Section 2.1 Just says saltwater tank- I believe a FOWLR, reef, invert, etc tanks all qualify as saltwater and would therefore be included? They are all marine in nature? And I think Jason's suggestion would include past, present, or future owners- all anyone would have to do is say someday yada yada yada- or even, I had one of those once...? It'd be sorta hard to not fall into one of those categories, imo... <grin>
Like I said before, this was a joke bout not discriminating against sex, g=creed, religion, FOWLR owners, etc
B.
"Sorry, but I am somewhat unclear regarding the affiliated individual member vs an organizational affiliated membership... can you provide an example..."
BRS could join as an organizational member in its own right, as a whole. Thereafter, any member who wanted to do some shopping in Maine could then apply to carry a affliated membership SWAM card... It would be very interesting to see if we could also get a banner trade with them for their website to drive web traffic to our new one.
That is what I suspected
C.
"Any termination of membership, volunary of not, do not warrent a refund of membership fees... Revocation of membership maybe should have a process... members can suggest with a good cause to revoke another, but the BOO only votes on it or something....."
I gave this one alot of thought. BOO could vote on it for sure. What I do not want to see happen is a case ever when someone wants so and so kicked out, and can force a vote of the BOO without just cause just by suggesting it. It would embarass the member and make us all look bad. So, I would say I would agree as long as we include a list of those situations where "just cause" is met and a vote could be called. I also like the idea of refunding the membership fee if we kick someone out because it would be a good way to cut ties immediately and owe them nothing- be the bigger person. Plus, out membership fee is very small- $20... not something to quibble over much when we are about to publically embarass and kick a member out. I think refunding a prorated fee at the least if we forcibly kick a member out would show we are respectful of others. I would agree that if a mamber voluntarily withdraws, there is no refund of fees as it would be a voluntary personal decision. This would also keep us from ever being crippled by a voluntary withdrawing of a group of people. JMHO, though...
I cannot imagine anyone acutally will ever get their membership terminated.. however, if that is to be part of the charter, there has to be a due process in place... maybe after 3 compaints from members then the BOO talks to the person, if the matter is not cleared up, then they are terminated.. again I still say with no refund... like you said it is peanuts but they did act out of line, probably violated some part of the charter somewhere and did willingly give their membership fee/donation for the promotion of SWAM .... again I highly suspect this wil ever become a real issue with SWAM and it's members
"Honorary members should only be voted on by the BOO IMO and in my mind be people such as Barry Neigut, Anthony Calfo, Frank Marini, Greg Hiller etc.."
Would be fine with me- I had only suggested it because I thought that you had wanted that position? I'm confusedWhat would you like to be in the future? I think everyone just wants to show you we appreiciate you on a level much more personal than the above listed guys... <grin>
what I wrote was a member but I was actually talking about members of the BOO at the time... The past chair sounds appropriate...
E.
"Hosting of SWAM meets should be open to any corperate sponsor or any associate of SWAM (be it guest or dedicated follower), not just members..."
My general feel here was that one of the best things about SWAM was the face to face time with other members to just talk about tanks and ooohhh and ahhh over each other's cool creations, swap frags, whatever. I have no problem with holding some meetings at different corporate locations (Would be fun to see what was there after the meeting for sure!) but would want those particular meetings to have a educational focus of some sort either for the club or for the general public?
Why would a guest want to hold a meeting? I'm confused again...
I think of membes as ones who have paid dues to the club.. we have many people out there on RC and in general who have not paid dues but are associated or guests of the club ... I do not think the club should be come members only... RLMainers does not like to join clubs, but if they would like to host a SWAM meet.. according to the charter, they cannot because they are not a member...
I don't think we want formal minutes per se for each meeting... but it seems like alot of fairly important stuff seems to be discussed among us when we meet face to face. It would be nice to just have a rough outline so that we remember from month to month? Shouldn't be too much work, I'm thinking like 40 words at the most; and it could be just emailed to me if help is needed and I can pitch in and then get it posted. I would trust our Secretary, I don't think a officer would post anything detrimental to the club on purpose! <grin>
I expect that BOO meets will be few and far between- just to deal with current issues or problems and called as needed. Which would leave us with hardly any meeting minutes if we only took them then. My personal philosophy is that the officers are only really there to give the club a bit of guidance and direction, and take on the implementation of ideas...
(color=blue) Any important annoucments or events most definatley should be passed on, the majority of the meets seem to be chit chatting, ooohing and ahhing, and trading of info or goods... Post notes if ya like hhowever I suggested it be submitted to BOO for editing and ensuring it reads well when posted on the website... and to make sure everyone who has something to contribute to the summary is represented...One idea is when the meet is a tank tour, the host fills out an info sheet with details of the system,that can easliy be put into the website, with photos to boot
F. Dates and Hosting
It would be fine with me to pick a revolving week and try to stick to it, but I wonder if perhaps that might add one more hurdle to getting folks to host? Also, with things like hunting season and such, those dates may fall on times when the membership can't or doesn;t want to meet because it is not convinent... would be nice to stay adaptable?
Adaptable is good, but so is continuity... if people know it is on x day of every month with obvious exceptions for holidays, then they can plan on it ahead of time, ask for the day off if need be, get a sitter ahead of time etc...... if it is left up in the air all the time, it gets confusing and one cannot plan as well..... It is vey tricky to make the meet convienient for everyone, downright impossible if you want to meet monthly
We all have other things we like to do and those dates vary.. this can be the one constant that can be planned around.. JMOagain this is IME and IMO, if you intend to have the entire membership make the decisions, you will get bogged down... most do not really want to be bothered with the details, just want to have fun.... by all means, they have input and SWAM should always take their suggestions into consideration, however it should be up to the BOO to make the final decisions, it will be more efficient...that is why we have elected officials so to speak.
I have in my head members who vote for the BOO ( and maybe misc stuff like logo design, best tank of the year etc..) BOO who makes the decisions based on hhe input of the members and what the club is capable of doing
Maybe clarify the type of decisions that you would have all members vote on....
HTH and I HOPE the colors worked...
Denise
