Last week the board of Rotary Club of Great Falls agreed to advance a proposal for evening membership for the club to either approve or deny. It has been a long and challenging discussion at the board level, and your feedback has been very helpful in refining both the proposal and the process. Thank you for your dedication to our club.
You have already received an email on this subject, but just to make sure you've been informed, the majority of this week's bulletin will be dedicated to presenting the decisions you will need to make in the coming few weeks. In brief, here's what's coming up:
June 19 meeting – explanation of bylaws change and evening membership proposal, opportunity to ask questions/get additional information after meeting. (We will still have our regular program that day.)
June 26 meeting – vote by paper ballot on proposal to amend the bylaws to allow electronic voting. (We will still have our regular program that day.)
July 10 – vote by paper ballot on proposal for evening membership OR vote by email between July 10 -12. (We will still have our installation of officers that day.)
And don't forget: we've got an entry in the Fourth of July parade this year!
Why We Need to Change the Bylaws
One of the comments that really hit home with the board was the concern several members have expressed that, because of work or family conflicts, they won’t be able to attend the meeting when the vote on this new form of membership will be conducted. Although our current bylaws allow the board to vote through email, they don’t allow the membership to vote that way. Because the issue is an important one to so many members, the board felt that it was important to make the bylaws change necessary to accommodate all individuals who want to participate in the decision.
That slows the process down a bit because we must have that bylaws change in place before conducting the vote on the Evening Membership Proposal. However, applying the 4-Way Test, the board concluded that the fairest course of action, the most beneficial to all concerned, was to take the time to do that. So on June 26, you will be asked to approve the bylaws change presented in the article below.
This change was long overdue anyway, and it will allow all interested members to vote on the evening membership proposal, as well as other important votes in the years to come, as the board sees fit. We are required to present any proposed bylaws changes to you in writing 10 days in advance of the vote, so this email serves that purpose. The new language has been pre-approved by the two attorneys on our most recent bylaws committee – Gary Bjelland and Bill Bronson. As past chair of that committee, Mary Moe will explain it further at next week’s meeting before we ask you to vote at our June 26 meeting. That vote will be by paper ballot only, as our current bylaws require. If you have questions at any time, feel free to call Mary at 406-868-9427 or email me at mary.sheehy.moe@gmail.com.
The Proposal to Change the Bylaws
This is the language change in our current bylaws you will be voting to approve or deny at the meeting on June 26:
Article 7 Voting
Section 1 – Club voting. The business of this club is conducted by voice vote or show of hands,
except for the election of officers and directors, which is conducted by ballot. The Board may also provide a ballot for a vote on a specific resolution. A quorum of one-third of the active membership is required for voting, with a majority or plurality of those voting prevailing on the issue. At the discretion of the board, voting may occur electronically, as long as those who prefer to vote by paper ballot are accommodated, the number of voters meets the quorum requirement, and all voting is completed within 48 hours of the motion.
Section 2 – Board voting. The business of the Board is conducted by voice vote or show of
hands. A quorum of one-half of the board membership is required for voting, with a majority or plurality of those voting prevailing on the issue. For matters requiring board action prior to the next regularly scheduled meeting, voting may occur electronically, as long as three-quarters of the board participates in the vote within 48 hours of the motion. The voting results will be recorded in the minutes of the next board meeting.
Arriving at the Proposal for Evening Membership
To ensure that all members have the opportunity to vote on the Evening Membership Proposal, that vote has been delayed until – and is contingent upon – a positive vote on the bylaws change. The vote on the Evening Membership Proposal will take place at our meeting on July 10, if you prefer to vote by secret ballot on paper. Alternatively, you can vote online between July 10-12.
Working through the concerns about piloting an evening membership option has been extremely challenging for the board, for all the reasons you heard members express at our recent meeting devoted to this subject. The board ultimately concluded that their role as board members is to make sure that any proposal they advance fulfills their fiduciary responsibility to the club. To that end, they have made amendments to the proposal to ensure that the current control the noon membership has over club operations remains intact and to ensure that the final decision on whether to make the pilot project a permanent membership option is left in the hands of the current membership.
Having done that, the board thinks it is important to ask you to join them in making the decision as to whether or not to give this new form of membership a try for two years. Several of them, like many of you, are opposed to the proposal. Several of them, like many of you, support it. We have the good fortune in Rotary Club of Great Falls to have a board that trusts its membership to apply the 4-Way Test to make the decision that seems right to each of us and to come together in support of whatever the prevailing decision is.
The Evening Membership Proposal, as amended by the board, is presented in the article below this one. At our next meeting on June 19, Mary Moe will briefly explain the amendments the board made to the proposal and will remain after the meeting to answer any questions members may have. She is not there to persuade you one way or the other; she is there simply to explain the intent of the language in the proposal. If you cannot make the meeting next week, feel free to call Mary at 406-868-9427 or email her at mary.sheehy.moe@gmail.com.
Evening Membership Proposal, as Amended
This is the proposal you will be voting on, either at our July 10 meeting, or via email between July 10-12. Highlighted sections indicate amendments to the original proposal approved by the board based on membership feedback and board deliberations.
Evening Membership Details
Dues: $300 (includes no evening meals;4 specified noon-meeting meals)
Meetings:Twice a month on dates to be determined
Meeting Time & Place: To be determined
Meals/Drinks: Not included in membership dues; out-of-pocket for each member
Access to Noon Meetings: Can attend up to 4 noon meetings at no charge for meals; after 4 meals, would be charged $12.50/meal.
Evening Membership and Service Expectations
Membership Status: Full Rotarian with voting rights (except as noted in the last bulleted item below on the issue of making the pilot program permanent)
Board Representation: Two non-voting seats added to existing board for evening liaisons
Board Role: Evening representatives will co-chair Evening Planning Committee
Service Opportunities: Evening members will organize volunteer events and membership drives in partnership with existing club committees
Service Requirement: Evening members will join at least 1 existing club committee and support club events (camp clean-up, Harvest Howl, etc.)
Noon Membership Clarifications
Current dues for noon members will continue to include pre-paid meals, (which accounts for the difference in rates between noon and evening memberships)
Noon members will have unlimited access to noon and evening meetings.
Existing club members have volunteered to oversee the evening club to promote Rotarian values and structure and ensure that the evening members are aligned with club direction and strategy; all members are encouraged and welcome to assist in these efforts.
Term of the Pilot Project
If the evening membership pilot is approved, it will begin on September 1, 2018, and conclude on August 31, 2020. If the club wishes to continue this option as part of its permanent structure, bylaws changes would be proposed in August 2020. Only Rotarians who were members of the club at the time the pilot was approved would be eligible to vote on these bylaws changes.
Weekly Reflection for Father's Day
After such a dry, detailed bulletin, I thought you might enjoy a personal story for Father's Day.
Sizing up the situation as a little girl, it didn’t take me long to recognize that being a girl sucked. Being a boy was where the action was. So beginning at about age 8, I became an accomplished tomboy. I ran fast. I played hard. I was fearless – or at least I pretended to be. In the neighborhood games, I was among the first to be chosen for Pump Pump Pullaway or flag football or baseball. Life was goooood.
Then I turned 14. Somewhere between the playgrounds of grade school and the hallways of high school, I got lost. More precisely, I got T-boned at the intersection of Puberty and Algebra. In grade school I had been an honors student. Even though I was an incorrigible tomboy, I was a leader inside and outside the classroom. In high school, that all changed. Every day I slogged into this new world peopled by prissy girls and horny boys, a world poisonous to tomboys, and I stared at that blackboard with the incomprehensible formulas on it and thought, Rats. I’m not smart. I’m not pretty. I’m not cool. I’m nobody – worse than nobody. I’m a loser.
Scrapping around desperately for something to be best at, I chose outrageous. My first semester in high school I was outrageous enough to be flunking 6 out of 7 subjects at mid-term. In the 7th subject, P.E., I had a D. I can still remember my dad looking at that report card like it was written in hieroglyphics and marveling, truly marveling without the slightest bit of sarcasm, “How do you get a D in P.E.?” I didn’t know. I was lost. And I stayed lost for years.
I have one pleasant memory of that time. It’s the memory of Dad coming home one day with a dress for me from Cole’s, an expensive clothing store in Billings. I’m one of 11 children and my mom really could sew a silk purse out of a sow’s ear, so all our clothes were homemade, often out of the same bolt of cloth. We never set foot inside Cole’s, except to buy my grandmother some gloves for Christmas. So to have my dad buy a store-bought dress just for me – from Cole's! – well, that was something. I still remember it: a simple wool sheath, straight and long-sleeved, in a giant plaid of various sizes of rectangles of varying shades of blue.
I put it on. It was the kind of dress my shapely older sister would have looked like a million bucks in. But on me? I felt like Huck Finn pretending to be “Mary Williams.” Still, having a dress from Cole’s meant I had to model it, and Mom filled the living room with ooohs and aaahs when I joined the family there.
Dad didn’t say much. He just looked at me and smiled. He saw my awkward insecurity and knew better than to try to jolly me up. But something in his eyes, something in that smile, said that even if I looked at myself in that dress and saw only a sad tomboy, he saw the happy, confident woman I would one day be. A lost soul can get by on a message like that for a long, long time. In the meantime, my dad, a busy, busy man and a demanding father, had bought me – just me! – a dress from Cole’s, and it wasn’t even my birthday. Then again, maybe it was.
That Woman He Saw
[The photograph accompanying this story was taken during the last hour I spent with Dad.
It was 3 p.m. on January 27, 2017, his 99th birthday. He did not live to complete his 100th lap around the sun.)
