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Constitution
By-Laws of the Eastern Division
- Officers
- The officers of the division shall be a president,
a vice-president, a secretary-treasurer, and an Eastern Division representative
to the National Board of Officers. Each year a vice-president shall be elected.
The term of office of the vice-president shall be one year. Immediately upon completion
of this term of office, the vice-president shall assume the presidency without further
election. The term of office of the secretary-treasurer and that of the representative
to the National Board of Officers shall be three years.
- There shall be an executive committee composed of
eleven members, four of whom shall be the officers of the Division, and six of whom
shall be members at large, two members elected each year for a period of three years.
The retiring president shall be ex officio member for one year. The executive
committee shall establish such committees as it deems necessary to aid it in efficiently
discharging its duties, retaining in every case full responsibility for the action
of such committees. A majority of its members shall constitute a quorum of the executive
committee.
- The secretary-treasurer shall be appointed by and
responsible to the executive committee.
- There shall be a committee of five to nominate officers
for the Division. The committee shall consist of the most recently retired president,
who shall act as chair, and four members, two of whom shall be elected each year
for two-year terms. The election shall be by mail ballot of those members of the
Association who are certified by the Executive Director as affiliated with the Eastern
Division, from candidates (members of the retiring nominating committee being excluded)
placed in nomination by the executive committee or from the floor of the business
meeting. The executive committee may not nominate more than four such candidates.
As long as nominations are forthcoming, they may not be closed before seven names
have been placed in nomination. In preparing the ballot for mailing the secretary
shall remove the names of any former chair of a nominating committee of the Division
and of any nominee who has served for four years or more on nominating committees
of the Division. Ballots shall be counted eleven weeks after they are sent out.
With the ballots, the secretary-treasurer shall send out a request for suggestions
concerning each vacant office. The new nominating committee shall consider these
suggestions but not be bound by them.
- Election of Officers
- Nominations for vice-president, for representative
to the National Board of Officers, and for members of the executive committee shall
be made in the following ways:
- By the nominating committee, which shall annually
nominate two or more persons for vice-president and two or more persons for each
vacancy on the executive committee, and announce its slate of nominees well in advance
of the annual meeting.
- By petition, when signed by at least 25 members of
the division, accompanied by a letter of consent from the nominee; both to be delivered
to the secretary-treasurer within two weeks of the conclusion of the annual meeting.
- These shall be the only methods of nomination.
- Elections shall be by preferential mail ballot, using
the method of single-transferable vote (cf. the section of preferential voting in
Section 44 of Robert's Rules of Order, Newly Revised).
- Meetings
- A quorum for the annual business meeting shall consist
of those who attend the meeting.
- Arrangements for the regular Eastern meeting of the
Association shall be the responsibility of the executive committee of the Eastern
Division except that the time of the meeting shall be determined in consultation
with the Executive Director of the Association.
- The agenda of the business meeting to be held during
each regular Eastern meeting of the Association shall be the responsibility of the
executive committee. The committee shall include on the agenda any item of Association
business requested at least one month in advance of the meeting by the Board of
Officers. No question of a substantive nature other than routine business shall
be placed on the agenda unless it has been announced to the membership at least
two weeks in advance of the meeting; it shall be the prerogative of the executive
committee to substitute a mail ballot on such a question for a vote at the business
meeting. No question of a substantive nature other than routine business shall be
in order under "New Business" unless it has been received by the secretary-treasurer
three weeks in advance of the meetings for transmission to the executive committee.
An exception shall be made if three-fourths of the Eastern Division affiliates in
attendance at the Business Meeting vote that such a question should be taken up
at that meeting.
- The program of the annual meeting shall be arranged
by a program committee appointed by and responsible to the executive committee.
One member of the program committee shall be the secretary-treasurer.
- In the business meeting, questions of order shall
be covered by Robert's Rules of Order, Newly Revised.
- Amendments
- Any proposed amendment of or addition to these by-laws
must be presented for discussion at a regular Business Meeting and shall then be
submitted to a mail ballot with passage dependent upon acceptance by two-thirds
of those casting votes.
- Amendments to these by-laws may be proposed only by
the executive committee, the Board of Officers, or members presenting a petition
carrying the signatures of at least fifty members of the Association.
- Proposals to amend these by-laws must be announced
to the members of the Association at least two weeks in advance of any meeting at
which a vote is taken.
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