Results of Member Vote – Chapters will need to send delegates to the 2016 Convention
The results are in for the vote of all GSMOL members regarding the proposal to change to a “One Member, One Vote” system.
An article by GSMOL Corporate Counsel Bruce Stanton with more information can be found here.
Unfortunately, there were not enough ballots sent in to make a quorum, so the vote did not count. (The vote totals are given in the article.)
That means that at least for the 2016 Convention, we will use the delegate system for voting, and a final decision on the “One Member, One Vote” proposal will be made by the delegates who attend the Convention.
Some of you have sent delegates to the Convention for a long time and know the drill – but for all the new chapters formed since the last Convention, and just as a review for everyone else, the steps you need to follow are listed below. Any GSMOL member can attend the Convention as an “observer”, with no voting privileges.
- Make sure the Home Office knows your chapter is still alive. Send in your Officers Roster Form before the end of the year, if you have not already sent it in this year. (An explanation of this form is below.) This is a little like a census, so that the Home Office will know which chapters to send Convention materials to in January.
- Elect your delegate(s). Each chapter that has any number of members up to 50 is entitled to elect one delegate. You get an additional delegate for each 25 members after that. So for example if you have 80 members, you get two delegates – one for the first 50 and one for the next 25.
- Consider offering Sponsorships for your delegate(s) and observers who don’t have the financial resources to attend the Convention. No member should be prevented from going to the Convention only because they can’t afford it! With the consent of your members, funds from the Chapter treasury may be allocated for this purpose, or you could put on a fundraiser.
The Officers Roster Form (Form 450) should be sent in whenever (a) you have had an election of officers, (b) a new officer has been appointed to replace one who is no longer in office, (c) there has been a change in any officer’s information, especially the email address, or (d) it’s December in the year before the Convention and you haven’t sent the form in yet this year.
This form verifies that you have the required three officers (President, Vice-President, and Secretary/Treasurer – or you can have separate Secretary and Treasurer). A chapter will go inactive if it does not have those three officers.
You can order this form from the Home Office, 800-888-1727, or you can download and print it here.
Please plan to send as many of your members to the Convention as you can, whether as delegates or observers. It’s a lot more than just about the voting!
Stay tuned for more information about delegates and the Convention!
