The Bylaws of our nonprofit organization, adopted by a vote of members in the fall of 2003, had served us well for over two decades. For the full text of the 2003 Bylaws document click here. We thank former trustees Carol Coan and Ed Brown for their work in creating those Bylaws.
In 2024, we convened a Bylaws Review Committee to examine that document in detail and consider some needed updates. Carol Coan, Sandy Ward, Joan Pillsbury and Alex Tinari served on this review committee, chaired by Sandy. Past President Cecile Richard also reviewed proposed changes.
Why revise? What needed changing? An obvious example, simple to fix, is the wording about how members are to be notified of annual meeting. Changing the word “mail” to the word “send” allows notification by either mail or email. We also wanted flexibility in choosing the date of our annual meeting and flexibility in voting method (adding option of an online poll). Changing the word “dues” to “donations” reflects our on-going practice.
You can now review the proposed 2024 revision. Deletions are marked by strike-through text; additions are highlighted in YELLOW (grayscale if printed b&w). We took the opportunity to revise some wording for improved readability. We also added sentences for a few matters not mentioned in the 2003 bylaws; you’ll find those additions in these sections:
- Article III. Trustees. Section 6 (re process for removing a trustee)
- Article IV. Officers. Section 2 (re filling an unfilled officer position)
- Article XV. Dissolution. Section 1 (re distribution of assets in case the national FCA no longer exists)
Most of the other edits are minor.
These proposed 2024 Bylaws were included as an insert in our Fall Newsletter and made available as a handout at our Annual Meeting on Sunday October 20, 2024. We recommended that the membership vote in favor of this revision.
The membership did vote to approve the 2024 revision. See the resulting FCAWM Bylaws as adopted October 2024.