MD Chapter Business thread............... PLEASE READ!!!!!!!
 

Ok, as you may know a thread was started about having elections and such and it got me thinkin..................


I figured we would lay some ground rules, and hopefully they will stick, if the membership does not like these rules they can be voted on and ammended or even thrown out as needed. I am not impossing these as a threat or offensively, only to help to streamline things and set some guidelines for our chapter and the way that it operates and is maintained.

RULES:
1) Elections will be held once a year, in the month of January. Special/Emergency Elections may be held any month, but must be posted 1 month before the special ellection meeting.

2) Chapter Leadership Officer positions are as follows: Chapter Leader, Assistant Chapter Leader, Secretary, Treasurer.

- Chapter Leader will be a yearly elected position, any member wishing to accept nominations for this position must post their acceptance no less than 1 month in adavnce of the election meet. All other positions will be appointed and those not wishing to accept a position may respectfully decline that or any position.

- Chapter Leader duties: acceptance of new chapter members, administrative duties such as event coordination, meets planning, maintain chapter to FTE standards.

- Assistant Chapter Leader duties: assist Chapter Leader

- Secretary duties: handle and maintain all chapter documents and membership forms.

- Treasurer duties: collect and handle dues and other monetary duties such as bank account, collect money for t-shirt and stickers.

3) Membership status:

- Active status: To acheive and maintain an active status in the MD Chapter, you must attend at least 75% of the chapter meets for that calander year. Must post in the chapter threads, no min number of posts, but at least once a week check in, make post in the MD Chapter threads section.

- Associate status: a member who is either not a member of FTE or not a MD Chapter member who attends meets or post in the MD Chapter threads, this DOES INCLUDE MEMBERS of OTHER STATE CHAPTERS! and other clubs/affiliations.

- Founding member status: the original five members who started this MD Chapter as follows: acheda, BPofMD, fire240, jetdoc, Tractor Boy.

- Semi-active/floating status: members who drift in and out from time to time, inactivity for more than 2 months at a time


DUES: Paid once a year, 1 time $15 membership fee (includes decal, and t-shirt), every year following is $5.



these rules are subject to change at any meeting, votes will be by majority decision.






I will bring a copy of this with me to the march meet where we can vote on and amend these if needed.........................

Hopefully you are entertaining discussion on your above comments at this time, so here goes.

1. As we have NEVER had an election, the rule pertaining to the January voting date should not be vadid until AFTER the first election and then should be held annually thereafter in the month that the first elected Chapter Leader is voted in.

2. Active Status: I believe that 75% is a pretty high number to expect ALL members to attend to stay active. I would say 50% of the meetings and post in our Forum at least every TWO weeks, as there are plenty of people that take vacations lasting that long.

3. Dues: $15.00 is a fair number, but not until we find out the cost of the no charge T's and decals. We can discuss this at the next meeting.

4. We can fine-tune the wording at or before the next scheduled meeting.

While I know i am not a member of your chapter. The active member status seems a little harsh. What defines a chapter meet? Is this a GTG? If so, any two people that get together can consider themselves at a GTG. If said two people are convenient to each other, they can, by your rule, null and void your entire chapter. From the answers I have gotten. " Any two members in the same chapter getting together can be considered a GTG" While you might say. It has to be sanctioned, past precedence will rule. Just thinking out loud.

Thanks Frank...this should fix that.


1. As we have NEVER had an election, the rule pertaining to the January voting date should not be valid until AFTER the first election and then should be held annually thereafter in the month that the first elected Chapter Leader is voted in.

2. Active Status: I believe that 75% is a pretty high number to expect ALL members to attend to stay active. I would say 50% of the meetings and post in our Forum at least every TWO weeks, as there are plenty of people that take vacations lasting that long. A meeting is defined as a sanctioned and official scheduled Chapter Meeting. A get together that is NOT a sanctioned and official scheduled Chapter Meeting will NOT be considered as a "meeting".

3. Dues: $15.00 is a fair number, but not until we find out the cost of the no charge T's and decals. We can discuss this at the next meeting.

4. We can fine-tune the wording at or before the next scheduled meeting.

now see that is why I posted it, so we have an idea, and we can express our opinions and make educated decision and discuss this stuff.......... all great ideas, I'm not perfect and I know it............ I wanted to hear from everyone on this that way when it comes time to vote on this we all know exactly what we want, thanx for the replies and opinions, after all this is OUR chapter, not MY chapter.

dues? plus i'm have military duty on most of the days there are meets... hmm ... so does the chapter fundraise for local charities? volunteer hours? i'm a newbie here but this sounds like there may be other directions people want to go and i'm just here because i just love my truck and possibly meet a couple folks...i'm pretty much a hermit... should i just stay on the inactive list? or does this mean i get banned?

Some changes Had asked FTE about the policy on dues and copyright of shirts/stickers

well, this isnt all final/set in stone now.......... and really any ideas are possible, the dues idea was basically for MD Chapter events..... its EVERYONES CHAPTER not just MINE, thats why I asked for your input, and we would love to see ya stick around and hopefully have a great time.

I also am in the military, I understand that!!!!!!!

Also, we could have a military/other job exclusion. Maybe even roll back the required attendance down to One (1) meeting a year. That's why this has been posted - so we can discuss it. We need to know what attracts and repells potential members so we can make this thing WORK for US.

The time to do this is NOW - before anything is set in stone. But if we DO NOT get input, how can we possibly know WHAT you want?

Please, please, give us your input!!

yor exactly right!! at least someone is tracking..........

Just a quick note...

Regarding "subscription dues" or anything similar - if you would like to have a hat/t-shirt with your chapter logo etc. on it thats fine, but bear in mind you cant exclude members if they choose not too pay $15 a year... :-wink

ok, thats cool, thanx for pointing that out

I think 15.oo for the 1st year and 5.00 a year after that is very reasonable-just my opinion -I don't get what FTE fred said? he is saying you can't exclude members from the M.d chapter if the don't pay dues?? is that because this is a free site?? or just against policy? just a question-not trying to stir the pot-just trying to get the low down

ah saw what broncochriss88 posted dues not allowed-how about a voluntary fund to help offset costs then?? so if some members are short on cash the fund could help with meetings e.t.c? to help the less fortunate? would a volunteer fund be okay? nothing mandatory-

From the way I understand it, yes. I guess it wouldn't be called "dues" so we'll call it a donation for the cause. TO actually set a number ($15.00 or any number) we would really have to see what our costs are going to be. After a year, we should have a better idea and could then revise that number.