Dear Georgia Chess Association member,
At the Membership Meeting called for Sunday December 8, 2019 in conjunction with the 2019 Georgia Class Championships the GCA Executive Board is proposing some amendments to our By-Laws. These fall into three categories: cleaning up the current By-Laws (2.3 and 5.2), changing the method of preferential voting (6.2 and 8.2), and moving from a combination of at-site and absentee (mail-in) voting, to strictly mail-in voting (3.5, 8.1, 8.4) as US Chess does for their Executive Board elections.
Section 2.3 deals with membership categories. The current By-Laws recognize only adult and scholastic memberships, but we have other classes of membership that should be accounted for. Section 5.2 is concerned with term length for Executive Board members, and the current wording reflects the transition some years ago from three year terms to two year terms. Both of these proposed changes are merely putting into the By-Laws to reflect what we currently do.
Preferential voting is necessary for elections that are not going to be done strictly in person, and it comes into play for elections having more than two candidates. Robert's Rules of Order talks about preferential voting, and outlines one way of doing it, but only as an example; it doesn't say that this way is how it should be done. However, since it is the only way outlined by Robert's Rules of Order, and our By-Laws state that we need to do it as outlined there, we need an amendment in order to effect this change. Please take a look at how we currently do it, how the proposed change would handle it, and see if you don't agree that this change would be for the better.
We currently allow both at-site and absentee (mail-in) voting, and Robert's Rules of Order does not think this is how it should be done. It prefers either all in-person or all mail-in voting. Since we have members all over the state, it would be a real inconvenience to ask those not living in the metro Atlanta area to come to the Annual Meeting. Therefore we are advocating moving to all mail-in voting.
Please come play in the Georgia Class Championships on December 6-8, and come to the Membership Meeting to give us your opinion of these changes we are proposing. I look forward to seeing you there.
Best Regards,
Scott Parker, President, Georgia Chess Association
Proposed Changes
Meeting Date: December 8th, 2019
Time: 2:15PM
Venue: Radisson Hotel, 1775 Parkway Pl SE, Marietta GA 30067