Revised Bylaws Meeting called

Started by AmyA1 • 12 replies • 1231 views

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AmyA1 (Washington)
Posts: 101

Posted:

Our Bylaws Committee has finally finished it's revisions. The Board has approved and has made a motion to call a Special Assoc Meeting to vote on them.
They are calling the meeting on April 1st. April Fools day is not the best, but we hope to have some fun with it.
The official notice with the bylaws will go out the week of March 6th.
My question is what to do it anyone wants a copy before the mailing? Should we provide a copy or tell them to wait until the mailing goes out? We do plan on having a copy available on the website, but not until the mailer went out.

MelissaP1 (Alabama)
Posts: 13,836

Posted:

I would stamp it with the words "DRAFT". That if you do give them a copy and they make copies, it is understood that document is a DRAFT copy only.

Former HOA President

AmyA1 (Washington)
Posts: 101

Posted:

They do have a water stamp on them. And only a PDF file will be available for download.

RichardP13 (California)
Posts: 3,868

Posted:

My opinion is that all people should get a copy at the SAME time. Someone could influence the March 6th mailing ahead of time.

KerryL1 (California)
Posts: 14,550

Posted:

What % of Owners is needed for quorum, Amy? What % is needed to approve the amended Bylaws? Can Owners only vote at the meeting or via a proxy? There's no mail in voting? How many pages are they?

Having failed to get our amended Bylaws approved by Owners a few years ago, I feel that the more publicity the better. So, I think posting the PDF file sooner than the mailer is a good idea.

AmyA1 (Washington)
Posts: 101

Posted:

Richard,
That is what we are worried about. We have 2 members we know we will have issues with..and these 2 influence quite a few more.
Kerry,
I agree that lobbying for the change and vote is being proactive. We have 499 homes with a 15% quorum, absentee votes are permitted. Majority of votes for approval. Our revised bylaws are 23 pages, which includes 3 appendix pgs.

We plan on posting in our newsletter some of the changes along with advice from our attorney, before the mailer goes out. Hopefully addressing issues that the above 2 will bring up. The mailer will also include a layout of changes and letter from the committee.

During our revision process we have had 2 Q&A sessions with the members to get input. Our attorney has gone over it 3 times. We have tried to be upfront and transparent but we all know that not everyone is going to like everything. Heck the committee didn't always agree, but we think we came up with a dang good document.

KerryL1 (California)
Posts: 14,550

Posted:

You're referring to two board members, Amy, right? If you posted it on, say, 3/1, would those two, whomever they are, really have time to get an open meeting called to change the board approved Bylaws?

Are you on the board or on the Committee?

Anyway, it looks like you're doing a fine job. Since members can vote by mail, I think that helps a lot to reach the simple majority needed, especially if you have a lot of absentee Owners. One thing that encourages voters to mail back their ballots is if the ballot return envelope is stamped. We needed 109 to approve the bylaws and rec'd 93 approving with just one mailing. Sadly, the Board refused to send a second mailing to those who hadn't voted. We had 42% absentee owners at that time, so I'm convinced at 2nd mailing would have put us at 109.

Keep up the good work; the Q&A sessions should have been reassuring to Owners. Just curious: what about the rewrite bothers the two?

JanetB2 (Colorado)
Posts: 4,219

Posted:

Quote:

Posted By RichardP13 on 02/18/2017 9:04 AM
My opinion is that all people should get a copy at the SAME time. Someone could influence the March 6th mailing ahead of time.

Amen

. I also would not give to anyone until after sent to everyone.

AmyA1 (Washington)
Posts: 101

Posted:

Update: Our Revised Bylaws passed with a landslide vote! Quorum not only met but exceeded with absentee votes, we even had people show up for the meeting just for support.. no questions! I was glad we came up with a few ideas to keep everyone occupied while votes counted, we had trivia questions and a few rounds of Bylaws Bingo.

JanetB2 (Colorado)
Posts: 4,219

Posted:

Quote:

Posted By AmyA1 on 04/01/2017 9:52 PM
Update: Our Revised Bylaws passed with a landslide vote! Quorum not only met but exceeded with absentee votes, we even had people show up for the meeting just for support.. no questions! I was glad we came up with a few ideas to keep everyone occupied while votes counted, we had trivia questions and a few rounds of Bylaws Bingo.

Glad you had fun ... while deciding a serious issue

. LOL ... How did you play Bylaws Bingo???

GenoS (Florida)
Posts: 4,276

Posted:

Congrats, Amy. Also curious about Bylaws Bingo

NigelB (Texas)
Posts: 254

Posted:

Quote:

We recently amended our ByLaws with no problem, and presented them to our members at the annual general meeting, we included the two revisions on the ballots with yes or no options.

The reason we changed the ByLaws was (1) due to a recent change in State law regarding providing any member the opportunity to have their name on the ballot for a director position (the ByLaws required a "nominating committee" and the change in State law eliminated that), and (2) changing the ByLaws to require that a director be a property owner and listed on the deed to the property (the original ByLaws allowed for non property owners to be directors).

AmyA1 (Washington)
Posts: 101

Posted:

I downloaded free bingo cards. Customized words (in place of numbers)that went along with Bylaws. It was fun!

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