First Wednesday In Person Meeting

The NWBC Board of Directors is calling a special meeting to occur during our in-person meeting on May 7th. The meeting is called to vote on revisions to our NWBC Constitution and NWBC By-Laws. In order to make these changes, we need a minimum of 25 Active members to attend this meeting so we may move forward with approving changes through a combination of voice, proxy and online voting. Currently, an Active Member is defined as one woman from each classification of business or profession. Active members hold the spot for their classification - Associate members do not.

In order to make revisions to the By-Laws, we must first make some minor revisions to the Constitution in order to bring both in line with our current practices that have evolved since COVID. The vote to approve revisions to the Constitution, we will need a two-thirds vote of Active members - that is, those members who retain an exclusive business classification. While we approved a revision to the By-Laws some years back to allow Associate members to vote and hold office, we did not make a corresponding change to the Constitution. That is what we propose to do now as well as update the By-Laws to reflect how we operate now. Our purpose is also to allow enough latitude for unanticipated changes in the future that may be necessary to continue the Club. 

Here is a summary of the proposed revisions: (please note all proposed additions/revisions in the Constitution and in the By-Laws are highlighted in yellow, deletions are highlighted in yellow with a strikethrough)

Constitution

• Article II - insert non-partisan into the description 

• Article V.3 - insert and Associate into the membership vote required for a decision reversal

• Article V.4 - change the titles for officers to conform with current practice: Social Chair and Technology Chair

• Article V.5 - revised fiscal year to conform with By-Laws

• Article VIII - amendments to the Constitution to be approved by a two-thirds vote of all members

By-Laws

• Article I.4 - updates officer titles

• Article II.2 - update officer titles

• Article III.2 - addition of definition of President-Elect (the VP, Programming is considered as the President-Elect)

• Article III.6 - update officer titles

• Article III.7 - update officer title and responsibilities

• Article IV.1 - defines meetings and schedules to reflect current practice and allow for future changes to meeting schedules without changing By-Laws

• Article IV.2 - defines quorum requirements to include all members rather than just active

• Article V.2 - this sentence was added to the 2021 revisions but was not consistent with the Constitution. The sentence will remain and is unchanged but is now consistent with the revised Constitution.

• Article V.3 - section added to allow for and define requirements for reinstatement to Active membership.

• Article VI.2 - termination of membership due to retirement or resignation

• Article VI.3 - duplicate classification updated

• Article VI.4 - other reasons for termination of membership

• Article VI - payment of dues

• Article VIII.2 - application process for membership

• Article VIII.3 - objections to membership

• Article VIII.5 - one member to one classification; exception defined

• Article XI.1 - leave of absence

• Article XIII - by-laws amended by two-thirds vote of all members.

The proposed revised documents are attached for your review.