Votes of Confidence?
 

What exactly is the meaning of a 'vote of confidence'?

Suppose you have a vote of confidence for the president...

Everyone who believes the president is doing a good job votes yes, those who feel he's doing poorly (and possibly should be removed from office) vote no.

Sometimes a majority no vote means you're booted out of office and elections are held (I believe Britain does this for their PM) Sometimes it means that you need to shape up. A yes vote typically vindicates your actions.

Usually the President (or his party) calls for the vote of confidence, the opposition calls for a vote of No confidence. The only difference is in who is running things.

/That's how I understand it

So from my taking of your post a vote of confidence takes place in determining whether or not a member has been performing up to his responsibilities.

Is this all there is to it? Say if members decide to give the recruitment chair a vote of confidence in handing out bids, wouldn't this imply that they are placing their trust in his hands to hand out bids to the new members?

That could work too. It's all about how the bylaws say it works to an extent. However, if handing out bids is within the recruitment chairs normal responsibilities, it would be unusual to have a vote of confidence that he could do so. If your rules require that a vote be held before the bids are handed out, that's not so much a vote of confidence as a vote to hand out bids.

Now, my thought is that if a vote of confidence was called for that situation, it would mean that either someone was challenging the Recruitment chair's fit-ness for the job, or someone was re-affirming it. There's usually only a vote of confidence when bad things have happened and you need to confirm that people are backing you (or that people don't have faith in you anymore.)

Does that make sense?

A vote of confidence is giving someone one your support. It can be an actual formal vote of confidence or no confidence, usually when someone is screwing up their job; or it's just an informal "Heh, you have my vote of confidence! I know you'll do a good job."

When I was a pledge the Panhellenic Council on campus took a vote regarding a struggling chapter. They voted no confidence in the chapter because it was struggling so very badly. Their National Council shut them down within the week. Coincidence? I don't know...:(

In my active days, I wrote a bylaw/constitutional provision with a "vote of confidence" which was a little different from what y'all are proposing.

The bylaw was written for the treasurer position. We were having some difficulty with the learning curve involved with becoming treasurer (it's one of those jobs where you can't literally afford a learning curve).

The deal was that each year during elections, an Assistant Treasurer was elected. At the end of that period, they'd be up for a "confidence" vote. To fail that vote, they'd need to lose by a 3/4 to 1/4 margin.

Then, they'd be treasurer for a year, a new Assistant would be elected, etc.

Same idea of people saying that you're doing a good job or not. It's not usually used in the way that sdbeta was talking about.

My impression of a vote of confidence is that you are placing your vote in the hands of another person to make a certain decision. In essence you are making a declaration that you are trusting his judgement in making a decision for the whole of the group. In the case of handing out bids, the recruitment chair would have the most knowledge and can therefore make a sound decision on bids.

That falls firmly into the "trust you sisters/brothers" mantra that gets repeated throughout recruitment. The way your describing it I would refer to more as a proxy; like with stock votes. The recruitment chair would "vote" on your behalf, by proxy.

I've heard of a vote of no confidence, usually when they pass the president is removed from office.

This is something slightly different than what is considered a "traditional" vote of confidence.

Traditional votes of confidence are usually non binding unless so stated in by-laws. A yes or no vote *may* end up triggering other action. Which is often the desired affect of the vote.

However, the vote you are talking about quoted above is really more procedural in nature. My understanding is that it would allow your rush chair - or whomever - the ability to offer/extend bids without needing to take it to the general membership first.

I've heard of chapters doing this. However, at some point, the membership always votes on the guys. Vote might come during pledgeship or at the end of it. Depending on the chapter's membership policy etc.

In many businesses, there's "The Dreaded Vote of Confidence."

That's when a boss (often a new one) praises a person (or a whole department), and the next week they're gone.

Ask Ceasar(SIC) about the vote of confidence on the Ides of March!:eek:

They are either not doing a good job or not doing a good job, plain and simple.

If an officer is not, then it could bring down a whole chapter in the long run!:(