2008 Bylaw & Ritual Amendments and Resolutions

[naraht]

There just weren't that many proposed for this convention. If this number of proposals becomes more regular, then maybe the Fraternity goes back to 3 day conventions... I'll put my comments in italics.

The proposed locations for the 2010 convention are Dallas and Atlanta. My personal preference is for Atlanta.

AIV (Alumni/Internal Volunteers) Ref Committee:
1) Changing the Regional Alumni Councils to increase the number of representatives from each recognized group and section and make the representatives from the section appointed by the Section Chair, but not allowing the Section Chair to be on there. Shrug, not really sure.

2) Require the Alumni Voting Delegates be selected at least 90 days before convention. Probably a good idea, but I'd want to get a better feeling for how often the AVDs are selected an hour before convention starts.

3) Alumni Association DSK. It would be orange. Sounds reasonable.

CFO (Chapter/Finance/Operations) Ref Committee:
1) Change the term "Life Membership" to "Sustaining Membership" and tweek a few other things as a result. I like this idea and it matches up better with other organizations.

2) Change the section on the Annual Insurance Fee so that instead of $7, it is an amount not to exceed $7, determined by the National Board by Aug 1st. (Which presumably means the Summer Board Meeting). This amendment was proposed by the National Board. I'm fine with this, they understand the negotiations with the insurance companies more

3) Change the word "Audit" to "Review" in terms of the chapter books, and specify that the person has to be seperate from the chapter and its finances. Proposed by the National Finance Committee. Apparently Audit means it has to be a CPA, which most chapters don't do. I think this will pass pretty easily, though I could see an amendment indicating that an Audit is needed if Chapter revenues exceed a fairly high threshhold, maybe $10,000

4) Move Alumni Association recognition from January 15 to May 15. Proposed by the PD for Alumni Relations and the Alumni Relations Committee Chair. Shrug

Marketing Ref Committee

1) The National Executive Director shall make sure that no pictures in the T&T have the ritual setups in the background. It is a little more wordy than that, but that's the situation they really care about. I'm in favor of this, but I'm just afraid that we may end up with chartering chapters not being about to get their pictures in the T&T because of where they took all of their group shots.

Membership & Extension Ref Cmte

1) Allow brothers to stay active if they are either at the school with the chapter or at a two year school without a chapter. This appears to be a reaction to a situation with a single particular brother who transfered from a school with a chapter to a local CC. I'm opposed unless it is part of a well studied decision to allow for area chapters like NHPCs (Historically Black Fraternities and Sororities)

National Organization Ref Cmte
1) Change "Service and Communication" to "Service" in the title of the PD and the appropriate Committee. I've always thought the pairing was a little odd and the proposal was apparently from a passed resolution from 2006 to look into it. Cool

2) Change the Executive Cmte of the National Board from having all 6 PDs and no RDs (as well as others) to having the Finance PD, one other PD (selected by the PDs) and two RDs (selected by the RDs).Seems OK to me

3) Elect the RDs at the Regional Conference rather than at Nationals, however allow replacement RDs to be elected at Nationals if necessary. On the surface I really like this, since many Regions have more chapters represented at Regional Conventions, especially if the National is on the other coast. OTOH, if the RD election is moved to the Regional Conference, then I think we *must* have another member of the board there to supervise the elections. Also, I think there are other parts of the by-laws that assume that the entire elected board is elected at one time, like the sections on removal for malfesence, this should be reviewed. I'm torn and this one will require some research

4) Tweek Quorum for Board Meetings slightly so that the only voting non-elected person on the board (the BSA rep) counts in regards to quorum.Last piece of changing the National Board quorum concept after the rest were passed in 2006, seems OK

5) Add "Nonfeasance" as a reason that a board member can be removed from office and get rid of the term suspended as a result.I like this, I can think of at least one RD that it applied to (More than 10 years ago) and suspension of membership doesn't belong there

6) Require that a majority of the AAs in Good standing approve the person nominated from that Region for the National Alumni Relations and IVD Committee.This seems like a good idea, but I'm concerned about how long that process could take

7) Add "Nonfeasance" as a reason that a section chair can be removed from office.I like this

8) Disallow Regional Conferences from the same time of the year as National Convention.Right now, I/II, IV and X/XI Regionals occur between Christmas and New Years. They would have to change because of this. The person proposing this is from Region IV, so it may be something that should be dealt with internally within IV.

Service and Communication Ref Committee
1) Resolution - NSW theme proposal: 2009 - The 5th Field of Service, service to the Earth & 2010 - Get the Green Out: Making Communities Greener OK

2) Resolution - The National Board put together a plan to encourage chapters to participate in Veteran's Day on their campuses.Shrug

3) Resolution - APO-USA encourage planting and tending of Fruit Trees at local parks by chapters and AAs.Most parks in my area at least tend to discourage planting of Fruit trees for various reasons. It seems to be something more in line with APO-RP which may already be doing it

4) Resolution - APO-USA chapters are encouraged to collect electronic equipment in shoe boxes which would be passed to the North American APO-Phil AAs and then onto Philippine libraries.Seems like an interesting program, but would want to know more. Apparently in 2001-2002 there was a similar book drive.

5) Resolution - APO-USA will help support the program that is trying to raise money to expand the size of the APO-RP National Office which is currently about the size of a hotel room.Not really sure how help could be given other than a direct monetary donation, but I'll listen


As for the Ritual amendments, There are three entries, the optional big-brother ceremony and two relatively minor tweeks that are fairly uncontroversial.

[Senusret I]

I prefer Atlanta also.

I am not yet convinced that I am in favor of increasing the number of reps from each recognized group. I am also not sure that I am in favor of at-large reps being appointed by section chairs. It's because I feel that all volunteers should be in an alumni association.

I like the Alumni Association DSK. Orange is....unique.

I do not like the Life Membership amendment. I think we just need to live with what it is at worst, and at best, remove it from the bylaws all together since it isn't a class of membership, but a gift.

May 15 would be so much better than January 15.

Sounds like they're trying to bring back modified extension membership and I am not convinced it was studied enough.

I think the national service week theme is corny, but it's not like I submitted an alternative.

All in all, I agree with Randy's sentiments.

[arvid1978]

The proposed locations for the 2010 convention are Dallas and Atlanta. My personal preference is for Atlanta.

I actually prefer Dallas, but that's mainly because the train goes directly there from here. Atlanta had a good bid in 2000, but they were up against New Orleans and didn't stand a chance of winning. I'll have to see the presentations

AIV (Alumni/Internal Volunteers) Ref Committee:
1) Changing the Regional Alumni Councils to increase the number of representatives from each recognized group and section and make the representatives from the section appointed by the Section Chair, but not allowing the Section Chair to be on there. Shrug, not really sure.

I don't see any need to increase the number of reps, but if the alumni councils are supposed to actually be made up of regular alumni, I can see good reason to exclude section chairs, since they're not really as concerned with alumni issues as much as they are about the student issues.

2) Require the Alumni Voting Delegates be selected at least 90 days before convention. Probably a good idea, but I'd want to get a better feeling for how often the AVDs are selected an hour before convention starts.

Agree, it's a good idea, but in reality our Alumni Association base is not very organized to begin with. They should be doing this earlier, but if we're going to require AA's to do it, we should also require chapters to have their delegates done 90 days in advance. That would be more important, since there are over 700 student delegates and only 11 Regional Alumni delegates.

3) Alumni Association DSK. It would be orange. Sounds reasonable.

Kinda disagree. A chapter-specific AA should be allowed to submit nominations to the chapter to have the actives award them a Chapter DSK. An area-based should be allowed to submit to section/region for one of those DSK's. I don't see much of a need for this award. Also, the National Alumni DSK is the only other one not picked by a committee of students and I don't like having another award that is not decided upon by the students. If they're that worthy of a DSK, you should be able to make a case to one of those units.

CFO (Chapter/Finance/Operations) Ref Committee:
1) Change the term "Life Membership" to "Sustaining Membership" and tweek a few other things as a result. I like this idea and it matches up better with other organizations.

I'm obviously a very big fan of this one
I can see the argument to strike it altogether, since it isn't a class of membership. If it is to remain, I think it should be changed to this. It's confusing to the students, as many volunteer staff can attest, and would make it one less point of confusion in a sea of many types of confusion.

3) Change the word "Audit" to "Review" in terms of the chapter books, and specify that the person has to be seperate from the chapter and its finances. Proposed by the National Finance Committee. Apparently Audit means it has to be a CPA, which most chapters don't do. I think this will pass pretty easily, though I could see an amendment indicating that an Audit is needed if Chapter revenues exceed a fairly high threshhold, maybe $10,000

Agree strongly, although $10,000 is a low threshold for a lot of chapters, especially if you hosted a conference or an anniversary Perhaps the $25k threshold (I think it's $25k, anyway) that requires that you actually file your taxes would be better.

Membership & Extension Ref Cmte
1) Allow brothers to stay active if they are either at the school with the chapter or at a two year school without a chapter. This appears to be a reaction to a situation with a single particular brother who transfered from a school with a chapter to a local CC. I'm opposed unless it is part of a well studied decision to allow for area chapters like NHPCs (Historically Black Fraternities and Sororities)

I wholly disagree with allowing this. It just seems like back-door extension membership to me, and is just asking for trouble when it comes to non-students participating in a school's programs. Why allow chapters to set themselves up for charter-revoking failure (revoked by the school, not APO)

CC's can have chapters, depending on the makeup of the campus (disclaimer: I'm currently working with an extension effort at a CC with 10k students.) I'm a proponent of focusing more on that. Plus, IMO, if you have to leave your main campus and transfer to a CC for academic reasons, you probably need to be focusing on your education more. If you have to transfer for financial reasons, you probably need to be focusing on your income more. Either way, both of those things should be a higher priority than APO.

3) Elect the RDs at the Regional Conference rather than at Nationals, however allow replacement RDs to be elected at Nationals if necessary. On the surface I really like this, since many Regions have more chapters represented at Regional Conventions, especially if the National is on the other coast. OTOH, if the RD election is moved to the Regional Conference, then I think we *must* have another member of the board there to supervise the elections. Also, I think there are other parts of the by-laws that assume that the entire elected board is elected at one time, like the sections on removal for malfesence, this should be reviewed. I'm torn and this one will require some research

I don't like this one. While the students would be more involved in their RD's election,this would have the 1/2 board changing over at least once a year, and they'd never get anything done. This has been submitted many times before and never made it out of committee, AFAIK. I think it keeps getting re-submitted because the person putting it in believes that the RD is like a "Super-Section Chair", which they're not (at least, they're not supposed to be)

8) Disallow Regional Conferences from the same time of the year as National Convention.Right now, I/II, IV and X/XI Regionals occur between Christmas and New Years. They would have to change because of this. The person proposing this is from Region IV, so it may be something that should be dealt with internally within IV.

Agree with Randy. Deal with it in your region if you don't like i. Tt sounds like this came from a section that is really not fond of giving up the holidays every year for break.

As for the Ritual amendments, There are three entries, the optional big-brother ceremony and two relatively minor tweeks that are fairly uncontroversial.

Hooray for no Toast Song debate!

I didn't get my ritual amendment done in time (kept putting it off), but all it was going to be was an optional change to the pledge ceremony allowing for large chapters with large pledge classes to not have to bring people in and out of the room when they're hearing a particular part of the ceremony at the beginning. If you've ever tried to negotiate a 70-person pledge class through the ceremony as written, you understand what I'm talking about...

[Senusret I]

Originally Posted by arvid1978

Kinda disagree. A chapter-specific AA should be allowed to submit nominations to the chapter to have the actives award them a Chapter DSK. An area-based should be allowed to submit to section/region for one of those DSK's. I don't see much of a need for this award. Also, the National Alumni DSK is the only other one not picked by a committee of students and I don't like having another award that is not decided upon by the students. If they're that worthy of a DSK, you should be able to make a case to one of those units.

As the leader of a chapter-specific alumni association, we are very careful to allow the chapter to make its own decisions without interference. There has only been one time that an alum was given a chapter DSK, and although it was warranted, there are others who (we feel) deserve a DSK for service to the alumni association and promoting ideals of life-long service to the fraternity through an association.

And no, we don't want a made-up local award, we want a DSK. :-) (I did not write the legislation, but I think it's a good idea.)

Speaking to geographic alumni associations, it's the same principle. The work that a brother performs in such an organization should be judged by fellow members of the association. I think there are differences between the type of service that warrants a sectional DSK and the service that warrants an alumni association DSK.

In a nutshell, AAs are the only unit in APO that cannot bestow a DSK and I think this legislation makes it equitable for all parties without asking a chapter, section, or region to change its criteria or judge people they don't know.

[emb021]

Originally Posted by naraht

There just weren't that many proposed for this convention. If this number of proposals becomes more regular, then maybe the Fraternity goes back to 3 day conventions... I'll put my comments in italics.

The proposed locations for the 2010 convention are Dallas and Atlanta. My personal preference is for Atlanta.

Same. We'll see how things shake out.

3) Alumni Association DSK. It would be orange. Sounds reasonable.

Funny. This is pretty much a copy of my proposal from a couple of conventions back. The people who put this up didn't even bother to contact me. I think I threw out orange as a possible color.

To answer some other comments. The purpose of this I thought was clear. To allow an AA to recognize one it ITS members for service TO the AA. Giving such a person a Chapter-DSK is not appropriate. They are not giving service to the Chapter. Giving such a person a Region or Section-DSK is ALSO not appropriate, as Region and Section DSKs are for service to the WHOLE Region or Section, not for service within a AA. And the National Alumni DSK is really given to alumni for service they do OUTSIDE APO, which is not the same.

I don't believe it got out of the reference committee the last time I proposed it, which was why I never resubmitted it.

3) Change the word "Audit" to "Review" in terms of the chapter books, and specify that the person has to be seperate from the chapter and its finances. Proposed by the National Finance Committee. Apparently Audit means it has to be a CPA, which most chapters don't do. I think this will pass pretty easily, though I could see an amendment indicating that an Audit is needed if Chapter revenues exceed a fairly high threshhold, maybe $10,000

Bull. Audit does NOT mean a CPA. My parliamentary club forms an audit committee each year to audit our books. We never use a CPA. Course we rarely have more then a $1000 or so on our books.

1) The National Executive Director shall make sure that no pictures in the T&T have the ritual setups in the background. It is a little more wordy than that, but that's the situation they really care about. I'm in favor of this, but I'm just afraid that we may end up with chartering chapters not being about to get their pictures in the T&T because of where they took all of their group shots.

Please. They just need to remove the candles on the tables!!! My chapter has always made a point of doing that before taking group shots. Not so hard. Only problem is we've been running such pictures in the T&T since the 30s or so.

8) Disallow Regional Conferences from the same time of the year as National Convention.Right now, I/II, IV and X/XI Regionals occur between Christmas and New Years. They would have to change because of this. The person proposing this is from Region IV, so it may be something that should be dealt with internally within IV.

Must have missed reading that one.

Kind of funny. We've had our RIV Conference during that time for many many years. We've tried proposing moving it, but it never happens (never another good alternate date). So why would someone try to do this...

[arvid1978]

Originally Posted by Senusret I

As the leader of a chapter-specific alumni association, we are very careful to allow the chapter to make its own decisions without interference. There has only been one time that an alum was given a chapter DSK, and although it was warranted, there are others who (we feel) deserve a DSK for service to the alumni association and promoting ideals of life-long service to the fraternity through an association.

And no, we don't want a made-up local award, we want a DSK. :-) (I did not write the legislation, but I think it's a good idea.)

Speaking to geographic alumni associations, it's the same principle. The work that a brother performs in such an organization should be judged by fellow members of the association. I think there are differences between the type of service that warrants a sectional DSK and the service that warrants an alumni association DSK.

In a nutshell, AAs are the only unit in APO that cannot bestow a DSK and I think this legislation makes it equitable for all parties without asking a chapter, section, or region to change its criteria or judge people they don't know.

Fair enough, but from my perspective I just don't see it as all that necessary. We don't have many active alumni associations in this area and the ones that we do have are made up of mostly volunteer alumni staff, so their alumni association work is intertwined with their section volunteer duties, hence my perspective.

Giving such a person a Chapter-DSK is not appropriate. They are not giving service to the Chapter. Giving such a person a Region or Section-DSK is ALSO not appropriate, as Region and Section DSKs are for service to the WHOLE Region or Section, not for service within a AA.

I don't really agree with this sentiment, since I see chapter AA's as having a duty to give back to the chapter, and geographic AA's as being units that help keep APO in the hearts and minds of alumni regardless of where they're from, and in turn having a duty to help the fraternity continue to prosper in that area. But that's a difference of opinion and just comes from having a different APO experience, and I'm not really willing to pursue this as a thread of conversation. It is what it is. But hey, if the AA's that actually do something are able to convince the students to go forth with this, then so be it. I don't really disagree enough to actually argue against it beyond what I've already stated.

[naraht]

Two comments on Geographic AA's contributions in terms of getting DSKs from APO geographic units...

First, we have (or have had) an Alpha Phi Omega Alumni Association in Western Europe, no geographic area other than the AA to give a DSK.

Second if you have two metropolitan area AAs where one crosses a sectional boundary and one does not, what DSK the alumnus gives shouldn't depend on which of those two AA situations is true. (Metropolitan areas in one section include places like San Fran and Miami, Metropolitan areas that are split including Washington DC and Kansas City)

[naraht]

Originally Posted by emb021

Bull. Audit does NOT mean a CPA. My parliamentary club forms an audit committee each year to audit our books. We never use a CPA. Course we rarely have more then a $1000 or so on our books.

From the Memo...

PURPOSE: Remove a technical term that has legal meaning and replace the term with more general language in both the National Bylaws and the Standard Chapter Articles of Association.
RATIONALE: To clarify the intent of what a chapter in good standing should do on an annual basis. An audit legally refers to a specific process by a credentialed individual. This change reflects common practice among chapters and allows for someone who is not an authorized signature on the chapter’s account(s) to review the Chapter’s finances without being a CPA to make sure they have safeguards in place to ensure healthy financial operations.
SUBMITTED BY: National Finance Committee.

Originally Posted by emb021

Please. They just need to remove the candles on the tables!!! My chapter has always made a point of doing that before taking group shots. Not so hard. Only problem is we've been running such pictures in the T&T since the 30s or so.

Hmm. Not really sure on that, but they certainly were there by the 1950s. (I remember one from that time period). I'm just trying to imagine censoring the T&Ts that should be added to the national APO website to delete those pictures, the horrors...

[naraht]

Originally Posted by arvid1978

I didn't get my ritual amendment done in time (kept putting it off), but all it was going to be was an optional change to the pledge ceremony allowing for large chapters with large pledge classes to not have to bring people in and out of the room when they're hearing a particular part of the ceremony at the beginning. If you've ever tried to negotiate a 70-person pledge class through the ceremony as written, you understand what I'm talking about...

Besides, only the first two dozen or so can hear what gets said when you get to the door...

In my mind, some alterations need to be made for pledge classes significantly larger than average, and that may need to be one. I think University of Texas has had pledge classes as large as 150.

I just can't imagine what a pledging or initiation ceremony for 150 would be like...

Randy

[naraht]

Unfortunately, what I think will take up a lot of time on the floor of the 2008 convention will be the official determination of the convention of what to do with the chapters that the PD for membership say still don't have any women. (Not counting Wabash of course)

Randy

[arvid1978]

Originally Posted by naraht

Unfortunately, what I think will take up a lot of time on the floor of the 2008 convention will be the official determination of the convention of what to do with the chapters that the PD for membership say still don't have any women. (Not counting Wabash of course)

Are there still chapters who are blatantly not recruiting across the board that haven't left the fraternity yet? We're all co-ed in this region (even Wabash is co-ed, their available recruitment pool just happens to be all-male) so I obviously have little contact with all-male chapters during the course of my volunteer duties.

[naraht]

Originally Posted by arvid1978

Are there still chapters who are blatantly not recruiting across the board that haven't left the fraternity yet? We're all co-ed in this region (even Wabash is co-ed, their available recruitment pool just happens to be all-male) so I obviously have little contact with all-male chapters during the course of my volunteer duties.

I'd really like to see how Auburn's Rush was run this semester. The website (www.aphio-delta.org) doesn't seem to reflect any change to non all-male recruiting.

Randy

[arvid1978]

Originally Posted by naraht

I'd really like to see how Auburn's Rush was run this semester. The website (www.aphio-delta.org) doesn't seem to reflect any change to non all-male recruiting.

Interesting. Their facebook group for this semester (linked on the page above) is written as if they're all-male, but the group has two female members in it.

[naraht]

Originally Posted by arvid1978

Interesting. Their facebook group for this semester (linked on the page above) is written as if they're all-male, but the group has two female members in it.

I see two female members, Lauren Bohorfoush and Shawni Smith, but Ms. Smith is an alumna of Auburn.

[emb021]

Originally Posted by arvid1978

I don't really agree with this sentiment, since I see chapter AA's as having a duty to give back to the chapter, and geographic AA's as being units that help keep APO in the hearts and minds of alumni regardless of where they're from, and in turn having a duty to help the fraternity continue to prosper in that area. But that's a difference of opinion and just comes from having a different APO experience, and I'm not really willing to pursue this as a thread of conversation. It is what it is. But hey, if the AA's that actually do something are able to convince the students to go forth with this, then so be it. I don't really disagree enough to actually argue against it beyond what I've already stated.

Sorry, but I think those are some very limiting views of AAs.

AFAIK, there is nothing about a 'duty' of a chapter AA to give back or support a chapter, tho you would hope they would.

Nor should there be an expectation of geographic AA to help the Fraternity as their primary purpose.


The purpose of ANY AA is to bring our alumni together in a group and keep them involved in our principles. While certainly you would like AAs to help out chapters (either their own or locals), it should be a requirement or the like. While certainly you would like to see AAs as a resource for finding alumni volunteers, sponsors, chapter advisors, etc, its a mistake to assume everyone involved wants to do that. And you may very well scare off potential AA members with that kind of view.

As AAs can have separate activities and work from Chapters (and Sections/regions), its understandable that they would want to be able to recognize their members for their outstanding work TO and WITH the AA. Hence the reason I originally proposed the award. Unless that alumni is doing something specifically with a chapter (working as a sponsor, advisor, etc), they really aren't eligable for a Chapter-DSK. Unless that alumni is doing work as an alumni volunteer at the section/regional level, they really aren't eligbale per say for a section/regional-DSK.