RE: Summary of Board Minutes Proposal

Thanks Jill for your thoughtful outline.

Although I don't have a vote, I certainally feel it a great suggestion. Few regular AIS members have any interest in this !

See you in SL.

Bob Keup
RVP Region 2

From: "Jill Bonino" <aissecjill@earthlink.net>
Reply-To: aisdiscuss@aisboard.org
To: "AIS Discuss" <AISDiscuss@aisboard.org>
Subject: [AISdiscuss] Summary of Board Minutes Proposal
Date: Mon, 11 Apr 2005 09:38:53 -0700

Hi Board Members, Officers, Committee Chairs, RVP's and Section
Presidents...

Included in the body of this email is a proposal prepared by Bob Plank, AIS
Legal Advisor, about the benefits of our including a Summary of the AIS Board
Minutes in the Bulletin twice a year instead of the entire body of
minutes...This will save valuable Bulletin space and full and complete minutes
will always be prepared and available to anyone who wants to read the entire
text.

This will be on the agenda for the St. Louis Board meeting so please review it
in advance and bring a copy of it with you to the Board meeting. If you will
not be able to attend please send you comments through AISDiscuss so I can
include them in the Board Meeting discussion...

Thanks,

Jill Bonino
AIS Secretary

##########################################################
Substitution of a Concise Summary

In lieu of Full Minutes

In the BULLETIN



Ever since I became Recording Secretary, Bob has been bugging me to initiate
an effort to eliminate from the January and July issues of the BULLETIN the
detailed minutes of Board meetings. In lieu thereof, he recommends much more
concise reporting in the BULLETIN, with a more full account available upon
request. He argues that devotion of so much space in the BULLETIN in two
issues per year caters to the interests of too few members to justify the
added pages and cost.

Bob's position is not altogether original. I also got it from numerous
neophyte secretaries and recording secretaries under my tutorage who
questioned the need to publish so widely such elaborate and detailed minutes.

Heretofore I have resisted such urging, arguing for tradition, for providing a
service to historians and policy wonks, and for homage to those whose
interests lie in the details of the inner workings of the society.

But times are a changing. Paper has become more and more expensive due to
global depletion of natural resources. Postage rates have soared. The AIS is
looking hard for places to cut costs and improve needed services. AND the
internet has made convenient the dissemination of information in the form of
attachments to e-mail virtually free of added labor and cost.

Accordingly, the Chair would entertain a motion essentially as follows:

Moved (effective with respect to the 2005 spring meeting),

That full minutes of the meetings of the AIS Board of Directors no longer be
published in the BULLETIN;

In lieu thereof, that a concise standing article be published in the BULLETIN
twice a year providing highlights of the spring, fall, and interim actions of
the Board of interest and/or importance to all members. The BULLETIN article
shall be prepared by the Secretary (or Recording Secretary as the case may be)
concurrently with the preparation of the full minutes. The BULLETIN article
shall be coordinated, vetted, and approved in the same manner as the full
minutes.

That full minutes of individual meetings be automatically and timely provided
by the Secretary to all Board members, officers, committee chairs,
administrative personnel, RVPs, and presidents of sections and cooperating
societies twice a year in the form of attachments to e-mail.

That full minutes be provided by the Secretary to all other persons requesting
same of the Secretary at no cost in the form of attachments to e-mail. Those
with standing requests for full minutes shall be responsible to keep the
Secretary timely advised of address changes.

That back issues of electronic full minutes henceforth be provided by the
Librarian in BULLETIN format and size suitable for archiving and/or binding to
all persons requesting same of the Librarian at no cost in the form of
attachments to e-mail.

That the Secretary, on a case by case basis, shall be allowed to exercise
discretion in providing an individually printed copy (no inventory authorized)
at full cost to the requesting party when no other alternative for the
requestor is feasible.

End of solicited motion.

In anticipation of concerns of voting Board members, Bob has researched
several issues that readily come to mind. He advises that nothing in the above
is controlled by or counter to the AIS Articles of Incorporation. As to the
AIS Bylaws, they merely require that the Secretary keep minutes on file in the
corporate office. Article VIII of the AIS Bylaws specifically require that the
minutes be available to the AIS membership, or be printed in the AIS BULLETIN.
General corporate law allows any director or member to view and copy minutes
in the corporate office at reasonable times, or to otherwise obtain copies at
the requestor's expense.

Should there be other legal requirements for publication of minutes in the
BULLETIN of which Bob is not aware, he further advises that in his opinion the
publication of the more concise article in the BULLETIN would suffice for all
legal purposes as proper minutes of the Board. This he believes is so because
the hereinabove referred to "full minutes" far exceed the usual requirements
for corporate minutes, although elaborate minutes have been the AIS practice
since long before I first became directly involved in the traditional drafting
of AIS minutes.

CHAIR'S SOLICITATION OF A MOTION

Time is ripe. Adoption of such a policy, I believe, will allow the BULLETIN to
better focus its pages on the real interests of the overwhelming majority of
the members, yet continue to serve the legitimate special needs of all others.

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