By-Laws ammendments and addenda proposals 2018

Few clarifications, The finance website says we are sitting at 70 members as of June. which has stayed right about 60-ish members (give or take roughly 10 members) since 2015. Secondly, we have about the same amount of money that we’ve had since about 2014 (in fact, a bit lower with all of our recent spending). finance.hive13.org

Lets be honest, this is about dealing with bad members. The problem with this is “how do you define a bad member?”. Most organizations with a membership have expectations for their membership to uphold, and if a problematic member does start causing problems it gives the board a clear reasoning to justify action in the best interests of the corporation. This isn’t perfect as a group-think board could just agree to throw out whoever they want, but I don’t think there is a perfect solution. The fear in giving power is that someone will abuse that power. I like what Kevin said, Elected Officers should have power to to take care of such issues, and if they can’t be trusted, then why were they voted in? I believe that the board should have the power to remove problematic members. If you believe a check is needed, then why not instead of making the members vote on removing the member, instead have it so they can vote for the repeal of the decisions? That way leadership has the power to remove problematic members before damage can be done, but the member can be reinstated if they felt like the suspension/termination was unjust. Then leadership can further clarify the situation, the justification for their actions, and then let the membership vote.

I’d love for this to be the case, but don’t recall seeing a full list of 10 candidates for an election in the time I’ve been here. Filling the officer positions has also been difficult at times. The overlap is from necessity, not desire for double duty.

  • Ry

Great discussion.

I’m leaning toward the powerful board model.
Some checks and balances need to be in place, but we can’t rely on the membership getting things done as a group, there is just too much apathy. Lots of opinions, but little action. (No dig on anyone, people just aren’t involved/invested)

Let’s keep this discussion going (constructively).

Brad

We as the Hive and we as the leadership have been trying to figure out how to handle this for a long time now, and it’s only been in the past few months that the leadership feels like we have a viable proposal. We have discussed this at length in the board meetings, and have finally settled on something. As said by Lorin, we haven’t had strife recently, so this really is the best time to be debating changing a central, contentious policy.

Currently, our Bylaws say that the only reason we may suspend a member is for non-payment of dues - clause 1 of the Suspension section is very clear on that. It gives one and only one reason for a suspension. To expel a (not in arrears) member, we must get over fifty per cent of the Members (this is around 35 right now) to even cast a vote. We’ve had difficulty doing this in the past for even non-contentious things. On top of that, over 75% of votes cast must be to expel. This worked fine when the Hive was a smaller organization, but won’t work for a larger Hive. The final text of this amendment probably won’t be until two weeks before the Annual Meeting. Ian is going to have electronic voting set up for that election, so, again, this thread is just for discussion. I’ll probably not change the actual wording on GitHub until we have more of a consensus as to the desired outcome.

I would be fine making it so that for expulsions, the majority of the Directors in office is needed - this means if there’s a vacancy or a no-show, still three votes are needed. For suspensions, however, a quorum should suffice. Because we do not define a quorum of Directors, Ohio law specifies it as more than 50% of the positions available, so it is always at least three for us. This way, if a 72-hour cooling-off period isn’t enough time to get all of the Board together, then a subset of the Board can determine that a longer suspension is warranted until the full Board can handle it. That change will be a small one, and I’ll likely make it here in the next day or two - I’ll be sure to post when I have done so.

I’ll answer three other points with a little bit of philosophizing. As for having the Officers and the Wardens able to cast votes, this is a bad idea. Wardens are appointed to take care of their wards. Their duties, as solely Wardens, do not and should not involve politicking. They are caretakers and educators. The Officers likewise are involved with running the Hive’s daily affairs. It is the job of Board to steer the Hive, and that includes handling problem members. Should they take the advice of Officers and Wardens? Yes. It would be ideal to have a completely separate Board, Officers, and Wardens, but that would be 16 people, and we don’t have enough interest. We can define separate roles for them now, and, in the future, with consistent sufficient interest, consider another change to the Bylaws to not allow Directors to be Officers, but that is premature at this time. However, we’re laying the groundwork to allow the Hive to grow. Each role handles a different aspect, and, as of now, we need one person to fulfil multiple roles, but as that is no longer needed, the roles will already be separated.

Finally, I’ll touch on the full membership vote. I agree with Dustin, Brad, and Kevin. In a larger organization, not everyone will know everyone else, and won’t feel comfortable voting to suspend or expel someone they don’t know, and, so, the problem member will continue to have free reign. I don’t think that even appealing the decision to the membership as a whole is a good idea, for the same reasons. That’s asking a lot of people who just want to make things and have a space to do so. If we elect “bad” Officers and Directors, I personally do not believe there’s any way to write the Bylaws to stop them from tanking the Hive.

We did. There were also other contentious issues at the time which combined to create massive burnout and the conversation dropped midstream. We unfortunately reached no conclusion, and the risk posed by a lack of procedure around removing problematic members still exists.

To be clear, no one is headhunting. I don’t see that we have any such problematic members at present, and I certainly don’t want to open old wounds by revisiting old disputes. Things are improving with new capable and active members coming on board. A productive group is pushing forward with the space reorg.

My hope is that in this period of relative calm, Hive13 may be able to discuss and reach consensus on this more focused point.

  • Ry

How about a half way between? For suspension, leave it to the board , 72 hrs by 2 board members, more by majority.

For termination the board will vote (majority) to put it up to the general membership, but not as a quorum vote. Give X time (like 2 weeks) for the board to give reasons and for the accused to defend themselves. Then it’s a majority vote as if we are voting on a piece of equipment.

Also Can anyone give me the section for the wardens?

I have 2 Bylaw change proposals Both related to Warden Addendum:

  1. Current:
    Compensation
    Area wardens can choose to be compensated 50% of dues for full members and 100% of dues for student members (one dollar for accounting purposes).

Proposed:
Compensation
Area wardens can choose to be compensated 50% of dues for full members and 100% of dues for student members (one dollar for accounting purposes). Current Officer and Directors may not receive Compensation as Wardens.

Reasoning: Removing Compensation from Officers and Directors is to discourage Officers and Directors from taking on additional roles that can be covered by members and to encourage more opportunities to members, while not outright disallowing an Officer or Director to do the work if they truly want the extra responsibility and there is no other option. This also removes the loophole within the bylaws that bypasses the sections that state Officers and Directors cannot receive compensation.

2.Current:
Organization
The COO has control of managing area wardens and their financial capabilities. The COO is responsible for ensuring that area wardens are respecting their ward of responsibility. The COO is responsible for appointing and removing area wardens. Additionally, the COO and head warden are responsible for purchase and approval of funding for consumables/replacements from the warden budget allocated by the membership. Short monthly progress meetings will be held with wardens.

Proposed:
Organization
The COO has control of managing area wardens and their financial capabilities. The COO is responsible for ensuring that area wardens are respecting their ward of responsibility. The COO is responsible for proposing appointments and removal of area wardens to be decided by majority vote of the Board of Directors. Additionally, the COO and head warden are responsible for purchase and approval of funding for consumables/replacements from the warden budget allocated by the membership. Short monthly progress meetings will be held with wardens.

Reasoning: This removes the power from one person to give discounted memberships and adds a simple checks and balance system to ensure fair appointments and removals.

Daniel, I think that this proposal is, at this time, a remarkably bad idea. Several people have already said we don’t have enough people willing to fill necessary roles, and now, you’re effectively punishing those that do? That seems counter-productive. Also, regarding the imaginary compensation loophole, the Bylaws say that only Directors may not be compensated for acting as Directors. This does not mean that they cannot be compensated for acting as Wardens. Though we do not do this, it also doesn’t preclude compensating Officers for their roles.

In short, I have to recommend that your proposal is voted down.

Also, I have updated the proposed changes to make explicit the quora needed for suspension and expulsion.

The changes to the proposed changes are here: https://github.com/Hive13/bylaws-and-addenda/commit/9235787bf3d58301b9952ca835a102a7636f064b
The full changes as compared to our current bylaws are here: https://github.com/Hive13/bylaws-and-addenda/compare/2018-suspension-expulsion
The PDF of the revised version may be found here: https://github.com/Hive13/bylaws-and-addenda/blob/2018-suspension-expulsion/bylaws.pdf

I have to agree with Greg on the Warden compensation changes, if there are not enough people willing to serve the community, then any changes that eliminate an incentive for participation are a bad idea. I also have seen absolutely no evidence that the leadership and wardens have anything but the best intentions for the community, so seems like a non-issue. No one is getting unfair discounts on anything…

Having the COO’s warden selections confirmed by the board or a member vote in a regular meeting doesn’t seem like a bad idea to me (though I have seen nothing as of yet that would make me think that it is necessary, I trust Greg and our wardens). This could feasibly avoid some embarrassing situations in the future with other leadership.

I am still recommending the no for votes for membership removal… I do not think 3.333 members should have the ability to remove a member “for any legal reasons” is a good idea and goes against the community driven nature that the Hive was built on.

This doesn’t stop people from performing the roles.
Also to clarify these are for 2 separate votes.

Well, I guess this is what happens when you don’t check your email for a couple of days. I did quickly read all of the replies to this thread but at this moment I don’t feel like throwing myself into the cluttered muddle of cutting rebuttals (say that three times fast). I’ll leave it at this: I intend to vote yes on both of these. It is pointless to elect a leadership and then tie their hands such that they cannot take any meaningful action. Can power be abused? Of course. The solution? Don’t elect shitty people.

  • Ian B.

Since I have joined the hive like 4 or so years ago now, I have not seen anyone abuse power in ANY way. At the end of the day I tend to see the hierarchy of the hive put way more time than what a discounted rate gets them. To put it simply, what work that is put into the hive by people who fill multiple rolls saves us thousands of dollars if we were to likely itemize hours and materials that people “donate”.

If our dues were that of the other area makerspace for profit that I shall not name I would agree with you Daniel 100% if a game of politics were being played. Lol I am on pretty good terms with Josh that lives upstairs and with our growth there has been people who get into a project thus forgetting curfew time. Some forget we have a curfew all together and between myself and a few other people will throw closthes on and head down at 1am to give a friendly reminder. Lol side note (remind me to propose installing traffic lights in the hive building up towards curfew lol. Led, colored wall clocks would surfice :)…)

Back to the point, I someone can wear multiple hats, and the led color changing clocks like flava flave while taking care of business needed, they should not be exempted from what they deserve.

As for member suspensions, termination, eradication, and on and on. I think this is a better time than ever to talk taking the proper steps. MANY groups had huge fallouts over politics and a election to the point of destruction. I think we have a group of people right now that understand each others freedoms and tolerance of life choices. People from extreme opposite views have been able to not only co exist in the space, however help out when needed.

With that said we need to have the ability to let leadership act swiftly if needed. IMHO it could take up to a week to get sides of a story, camera footage, etc and a temporary ban should allow for this. We have a leadership that is extremely understanding and every election I have been around for has not yeilded anyone reckless as leaders. If something were to happen that was unjust, I have full faith in cooler heads prevailing. Given things at the hive are mellow and no one has any issues, its not like measures are being tailored for a certain case.

Someone might just love the new spaces being redone and decide to move in for a bit :slight_smile: not that it has not happened in the past or anything.

Kevin, I am for suspensions by the board, what I’m against is full termination of a membership based off the (unclear number) vote if 5 people… who we (as some is adamant on saying) we rarely get enough to vote on.
If this was separated into two votes I’d vote for the suspension section in a heart beat… but they are proposing a one or nothing vote.

I separated both of my changes so if people like one idea they can vote for that but not the others. And to clarify, the changes I brought up are to be proactive not as a reactive measure.

Daniel, I see it now lol. I should have refreshed from when I opened it.

Gotcha. I been stuck there more than once.

I’d like to see this separated as well. Our elected officers need to have the authority to quickly act to suspend members if they feel it’s needed for the safety of the group. Giving total control on a members future seems like a little much. Officers/Board work closely enough where a few could greatly influence everyone else. If it’s that obvious that a member needs removed permanently getting the votes shouldn’t be that hard especially if we use an electronic voting system.

Coy

We talked at the board meeting and we want to separate out the suspension and expulsion into two votes and change expulsion to be both the Officers and Directors. I’ll post when I’ve made the changes.