[Lopsa-regional-project] Bylaws (aka "...the horror, the horror...")

[Bob Apthorpe]

Hi,

Esther Filderman wrote:
[...]
> "Bylaws" does not have to mean "Legalese mumbojumbo offputting 99% of
> the universe."

That's my intent - to keep the mumbojumbo to a minimum - but I see that 
I've opened a can of worms with the larger question - does a LOPSA local 
chapter actually *need* bylaws?

 From a chapter perspective, maybe not, at least not until important 
decisions need to be made, "important" usually translating to 
"money-related." Having sat through interminable interest-group meetings 
where decisions made one week were overruled three weeks later by an 
ill-defined randomly-attending membership with no real limits on 
discussion or standard decision-making process, I'd argue that as a 
member who wants to see more action than nattering argument, bylaws are 
absolutely essential.

 From a national perspective, I'm not sure the national organization 
*needs* the locals to have bylaws. Talking to Travis offline, I 
explained that I've been revamping the policies regarding local chapters 
and affiliates; the bylaws requirement predates me and I'm just pointing 
it out. While reviewing policy I stripped out references to speculative 
programs and other activities that were planned but never implemented; 
it didn't make sense to me to retain vestigial policy from c.2005.

I don't want to foist unnecessary bureaucracy on people but there are 
some rules that I think chapters should abide by:

* People holding positions of authority should be LOPSA members.

* LOPSA chapters should promote membership in LOPSA (you'd think this 
was obvious...)

* Chapters should not discriminate on the basis of race, creed, color, 
gender, national origin, or shell-, editor-, scripting-language-, or 
operating system religion.

* Chapters should be run in accordance with local law; additionally, 
student chapters (if ever we form some) should abide by their school's 
rules for student organizations.

* If there is a local board of directors, officers, or other executive 
body, it should conduct its business in a transparent manner and be 
accountable to the chapter's members. This is extremely important when 
money is involved.

* Local chapter officers should not use the chapter to line their 
pockets and similarly, if the chapter has hard assets (i.e. stuff) there 
should be a provision for transferring those assets to another nonprofit 
if the chapter goes under rather than just having the stuff disappear 
with the outgoing board (both of these are big issues for federal and 
state nonprofits.)

* Chapters should have some sane, fair means of selecting leaders, 
making binding decisions, and throwing the bums out (the process by 
which bums may be identified and then thrown out must be clearly written 
and communicated.)

Maybe that's enough guidance for a chapter or affiliate to follow at 
present. When/if LOPSA (national) is in a better position to write 
checks to support chapter activities or accept tax-deductible donations 
on behalf of a local chapter, we may require more formal governance on 
the part of the local.

I am open to the question of whether - at present - we should require 
chapters to have bylaws. I took the bylaw requirement as a given, partly 
because it was in the existing policy and partly because I see the need 
for some basic operational rules. On further reflection, I'm not sure 
this policy is justified as a need-to-have. I'll poke the Boards and see 
if there really is a reason bylaws are a need-to-have item rather than a 
nice-to-have option.

Ultimately, I feel that having unenforced policy hurts us because it's 
not doing the job it's supposed to be doing. If policy is important and 
necessary, it needs to be enforced; if it isn't, it's a distraction and 
needs to go. If it's not needed *right now* or the foreseeable future 
(next 3-6 months), it should go; it can always be resuscitated and put 
back later when it's relevant.

Thanks for the discussion; I'll bounce this off the board and get back 
to the list with an answer.

-- Bob