West Virginia Highlands Conservancy members are invited to vote on the proposed amendments to the organization’s bylaws. WVHC has had the same bylaws since 1985. It is time for a change. The Rules Committee is proposing the changes shown in the linked document below. The new language is underlined. Things to be left out are stricken through.

In the big picture, the revised Bylaws do two things: 

1.       Move us into the 21st century. The old bylaws contemplated communication by real mail or possibly be telephone. That’s not how we do things anymore. The revised ones contemplate email, etc. The old bylaws also assume that we will do all our financial transactions by physical check. We don’t do that anymore either. The revised bylaws contemplate electronic transfer, etc. 

2.      Change the board makeup to kick off the Membership Secretary and the Voice Editor. Their membership on the Board is from a time when those functions were done by super volunteers. Since either of those jobs would be both essential and too much to ask a true volunteer to do, we gave them Board seats and the possibility that they would be paid. Now that those things are being done by staff, there is no longer a reason to give them Board seats. 

There are other changes as well so you should read the whole thing. For example, the functioning of the Executive Committee duties are revised; the bylaws are easier to change in the future. 

A change in the Bylaws requires a vote of the membership. To review the changes, you can see the old bylaws and the proposed new bylaws here.