Bylaws committee update

[John Goerzen]

Hello,

This is a periodic update on the status of the bylaws committee.

We have completed our introductory procedural work -- deciding on procedures
for carrying out our tasks, deciding on what we will publish, and a task of
identifying problems to consider.

We are now working off our prioritized list [1] of problems that were
identified earlier by our members, the board, and other contributors.

NOW is the most important time for you to comment and follow the discussion
if you're interested in improving SPI's bylaws.

If you are interested in participating, please see our review procedure [2].
Basically, we are using one thread per identified problem, and we are
going to decide if each item is a problem that is fixable with a bylaws
change or not, and if so, how to fix it.  Please keep on-topic in those
threads.

The first three issues we are discussing right now are election of board
members by SPI membership [3], recall of board members [4], and board
meeting quorum issues [5].

Per our list [1], the items due next will be e-mail meetings, choosing
officers, making all resolutions public, disposition of members that join
while a vote is in progress, and membership vote quorum levels.  I'll be
introducing these gradually as we work through the items already under
discussion.

[1] http://lists.spi-inc.org/pipermail/spi-bylaws/2003/000082.html
[2] http://lists.spi-inc.org/pipermail/spi-bylaws/2003/000087.html
[3] http://lists.spi-inc.org/pipermail/spi-bylaws/2003/000088.html
[4] http://lists.spi-inc.org/pipermail/spi-bylaws/2003/000089.html
[5] http://lists.spi-inc.org/pipermail/spi-bylaws/2003/000090.html