#06: Public resolutions

[John Goerzen]

On Tue, Apr 01, 2003 at 10:50:11AM -0500, Jimmy Kaplowitz wrote:
> On Tue, Apr 01, 2003 at 10:30:28AM -0500, David Graham wrote:
> > 
> > "Any resolution passed by the Board of Directors of this organisation may,
> > with the absolute unanimous consent of all Board members, be kept
> > confidential from the membership and the public. If any Board member
> > decides at a future date that the resolution should no longer be
> > confidential, unanimous consent will be considered to no longer exist and
> > the resolution will henceforth be available to the membership.
> > 
> > "No resolution may be considered enacted or enforceable until it is
> > available to the entire contributing membership, notwithstanding (above
> > paragraph reference number)."
> > 
> > How's that?
> 
> I am pretty sure that "notwithstanding" means "despite," and so the
> second paragraph would pretty much void the first one. Consider
> replacing "notwithstanding" with "except as provided by" or some other
> similar phrase.

You can find a definintion here:

http://gopher.quux.org:70/pygfarm/dict.pyg%3F/*/DEFINITION/notwithstanding

I think that the usage is correct; however, "except as provided by" is more
clear, so it would make sense to change it to use that language.

> Also, I think it is a very good thing that the general public can see
> our resolutions when appropriate. Why are we deciding to restrict our
> public resolutions to the contributing membership (or allowing the board
> to do so)? Certainly 

I agree.  I believe this is a compromise, in case the board has business
that they do not wish the general public to see, they can get by with only
letting the membership know.

> Finally, the first paragraph refers to the "membership" and the second
> paragraph refers to the "contributing membership." Honestly, if people
> take enough interest to sign up even for non-contributing membership, I
> think they should be able to see our public resolutions, which will

I think that most resolutions will continue to be placed in public areas on
SPI's website.  This proposal doesn't stop that, it just requires a minimum
of notifying the contributing membership.  The board is free to go beyond
that, and in fact, usually should.