JULY 2003

2003-2004 House Business

The upcoming session of the House will get underway formally on July 1 and, as Terry Hollrah commented in the full delegates meeting in Salt Lake City, there is always something to be done regarding the AAPG constitution and bylaws, the House rules and procedures, or some special issue that arises. This year is no exception. The views of individual delegates, more especially if you skillfully avoided getting stuck with committee work, are not just welcome, but are hereby requested. If you have an opinion or a comment, please contact any of the House officers or the Chair or members of the responsible committee.

The Constitution and Bylaws committee has several items to review and for which to recommend changes. They are in no particular order.

Membership dues. The ceiling needs to be raised to provide some flexibility in the future. The Constitution and Bylaws limit annual membership dues at US$75.00, and we are currently at US$72.00.

Various membership issues. Should we increase the period permitted for a member to maintain Student status, since the time taken by students in postgraduate studies has increased considerably over the years? Should we do away with Associate membership or restrict it to a maximum of two years before automatically moving up to full Active membership? Should we change the requirement for sponsors to two, with an additional reference?

Admonishment for breaches of ethics. We have been asked by the Executive Committee to recommend changes to provide some choices in admonishment of a member found guilty of a breach of ethics.

EC and AC comments on issues. The EC and AC must be sent notice of any items that might affect them and "may" comment back to the House.We would like to change that to "shall" comment.

EC meetings and votes. The EC routinely conducts meetings or votes by phone, fax, e-mail or other such means that could be in breach of the constitution & bylaws, which currently only allow face to face meetings and votes. The committee will be asked to recommend any changes necessary to obviate this problem and to permit the EC to conduct the Association’s business effectively and legally.

House at large membership rights. Can a House "at-large" member who is not a voting Delegate (an AAPG past president or a House past chair, for example) make amendments on the floor of the House?

On these and any other issues that might arise, the committee will seek the advice of the Delegates to the House, the Executive Committee, the Advisory Council, and headquarters staff in order to bring a recommendation to the House in Dallas.

The Resolutions Committee will be reviewing two issues.

Procedures for admitting societies for association or affiliation, as well as for disassociation and disaffiliation, need addressing. This arose from the applications for Associated Society status by the Association for Women Geoscientists (AWG) and the National Association of Black Geologists and Geophysicists (NABGG)–both of which were unanimously approved in the House meeting in Salt Lake City, but not without some debate beforehand. We need to publish the applications and get Delegates’ input during the year–well before the House annual meeting–so that we can properly check societies and expedite their applications.

European Region under-representation in the House. This is an ongoing situation that needs to be addressed somehow, and the committee will work with headquarters staff to address.

An Ad hoc committee on AC representation, constituted for the 2002- 2003 session and chaired by Rich Green, is publishing its report in this issue of The Delegates’Voice. The issue is by no means decided; the ad hoc committee did not make a specific recommendation and requested that more time be taken to address the issue. Accordingly, we are again striking an ad hoc House committee, this time with the specific mandate to recommend changes, if necessary, to the AC representation model. If changes are necessary, they will be brought to the House annual meeting in Dallas as a resolution that, if approved, would be considered by the House annual meeting the following year. To refresh your minds, as published in previous issues of the DV, there are two fundamentally different views:

First, the one brought to the floor of the House as new business in Denver 2001, which proposes proportional representation, and results in numerical domination of the AC by the Gulf Coast section, which has the most members. The House of Delegates in Denver rejected this recommendation.

Second, the solution that all Divisions, Sections, and Regions, regardless of size of membership–but grand-fathering the two current Gulf Coast AC seats–deserve single-seat representation with the full voting privileges they do not all currently have.

There could well be other issues that arise during the year, but this is what we have recognized to date.

Once again we encourage all delegates who have opinions or questions on–or possible solutions to–any of these issues to speak up. Please contact any of the House leadership, or the chairs or individual members of the appropriate committees. The list with phone numbers and e-mail contact information is published in previous issues, so you have no excuses. We look forward to your participation. George Eynon, Chair 2003-2004