Chair's Corner:
2004-2005 Business of the House
Valary Schulz
By the time you read this, the officers and candidates-elect of the House will have hosted a breakfast meeting at all of the Sectional Meetings (Denver, Columbus, San Antonio, Fredericksburg, and San Jose) the International Meeting (Cancun), conducted the House Mid-Year Meeting (Dallas), addressed the Houston Geological Society Delegates' luncheon, attended the AAPG Leadership Days in Tulsa, and oh yes, participated in 8 Executive Committee meetings, and 4 EC teleconferences. Aside from logging a lot of travel miles, it has been a priceless opportunity to meet and work with a very large number of colleagues, who have invested great effort, voluntarily, to the betterment of our organization. A principal benefit of these face-to-face meetings has been the facility of working through potentially divisive issues and differences of opinion through amicable constructive discussion, in the spirit of cooperation and accord. Consequently, we delegates are pretty well educated on the issues to be voted on in Calgary, and the proposals and resolutions have benefited from broad input. On 22 February, 2005, the proposed amendments were distributed to the members of the EC and the Advisory Council. Paul Britt, as Chair of the Constitution and Bylaws Committee has received comments on the amendments (presented elsewhere in this issue, in accordance with Article XIV, Section 2, subsections (a) and (b)) and upon reflection, the C&BL Committee as well as the Officers of the House have been persuaded to revise their opinion with respect to vacancies. You will be asked in Calgary to vote on an amendment which will allow the unsuccessful candidate for EC office to fill a vacancy in that office, when willing and able. We propose to amend this amendment from the floor excluding the office of President-Elect to assure that the highest office in our organization is filled by an individual who has successfully won a competitive election, further making the wishes of the electorate over-riding. If you have any questions at all about this issue, please contact me or any one of the officers of the House.
I applaud our President Pat Gratton's initiative, which we have mirrored in the house, of including the President-Elect candidates in the Executive Committee meetings for non-sensitive deliberations. A lot of business is handled at these meetings, and having personal access to the development and history of issues makes for a much better informed executive officer, and praemonitus, praemunitus.