The Delegates' Voice
January 2011

Business of HOD

Proposed Amendments to Bylaws

David H. Hawk, Chair

Jeffrey W. Lund, Chair-Elect

Patrick J. Gooding, Sec/Editor

Gooding
Lund
Hawk

The Bylaws amendments offered for consideration at the 2011 HoD meeting are the result of proposals from delegates, the HoD Leadership, the AAPG Membership Committee and a focus group on the “Future of Divisions” which met during AAPG’s Annual Leadership Days in August 2010.

Bylaws amendment proposals are discussed and debated extensively by the HoD Constitution and Bylaws Committee. They are again discussed and debated extensively during the mid-year HoD meeting before being approved by the HoD Leadership. Any proposed amendment is then crafted into a document with appropriate wording to be consistent with existing Bylaws language, terminology, intent and any impact on other provisions in the Bylaws are considered and appropriate changes incorporated.

All this is time consuming, tedious and constrained by the precedent and context of the Bylaws document.

This year’s proposed amendments are intended to do several straight-forward things:

  1. Embrace young people by extending the time they can remain in the student member class after obtaining their degree, and hopefully, reduce AAPG’s historic experience of severe student member attrition after graduation.
  2. Incorporate “Certified Member” as a member class, specifically mentioned in the Bylaws, to bring more visibility to the DPA “certification” process and perhaps make Certified status the “gold standard” of AAPG Membership. There is no change to DPA’s process, qualifications or dues structure.
  3. Modify terminology in the Constitution and Bylaws to be gender neutral and bring our basic guiding documents into the 21st century.
  4. Align some limitations on eligibility of individuals in certain AAPG positions to receive certain honors and awards, encouraging fairness in elections.

There are no hidden agendas being pursued in the proposed Bylaws amendments, simply steps proposed after carefully considering recommendations received from a variety of sources.

We owe our thanks to Peter Lloyd and his committee for their hard work on behalf of AAPG.

Please read the proposals carefully and remember the context of the Constitution and Bylaws. See you in Houston!

Editors Note: The complete proposed amendments may be found online at http://www.aapg.org/business/hod

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