To begin with, if you did not receive this message by email and you wish to participate in the online ballot, please provide the Membership Committee (membership@htmc1910.org) with your current email address.

Thank you again to those on the email list for your overwhelming support the last time around. As you probably already know, members who attended the Special Meeting called on November 4, 2017 (required in order to conform to the previous version of the Bylaws) also voted in favour of online voting for Bylaw changes, so this will be our first “official” online ballot. The Board and the Bylaws Committee, as required by the Bylaws, therefore give notice that an online ballot will be held between November 30 and December 3, 2017 (you will receive the official online ballot at 08:00 on 11/30, and voting will close at 23:59 12/3). As I did last time, I have listed below the proposed changes and the justification for them, but what is new is that we will now have an online discussion page (open from 08:00 November 16 until 23:59 November 29) for those who wish to participate in such a forum (follow the instructions below). We are all members of the same club, so there are just three basic rules for the forum: 1. No personal attacks; 2. No bad language (and I don’t mean ungrammatical); 3. No repetitive posts from the same member. I will monitor the responses, and members who choose to ignore these very basic requirements will see their posts deleted and future access to the site denied.

Thank you,
Richard Nettell (President)

Proposed Changes to the Bylaws 

Two (relatively) small changes to the current Bylaws are needed to reflect the 2018 changes in membership dues (based on decisions taken by the HTMC Board at its July 2017 meeting, emailed to this list at the beginning of August, and posted on the webpage August 31, 2017).

1. ARTICLE IV: FINANCES, Section 1, Paragraph C

Proposed Bylaw Change: Delete Paragraph C (current paragraph D will become C):
Current paragraph C reads as follows:
C. Regular and associate members living at the same address in a family or partner relationship may pay as follows: One member pays full annual dues (or makes a single lifetime payment) and each additional member pays one half (50%) annual dues.

Justification 
HTMC previously offered reduced membership dues to family members living at the same address if they collectively only needed one copy per household of the mailed quarterly printed schedule and newsletter. Now that the club has gone paperless, there are no financial savings to pass on.
There have also been some instances of abuse of this provision (partners and children moving out but continuing to pay the reduced amount).

Objections
There can really only be one: increased financial burden. However, I think everyone can agree that HTMC dues are kept to the absolute minimum, and if two members residing at the same address pay dues before December 31, they will still save more than what paragraph C currently offers (membership dues as of 2018 will be $35 per year, but dues paid before December 31 remain at $25: 2 x $25 = $50, 1 x $35 + 1 x $17.50 = $ 52.50).

2. ARTICLE III: MEMBERSHIP, Section 10

Proposed Bylaw Change: the addition of the following language (in bold)

10. A person who forfeits membership because of non-payment of dues may be reinstated upon payment of full (non-prorated) dues for the current year, provided that not more than three (3) years have elapsed since January 1st of the year of forfeiture. There will also be a small membership reinstatement fee. Reinstatement requests are reviewed by the Membership Committee and forwarded to the Board of Directors for action. After three (3) years, application for membership must be made as set forth in Sections 3, 4, and 8 above.

Justification
By introducing a reinstatement fee, we are primarily trying to encourage all members to pay their annual dues before the long-established deadline of March 1. The Bylaws clearly state that members who do not pay their dues by this deadline forfeit membership, but for many years we have had a number of members who have simply ignored the deadline (as HTMC has not immediately cancelled their membership) and have thus created a considerable amount of extra work for the membership committee (reminder letters etc.). The other advantage of having a clear reinstatement policy is that it will also allow members who are off island for an extended period to freeze their membership (up to three years) and pay just the reinstatement fee.

Objections
Again, the only objection I foresee will be that of further financial burden. However, the proposed reinstatement fee is currently set at a mere $10 per year, and if members pay their dues by the March 1 deadline (as they are required to do), there will be no cost to them.

Discuss this online

If you would like to discuss these proposed Bylaw changes with the HTMC community, you may do so online in our discussion forum. This is a members-only platform, and an invitation must be extended before access is provided. To request an invite, please send your name and email address to president@htmc1910.org.