LILUG Amendment To Membership Article in By-Laws June 8 2010

From LILUG

Proposed Change To Article III (Qualifications of Membership) in LILUG By-Laws

LILUG became a not-for-profit organization in New York State in July, 2005. LILUG government has always wanted to get official status as a tax-exempt 501(c)3 organization from the IRS. We've been working behind the scenes to make that a reality and have one more step left to do that requires the help of the group at large.

One of the Articles in our by-laws deals with what constitutes a "LILUG member" (after all, we are a membership organization!). Unfortunately, what is stated in the by-laws and what is reality are two different things. We used to pass around an attendance sheet and keep track of who went to meetings, but that fell by the wayside. Plus, LILUG government wanted things to be a bit easier and more open for everyone. Therefore, to satisfy the IRS requirements of defining who members truly are, we are proposing the following change to our by-laws:

Here is the current wording:

ARTICLE III - QUALIFICATIONS OF MEMBERSHIP

Criteria for active membership will be attendance of 1 regular LILUG meeting every 3 months. Exceptions can be made with approval of the president (or acting vice-president) and with two-thirds of the present remaining membership approval at the next regular meeting.

And here is the change in wording:

ARTICLE III - QUALIFICATIONS OF MEMBERSHIP

A person becomes a permanent member of LILUG if he or she either:
(a) attends a meeting and adds his or her name to the permanent membership list, which is kept by the Secretary or another officer designated by the Secretary,
or,
(b) is signed up for the Main LILUG email list, in which case his or her name will be placed on the permanent membership list by the Secretary or another officer designated by the Secretary

Pursuant to Article V in our by-laws, we are notifying everyone in the group about this vote at least one week prior to the general meeting when the vote will take place. Therefore, this vote will take place on Tuesday 8 June 2010 (our next scheduled general meeting). For the purposes of this vote, all who are present at the meeting will be allowed to cast a vote on this amendment.