Updating the Bylaws

A ballot will be mailed to you soon!

A lot has changed since the last time our North Carolina Region Bylaws were updated in 2002. New technology has made some of our practices, like the use of paper ballots for our elections, seem quaint and old-fashioned at best, cumbersome and expensive at worst. There are now on-line services which could handled that for us, as well as using e-mail or other electronic processes which we could anchor on the Region website.  These changes would make voting simpler and easier, and less expensive.

And the composition of our Club continues to change.  North Carolina is now a retirement destination. Many of our new members are some other Region’s former members, and understandably many of those folks want to belong to both the Region where they originated as well as the one where they now reside.  But, our current Bylaws only allow those who specify North Carolina Region as their primary or Region of Record to vote.  That seems overly restrictive, given that some “dual” members are among the most active of our drivers and volunteers. At the same time, we want to encourage participation by younger members in the governance of our Club. After all, drivers as young as 14 can road race, and drivers as young as 6 can participate in the Junior Kart solo program.

Consequently, the current Bylaws Committee, Member-at-Large Heather Clark, former RE and Triangle Chapter Coordinator Mark Senior, and Secretary James Shanks, have proposed updates to the Bylaws to address these issues.  You will be getting a ballot in the mail soon which will allow you to vote on whether to accept these updates or not.

Here’s a summary of those proposed updates:

1. All members can vote, even Dual Members and the youngest among us.
2. But officeholders must
1. Have NCR as their Region of Record,
2. Be at least 16 years of age, except that the RE and Treasurer must be at least 18, in order that they can legally sign contracts on behalf of the Region.
3. Elections to office may be held by paper ballot, by e-mail, or other electronic means, by a third-party service, or some combination of these, so long as the process ensures that only eligible members can vote and that votes remain anonymous.
4. Officers may be removed via the same kind of processes by which they were elected.
5. Notifications of official meetings, such as the annual meeting, no longer need be by mail.

You can read copies of the Bylaws showing the struck wording and the new revisions in red  here and you can see the final product as posted here.

We hope you will agree that these changes are good ones.  But whether you agree with the proposed changes or not, please return your ballot by October 15, 2018. Ballots postmarked after that date will not be accepted.

Thank you for voting!