Proposed Revision

Master Gardeners:

Attached for your information and review is a proposed revision to the HCMG Bylaws. This is a "redline" version, meaning it will show the current Bylaws, the proposed additions in red and underlined, and the proposed deletions in red and strike-through. As you may recall from our meetings earlier this year, the primary reason for the revision at this time is to add the position of Assistant Treasurer to the Executive Board in order to have a backup for the Treasurer. Since it had been 6 years since the Bylaws were reviewed, we also took the opportunity to clean up and update the Bylaws.

In February we appointed a Bylaw Review Committee to review and make recommendations pertaining to the Bylaws. In spite of the pandemic, the committee made recommendations to the Executive Board in April. A BIG THANK YOU to the committee which included Kathy Moran (Chair), Vicki Coleman, Deloris Elza, Carrie Little, Kathe Rae & Martha Rardin.

The Board reviewed the draft revisions at our June meeting, and again in July when we adopted the revision to propose to the membership. A few highlights of the proposed revision include:

    - In Article V we added the position of Assistant Treasurer to the Executive Board. The Assistant Treasure was assigned the duties of backing up the Treasurer, serve as Chair of the Annual Audit Committee, and serve as chair of the Membership Committee.
    - In Article V, to maintain an odd number on Executive Board we created the position of Project Coordinator. The Project Coordinator was assigned the duties of reviewing new projects, assisting in filling the annual HCMG committee chair positions and coordinating the activities between the various HCMG project committees.
    - In Article V, the qualifications of officers has been revised to require the Vice President to have completed the most recent 2 years as an active member. Since the Vice President is in a position to assume the role of President if required, it was thought the Vice President should meet the same qualifications as the President. The qualifications for the Treasurer was also increased to 2 years considering the responsibility of that position. - In Articles VI & VIII, voting was specified as limited to active members present at the meeting. This provision was included in the Bylaws prior to 2014 but was inadvertently omitted in the 2014 Bylaw revision.
    - In Article VII, since the Treasurer is responsible and signs various financial documents and applications, the Treasurer was added as an authorized signatory under Contracts and Filings.
    - Throughout the document, updates were made to reflect current Purdue policies and nomenclature.

Our current anticipated schedule will culminate in a ratification vote at our October 20th HCMG meeting. This will allow for election of the Assistant Treasure and Project Coordinator for 2021. As always, if you have any questions, please feel free to contact me.

Steve Pearl,
President