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[65GT]

Attached is a thirteen page pdf that details the improvements we propose in the operation of the Wally Byam Caravan Club.  The changes made in this proposed replacement constitution provide all club members the right to vote on both International Club Officers and International Club Motions from the privacy and comfort of their own homes.  For the first time members will also be able to create motions for and pass amendments to the club bylaws and policies.  Members will not have to attend a local business meeting or rally in order to have their voice heard.

Members will receive TWO ballots per year printed in the Blue Beret.  One for the International elections prior to the International Rally and another in October to accept or defeat motions that have been forwarded from the Delegates Meeting at the International Rally.

We've had a lot of help getting this to revision nine.  Club members outside of SaveWally.org have helped us put the improvements in and maintain the continuity of this document.

We hope that ALL Unit, Region, and International officers will participate in the review and comment period that will close on December 20th.  At that time it is our intent to finalize this motion and ask as many Units as possible to put this motion to a local vote and forward it to their Region President if passed.  The more units that participate the quicker we can make some real improvements to our club.

This motion may not be perfect, but we believe it will work well.  It sets in place the procedures that will enable members rights that we believe are long overdue.  If you attended the '06 Delegates Meeting and probably any other prior Delegates Meeting then you know exactly what is wrong with the current club legislative process.  If you've been frustrated with the pace of improvements coming forward in the clubs' operation then we hope you'll recognize all the things that could be possible by putting the final say back into the entire memberships hands.

Please work with us to help pass a real improvement to the Wally Byam Caravan Club!  Our main goal is to see this club grow and for all of its members to have a more enjoyable club experience.

One member, one vote -- from the comfort and privacy of your home on all International Club issues.

[WKerfoot]

I know that all of you are passionate about this issue, but do you really believe that the IBT and Region officers pay attention to what is on your site?  I think that you need to send a hard copy to each person who you hope to influence.

Best of luck, your hearts are in the right place and I hope you succeed.

Bill

[65GT]

We've already contacted the Constitution and Bylaws Committee Chairman directly.  No, we don't know if anyone at the International level will pay any attention to this.  We would like to believe that they would.  Yet, what really matters here is that the average member pays attention to this because if they do, they could wind up a heck of a lot happier about the operation of, and their personal experience with a club that they can individually impact without becoming an officer of a unit.

That's the thought process anyway -- your mileage may vary... 

Bill can we count on you to point your unit leaders to this issue and post?  We've got 140+ units we need to notify.  We'll take help from any and all that are willing to move this forward.

[WKerfoot]

Yes and good luck.

Bill

[65GT]

Well the good news is....

No one, so far, has come forward and shown us where we goofed -- it looks like procedurally there are no red flags with what we've done.  There's still plenty of time -- we're still notifying regions and units (it's a BIG task) but we're getting there.

We've had some concerns about getting a change this big through -- about accountability and direction -- but we view those mostly as cautionary advise.  There are complete articles in the current Constitution that have been amended at the same time.  We're not breaking new ground here.

We'd still like to have members play Devil's advocate with this one.  We're seriously looking for comments and feedback -- public or private.  For those that say what's within is unproven -- you're right -- we've had to create some pathways in order to facilitate paper ballot voting.  We've also had to create some new procedures to retain some currently established member rights.  No one ever said this was a perfect amendment -- it's just our best effort.

Our goal here is simple -- treat all members as equals and we have faith that the clubs direction is best left in the memberships' hands.  Both for quality of issues and for some worthwhile modernization of the club.  If members and club leaders can see the way clearly here then it becomes a workable platform for what could be.  If some part of this doesn't work perfectly, there's always room for an amendment next year.

There are plenty of naysayers when it comes to the state of the WBCCI.  Most of them have walked away and taken their check books with them.  If the IBT would have a little more faith in the membership and endorsed a proposal like 1M1V I think members would see a ray of sunshine through the clouds.  This club is all about its membership and 1M1V is all about club members.  Communications have evolved to the point where US Mail and expensive long distance are NOT the only choices for basic or constant and efficient communications.

It's time that the club evolves -- it's time that a real improvement be made to the WBCCI and we believe 1M1V is it!  We hope you've notified your unit leaders to look this over.  We hope you see 1M1V as an improvement to YOUR membership.  Let's try to not get hung up on any one section or any single phrase.  If we do and we're all hung up about different sections and different phrases then the amendment will crumble.

Let's work together to make a real improvement to the WBCCI!

[AZFlycaster]

I support what you are trying to do with these changes. I have read both the club constitution and the Blue Book Bylaws and Policy. If you are going to make changes in one, don't you need to change the other as well? The B&P lists 5 types of members and the only member that they list with full voting rights in the "regular member". I really do not understand why the club has two sets of documents. Could someone explain to me what the differences are between the two?

[Luminumtraila]

Leo & all,

What other ways can we support this 1M1V ammendment outside of reading through and offering feedback?   Will you be putting together a letter or petition that we can sign on to and send to the club officers?   Once the ammendment is hammered out and finalized for the meeting, what's next for supporters to do?

-J

[Simon]

Wow! I like that idea.

[65GT]

...If you are going to make changes in one, don't you need to change the other as well?

YES once we finalize the constitution we must OFFER an amended Bylaws that will then be voted on by the delegates, and then the MEMBERSHIP!  (wahooo!).

We haven't addressed the bylaws yet because we have to finalize what we'll propose for the constitution first.  Once that's done -- it's time to look at an extremely long document to see what NEEDS to be changed to make it coincide with the new constitution...

I really do not understand why the club has two sets of documents. Could someone explain to me what the differences are between the two?

That's more a legal question that I can't answer.  I believe the main reason is that the constitution is a required document that helps define and qualify the club for non-profit status.  To have everything the club does in the way of operations in the constitution would probably cloud a lot of legal corporate issues.

It's interesting that the club membership up until 1M1V couldn't touch the bylaws.  It will be real interesting to see what modernisations take place under a new set of rules.   

[65GT]

...What other ways can we support this 1M1V ammendment outside of reading through and offering feedback?   Will you be putting together a letter or petition that we can sign on to and send to the club officers?   Once the ammendment is hammered out and finalized for the meeting, what's next for supporters to do?  -J

Hey J!  I'm delinquent on this one...  We have a supporters list on the website.  It was done for the no-name change campaign.  I need to email all of our supporters and get them to re-up their support for 1M1V.  ANYONE can take that supporters statement along with a printout of the latest rev constitution and get their unit members to sign up.  They don't have to have internet access.  If you can get their signatures and membership number on paper and get that to us, we can add them to the list.  There would be nothing better than to have MORE supporters for 1M1V than the club got for returned surveys for the name change.  Can we do it?  Wow, that's a lot of people and a lot of time.

MORE importantly than the petition is to get actual members from ALL the units we can reach to take our amendment once finalized and start it, unaltered, through their own unit.  If your unit passes the amendment then it automatically goes to the region.  If the majority of units in any region pass the amendment it goes to Perry automatically.

We'd like to see the power of the internet take this a step further.  If people truly believe our amendment is in the best interest of the membership, the individual member, then it would be great to have this amendment come up through ALL TWELVE REGIONS at the same time.

We need to put some promotional materials together for this.  A paper presentation that outlines ALL of the issues and how this amendment addresses them.

We could always produce more stickers but we're still in the hole from the first round of buttons and stickers.  It's not expensive to produce the stickers and they're easy to mail. We might have made a few too many for the name change campaign.  Stickers are roughly $300 for 1,500 stickers plus shipping (to here) and then shipping for distribution.

It's not official (we haven't addressed the issue so we haven't agreed on what it would say) but I threw one together a while back (below)...

[Luminumtraila]

"We need to put some promotional materials together for this.  A paper presentation that outlines ALL of the issues and how this amendment addresses them."


This would be a huge help.  I hate to admit how dumb I am when it comes to trying to read this constitutional gobbledygook and sort it all out.  But with a basic fact sheet that I can circulate with some clear directions on how people can help, what they should do to show they support this etc., I'm happy to help get it out in the unit.

And you can sign us up (WBCCI 4728) on the supporters page as soon as it's up. 

Thanks again to all of you for your efforts and work on this.

[Simon]

You are too kind. I do like the info package idea. Your name is on the list of supporters already. I put that on the home page a few days ago. Scroll down a little.

[65GT]

Stay tuned folks -- Rev 10 is coming up!

After some constructive comments we've back tracked just a small amount (not much mind you)...

We envisioned that this replacement constitution had to be a complete package – the whole enchilada all at once.  Otherwise, how could anyone vote on it if it wasn't a complete package?  That's what we believed so we stuffed everything into the constitution even though we weren't sure it was all constitutional.

So you get tunnel vision a bit -- you think you've solved an issue and when you reach consensus (in a small group mind you) you plow forward.  We got some commentary back that made sense and put us way back to square 2.  It made us rethink the whole thing and we'll have rev 10 working through committee then public commentary once again -- SHORTLY...

What's changing?  Motion definitions and requirements will come out of rev 10.  It's coming out in the short term but it's not going away.  It looks like the right path to move this forward is to simplify 'the big insert' you'll find in Article XVI, the newly renamed Section 1.

A motion is a tool not an article.  The amendment is covered in the constitution; the procedure can follow in the bylaws.  1M1V has a much better chance of passing in what will become rev 10.  We have always said that the bylaws need to be changed to reflect a replacement constitution and we'll continue to do that.  We'll also be formulating TWO additional motions.  A Bylaws and Policy Amendment that will beef up motion requirements (1M1V must pass to make this relevant or even addressable by the membership) and a NAME CHANGE KILLER motion that will restrict club officers from signing any agreement with a third party that would give any other corporation supervisory control of how our name is used (for merchandise) or displayed (publications, advertising, events) and whether an outside corporation could force us to change our name again (removing a licensed word for instance).  That in essence would require THOR to give the WBCCI unrestricted and irrevocable use of the name before the IBT could ever consider leasing a word to be used in our club name.

We think the club's independence is worth it and for the IBT to do otherwise would represent a failure to perform on behalf of the club and the membership’s best interest.

We're also not ignoring that current IBT leaders may be endorsing, promoting, or even planning to open up the club membership to non-Airstream product.  We'll fight that one just as hard as we fought the name change issue.  Whether you agree with the current owners of the Airstream dynasty or not this is an AIRSTREAM club -- others need not apply.  Does that sound snobbish?  Yes Maam – since 1955 – a tradition we’ll be happy to honor for another 50+ years.  Motor home leaders still have the option to refurbish their Airstream motor homes when they get tired.  If not they can always go buy a new Airstream trailer.  If not, they can always attend buddy rallies and camp nearby at International Rallies and get their day passes to see their old friends.

To dilute the fields of AS product at rallies with SOB's will be every bit as dangerous to the strength of the membership and overall health of the club as would be a name change.  What the club needs more than anything else is some REAL LEADERSHIP instead of all this Three Card Monty that's continually being played on the membership by the Royals...  They need to figure out what club they were elected to serve and stick to it -- never mind trying to twist it and change it unnecessarily.  The club has a well defined course -- let's just bring the equipment up to the 21st century -- what do you say boys -- can you hang on to that helm or is everyone up on the bow looking for the anchor line and submerging the bow?  That was a Keystone Cops episode wasn’t it?

No name change -- 1M1V -- NO SOB's!!!

[fsteurer]

I thnk your 1 member 1 vote change has merit.  However, you should NOT dilute it with talk about no name change, nor muddy up the water with proposed legislation that would tie no name change to 1 member 1 vote.

[C_Johnson]

I just read the revisions. You have my support WBCCI # 7276

That looks like it was a lot of work. Good Job !

CJ