Re: voting membership rules
Tony,
Thanks!
A few comments:
>The rules are not entirely clear as to which meetings constitute "the last
>four". When you are at a Plenary meeting, does that meeting count as one of
>"the last four"? or are they the four most recent (and completed)
>plenaries? I believe that the correct interpretation is the latter.
I agree. Regarding losing membership, you can't really delete them until you are sure that they WON'T show up. So you have to wait until the meeting is at least 25% over. Might as well wait until the end; they aren't going to be there to vote, and there aren't any quorum issues.
>>One scenario that also follows from the rules is [that] you become a voting member at the third plenary even if you don't attend it.
>
>Wrong. The granting of membership occurs at the start of the third plenary
>attended (assuming the "last four" rule has been satisfied); so in this case,
>the individual will gain voting rights only on attendance at plenary meeting 4
>or 5. This is clear from the first passage you quote.
I agree now. I had overlooked the last part of the sentence ["membership starts at the third Plenary session attended by the participant"].
I presume here that "attendance" is not the same as "participation"; since the latter is defined "as at least 75% presence at a meeting", you would have to wait until at least 75% of the meeting was over to grant the voting right. This is exactly the procedure we used at our first working group meeting, because in that case the rules use the word "participation" instead of "attendance" ["All persons participating in the initial meeting of the Working Group become voting members of the Working Group."]
>I believe that what the rule should clarify here is that the only interim attendances that can be substituted are the ones that have occurred during the time-period betweem now and the first of the last four plenaries.
Seems reasonable.
>>One of the rules I'm considering is allowing an interim to substitute ONLY for the preceding Plenary. This would require a minimum of 6 months to gain voting rights. If I don't do this, I'll probably let the interim credit be applied to either the preceding or following Plenary but not to any other.
>If you believe interims and plenaries are of equal importance, surely you should be travelling in the direction of giving equal credit for attendance at either.
Well, the 802 rules don't let us travel very far in that direction, but I guess you are right: my proposed substitution rule does devalue interims even more. I'll drop the idea.
Appreciatively,
Roger