Volume 12, Issue 07
The PEACEKEEPER
Page 13
STARFLEET News
BYLAW AMENDMENTS TO BE VOTED ON DURING THIS ELECTION YEAR
Greetings, ladies and gentlemen of STARFLEET: As many members who have been around STARFLEET for at least one election cycle can tell you, we usually have at least one amendment to STARFLEET's Constitution (or, in the case of the election three years ago, the ratification of a whole new set of bylaws) to vote upon. This year, prior to his departure as Chief of Communications, Michael Dugas approached Chris Carothers, Chief of Computer Operations, Bran and myself, and discussed the possibility of merging the Computer Operations and Communications Departments of STARFLEET into a single department. Basically, the reasoning behind it is that many of our services are going further and further towards electronic, and many of the functions that are served by one or the other of the departments are coming closer and closer to being easily interchangeable between the two departments. Examples of this are STARFLEET's web presence, social media, E-Mail list communications, and other things which are presently split between these two teams. After discussing this with Chris, Mike and Bran, I had put forward the suggestion to the Admiralty Board for discussion, with the intention of asking them to consider allowing this to be voted upon by the membership during the triennial Commander, STARFLEET election. The initial discussion was, surprisingly, shorter than I had anticipated, and was well received by the AB after explaining the cross-over that we are seeing between the two departments and how the line is blurring between the two because of how much our world is embracing electronic communications. At the last AB Conference call, the AB voted in favor of putting the matter to a member vote on this year's CS ballot. The specific text for the bylaws is going to be drafted shortly, will be provided to and reviewed by the Admiralty Board, and will be included in the Election Packet for members to review and vote upon this fall. This E-Mail is more-or-less your "advance notice" that the matter will be there for member review and will be on the ballot this fall to be voted upon. Discussion about this is welcome and encouraged to be taken up on the Election list. For those who haven't subscribed to the election list, you can subscribe by going to the following page and sign-up online: http://lists.sfi.org/listinfo.cgi/election2013-sfi.org Thanks for your time and participation in the 2013 Election! FADM Dave Blaser Commander STARFLEET: The International Star Trek Fan Association, Inc. E-Mail: [email protected] Twitter: @sfi_org