Whatcha' gonna talk about??

Back in the day, delegates attending Governing Council (GC) would receive “The Book” via Express Mail. It would usually arrive about a month before GC, three-hole punched, colored sections and even include a cover that you could slip into your three-ring binder. The Book contains all the reports from leadership, committee chairs and headquarters staff. But the part that most of us would head for the notice of the meeting, the exhibits for bylaw changes and the various requests for action (RFA).

And then we would spend the next month debating them.

Governing Council was usually a three-day event for most of the delegates, but for the leadership and committee chairs, it could be a five days. The Board would meet during on Thursday, while most delegates were attending seminars and training on various topics. The Board would vote on the RFAs during that meeting and the US Figure Skating staff would have to get the report of their actions printed and copied for distribution on Friday morning. These were known as the “Green Sheets,” for no other reason than they were printed on green paper. The actual name of the document is the “Interim Report of Action.”

Thankfully, in the last couple of years, The Book is now distributed electronically. Delegates can print out the sections they want or just download the PDF to their computers; saving the organization money and eliminating all the work of the mailing.

Additionally, the Board no longer waits until they arrive at GC to vote on the RFAs; they have a virtual meeting in early April and the Interim Report would be posted online for the delegates.

These decisions have saved the organization time, money and, I gotta guess, headaches. Now if people have an issue with or a question about one of the decisions, they can discuss it prior to the meeting instead of during the GC meeting.

The GC of today is so different from the first ones I attended. While the fireworks aren’t as vibrant, the meetings are far more productive and we get things done.

And then there’s Dorothy, our idol, um, parliamentarian.  She has changed the way we conduct our meetings while teaching us the finer points of Robert’s Rules of Order (375^th edition or something). The year that Dorothy started running the meeting was the first year that I remember actually finishing the agenda and getting to New Business.

Welcome to Colorado Springs

Right now, I'm sitting at the hotel, hoping for a reliable wifi connection and getting ready for the Critical Issues meeting happening at 3:30 (MT). This meeting really give us idea of what some of the hot topics will be.

I've learned that I should never assume that there won't be some points of contention. There's just no guessing what item will cause passions to flare.

The weather is overcast, so I won't be skipping any meetings to climb a mountain. At least not today.

The Book

Back in the day, delegates attending Governing Council (GC) would receive “The Book” via Express Mail. It would usually arrive about a month before GC, three-hole punched, colored sections and even include a cover that you could slip into your three-ring binder. The Book contains all the reports from leadership, committee chairs and headquarters staff. But the part that most of us would head for the notice of the meeting, the exhibits for bylaw changes and the various requests for action (RFA).

And then we would spend the next month debating them.

Governing Council was usually a three-day event for most of the delegates, but for the leadership and committee chairs, it could be a five days. The Board would meet during on Thursday, while most delegates were attending seminars and training on various topics. The Board would vote on the RFAs during that meeting and the US Figure Skating staff would have to get the report of their actions printed and copied for distribution on Friday morning. These were known as the “Green Sheets,” for no other reason than they were printed on green paper. The actual name of the document is the “Interim Report of Action.”

Thankfully, in the last couple of years, The Book is now distributed electronically. Delegates can print out the sections they want or just download the PDF to their computers; saving the organization money and eliminating all the work of the mailing.

Additionally, the Board no longer waits until they arrive at GC to vote on the RFAs; they have a virtual meeting in early April and the Interim Report would be posted online for the delegates.

These decisions have saved the organization time, money and, I gotta guess, headaches. Now if people have an issue with or a question about one of the decisions, they can discuss it prior to the meeting instead of during the GC meeting.

The GC of today is so different from the first ones I attended. While the fireworks aren’t as vibrant, the meetings are far more productive and we get things done.

And then there’s Dorothy, our idol, um, parliamentarian.  She has changed the way we conduct our meetings while teaching us the finer points of Robert’s Rules of Order (375^th edition or something). The year that Dorothy started running the meeting was the first year that I remember actually finishing the agenda and getting to New Business.

Governing Council 2015 - Colorado Springs

It's that time again. And since it is an odd-numbered year, Governing Council is being held in Colorado Springs, Colorado. It's very cool that we now have a presenting sponsor for Governing Council.

The GCs in the Springs are a shorter version of the meeting. There won't be any seminars or special meetings, so I may have far fewer posts than last year.

If you're interested in playing the home version of Governing Council and want to follow along, you'll need to download the 2015 Meeting Book and Interim Report #1 (which you can print on green paper if you're feeling nostalgic). You'll need to sign into the Members Only section of usfigureskating.org.

I'll be attending GC this year as a delegate for the Rochester Figure Skating Club, but will be carrying the proxy votes for my former home club, the Burnsville-Minnesota Valley FSC, and my hometown club, the Albert Lea FSC.

Saturday afternoon cleanup

The afternoon started with new business.

First item was a "Swiffer" amendment to rule 6076 changing 'whether' to 'when.'

Second item was for rule 3000 regarding nonqualifying competition sanctions, adding the line "the use of the standardized nonqualifying competition announcement is optional." Bad idea. Now we're back to guidelines versus rules. Since there was not a majority in the affirmative, it did not pass. The party in favor of the amendment asked to have it counted, but the motion to have a count of the vote was voted down.

There was a cheer to thank the amazing staff at Headquarters! Here! Here!

The Professional Skaters Association gave their annual outstanding judging award to Rosemary Santee. Congrats Rosemary!

The people at the Doubletree distracted many of us from business by putting out an amazing spread of cookies. Thanks to the St. Moritz Ice Skating Club for sponsoring the "cookie break."

It was time to adopt the budget. A piece of new business was suggested to allocate up to $30K for legal fees to review all the association bylaws and revise them to correct inconsistencies, improve cross-references, make them workable and adjust them to best practices. I think it's a great idea and it passed.

Adoption of the budget as amended.

AAC raffle announcement - Midwest athletes sold the most tickets.
Winner of the raffle for two tickets to U.S. Nationals and airfare- Wendy Enzmann

Nomination Committee Chair Kathy Slack presented the remaining members of the slate of officers.
They were voted in by acclamation.
Sam Auxier spoke to the group and started by quote Matthew McConaughey: "Alright, alright, alright!"

Finally, we ended the day with a great salute to President Pat St. Peter for her service to the organization.

That's all folks!!!

After the bylaws, on to the requests for action

The rest of the morning was spent going through the reports and the isolated items. 

Justin and the Athlete Services group gave their reports. Lainie and Membership Services group gave their reports. 201 was referred back to committee.

Wendi and the Technical Group gave their report. 347-353 were being referred back to committee

Then the election results were announced

1014 – 971 – 486

President

Sam – 762

Ron - 209

Athlete Services Group Coordinator

Robbie – 393

Doug – 567

Isolated item #331 is about the official judging system and hardware. It was amended to clean up language that seemed exclusionary. Adopted as amended.

Isolated item # 345 is about selection of judges at national competitions. The request to unstrike the language about the desirability of geographical representation. Accepted.

Isolated item #325 was unisolated by the isolator.

Isolated item #512 had not been approved by the board. Troy Goldstein isolated it to have it approved. The discussion was about taking out the option of doing a double twist in the Intermediate Pairs free skating program. The original decision is overturned and it is approved to be changed.

Isolated item #527 was un-isolated by the isolator.

New isolation item #345 – amend implementation date of eliminating the supplemental MIF test to one year later – July 1, 2015

Administrative/Legal Gretchen and her team were brought up. Winston Burbank from the Audit Committee brought up Mario Rede (Sr. Director of Finance) to praise him to announce that for the first time, the auditors didn't find ONE number out of place. Unheard of for organizations of our size.

The morning finished out with the In Memoriam. So many names. 

Finishing up the bylaw amendments

The meeting started with an updated credentials report

326 Delegate

485 Proxy

203 Athletes

1014 potential votes

We tried to get started with Exhibit G (to include in the bylaws the election requirements and procedure for members of the Nominating Committee that are currently included in the Standing Rules), but it was noted that with the increase in the number of delegate votes that the athlete votes need to increase by 3.

We were all fine with that, but Joe Armstrong stood up to say that we don’t split athlete votes and it should be increased to 250 votes.

Pause the meeting and let Dorothy, Tom James and the rules people chat. They came back with the athletes are entitled to 3 more votes.

Back to Exhibit G. Ed Mann spoke in opposition and spoke truth that this is a process and not a bylaw and should go back to committee. Passed to refer back to committee.

On to Exhibit H which requires the holding of an actual balloted election at Governing Council for any officer or director position where a candidate is seeking a fifth or greater term and in all contested elections of officers; and to provide specific election rules relating to the two-thirds vote requirement for candidates seeking a fifth or greater term. The shared rationale was candidates for a fifth or greater term would be balloted and a procedure prescribed for the conduct of elections in contested races. This addresses some housekeeping issues with elections and the dissatisfaction expressed by a great many members over the use of acclimation to fill the need for a two-thirds vote for the fifth or greater term.

You knew it was going to be a “lively” discussion, but then it got bogged down in ‘strike this’ and ‘amend this’ and ‘change this to conform to that,’ and my ADD kicked in and I decided to get some breakfast. Part of the confusion was that we changed the President’s term to two-years and this is about one-year terms.

So we voted to amend the amendment – that passed. And then it was asked to amend the amended amendment. That got voted down.

We finally got back to voting and it was voted down since it just made no sense.

Now on to the isolated items!