Collective Leadership (CL) Meeting Minutes

Meeting Minutes of
The Collective Leadership
Conference Call January 24, 2012

1. Internal rules for functioning of CL :
The CL members discussed the points that Chenming had proposed in his email of Jan 16, 2012. Then they voted on a motion as follows: "Once a decision is made by the CL and offered to the Board in a proposal or motion for vote by the Board, it is expected that all CL members will support the CL motion and not jump out to argue against the CL motion or take the lead to offer alternatives. But, when and if a better alternative is offered by other BOD members during the discussion, CL members as individual BOD members may support or improve and vote for the alternatives, without being a strong critic of the CL motion." The motion passed by unanimous vote.

In an email dated Jan 27, 8:42AM, Y-T Lee wrote: "I fully agree with your collective decisions while I could not be part of the meeting due to my family situation." So we now have 5 YES votes. And the decisions become the decisions of the Exec Committee.

2. How CL is to interact with the Board.
It was reaffirmed that the Board is the top policy body of the organization. The CL, being the same as the Executive Committee, will perform the administrative functions so long as it is in accord with the existing policy of 80-20PAC. However, in extremely major administrative matters, it may be advisable to submit a proposal to the Board for its approval and support. An example of a "policy matter" will be the changing of the name of our organization. An example of an "extremely major administrative matter" could be a major fight that 80-20 might be involved in.

3. Quorum: SB moved that quorum for CL meetings/conf calls will be a simple majority of 7 voting members = 4 members present. Haibo seconded. Motion passed by unanimous vote. In an email dated Jan 27, 8:42AM, Y-T Lee wrote: "I fully agree with your collective decisions while I could not be part of the meeting due to my family situation." So we now have 5 YES votes.

SB further elaborated on this matter after the conf call: The composition of the CL is identical to that of the Exec Comm, 80-20- PAC. So normally any decision of the CL is the same as the decision of the Exec Comm. HOWEVER, Bylaws requires the quorum of the ExecComm to be 2/3 of the membership i.e. 5. But, for now, CL will have trouble getting 5 members to attend a Conf. Call Meeting, because Kathleen To and Yueh-ting Lee are having respective family issues that normally prevent them from attending. So if one of the remaining 5 can't participate, then we'll not meeting the quorum requirement for an ExecComm meeting.

To be faithful to the Bylaws, any decision of the CL that doesn't have at least 5 votes can not be reported as an ExecComm decision. Note that the ExecComm is a Bylaws empowered Committee. CL is an informal structure (like a president's "kitchen cabinet"). So a CL decision - with only 4 votes- can NOT be reported to the Board as a decision or motion from a Standing Comm which is always viewed as already seconded. If there is a CL (only 4 votes) agreed motion to be discussed at the Board level, it'll have to be moved and seconded at the Board meeting. However if a fifth vote is offered by a CL member by email, the CL decison can be reported as the ExecComm decision or motion.

4. CL discussed some Board members desire to further discuss the name change and agreed that we should set up another conf call of the Board to fully discuss the subject. It was agreed that we give at least one week notice so Board members can clear their schedule to attend the conf call.

5. CL discussed the new version of the letter Drafted by SB and agreed that his Draft letter is quite good and that SB and Ved will further refine the Draft and then Ved will send it to C. Liu.

6. CL discussed Chapter Dues collection at the same time as a new member pays for national dues. However, not all Chapters use the same Chapter membership fee, therefore, it will be a very cumbersome process to collect chapter dues when a new member pays for the national dues. It was agreed that Yin-Long and Y-T will discuss and propose a more workable solution.

7. Ved suggested that we need to update the website by changing the 'Double or Die' spot and that we add a little blurb to clarify who is an Asian American. It was agreed that Ved will provide updated text language to Diana, with copy to CL, and Diana will update the website.

Notes taken by:
Ved Chaudhary
Secretary, 80-20 Initiative