soxfan
Probationary Member
Posts: 7
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Post by soxfan on Sept 30, 2011 8:27:48 GMT -6
Hello Everyone, First off, i am new to the forum and want to thank all of you for sharing info and advise. This is my 2nd year coaching youth ball. The league has been around for many years but about 4 years ago there was a changing of the guard. The new board is not well respected by most of the parents. There has been a petition asking the president to step down which there has been no action on that. The board members like to pass judgment on each other and a few of them show disrespect and "bully" the others. I have looked at our By-Laws to determine how members are elected. According to what they have for rules, the board members are the only ones who vote for vacant positions. In that case, there is no way for someone to run against an occupied position and if 5 of the sitting members are friends, it creates a quorum and they cant be challenged. Can any of you, especially board members, tell me how your system works for voting, and challenging current positions? I want to make our league better as most of the parents are not happy but feel they cant do anything to help fix it. On top of that, they don't want to punish their kids by not returning but some are close to taking that step. Please help
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Post by bobgoodman on Sept 30, 2011 11:46:20 GMT -6
Most not-for-profit organiz'ns are organized roughly as described above. They have a board that is elected by...members of the board. That is, it's a closed system. They may have in addition associate members who get some kind of benefits (maybe just being recognized as such) but aren't allowed to vote. Sometimes in a large organiz'n there's a large number of members who elect a much smaller board, like stockholders in a company.
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Post by jrk5150 on Sept 30, 2011 12:09:07 GMT -6
We have what's called "corporation members", and they vote for the BOD. We try to have 30 or so Corporate members, and have a meeting every year to nominate and elect the BOD. The BOD are voting members as well. We have to have a certain # of votes to have a valid election. Corporation members are sponsored by a member of the BOD. Not sure how they are approved, since I've only been on the BOD this year.
We have I think 13 on the BOD.
So there is a way to get someone out, but it's not easy.
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spurred
Sophomore Member
Posts: 101
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Post by spurred on Sept 30, 2011 13:33:59 GMT -6
We just have a ten member board....several positions are just voting positions. I wouldn't say it's necessarily a closed system, it's just that not a lot of people come out for open positions....
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Post by coachcomet on Sept 30, 2011 13:44:14 GMT -6
soxfan,
We are a small Boys and Girls Club in Texas, and as you described the only ones allowed to vote are the Board Members. We have closed and open meeting every month. During football we have more like one a week. Currently we only do Cheer and Football in the fall, so were not a big organization, only seven members on the board.
This is my first year on the board and I have been going to the open meetings for the last two years. The way we do it, is if someone has a question or concern they can come to an open meeting and voice their opinion. Everything that is brought up in the open meeting is put in the notes (for those notes to be legit the board has to vote them in on the next meeting, either open or closed meeting). If something is brought up that we can take care of right then. We have a discussion about it and it gets voted on.
At the start of the football season we had some issues with our president and another member. The board had to make some hard decisions, and we removed both of them. For me, I can tell you I’m there for the kids. I don’t need a title, nor do I need to fill like I have power because I’m a board member. I can take my little cheerleader and football player somewhere else and play.
What I have noticed is that there is a lot of parents that think they know what’s going on and don’t have a clue about what happens behind sport there kid is playing. I didn’t know, once I started going to the meetings and listening to what all was taking place I had a deferent opinion about the board members. How hard could it be? You have 5 or 6 signups, order the uniforms, and you’re off to the races. My eyes were opened once I saw how much time these parents put in to an organization that did not pay a dime.
I would see if they have open meetings and set down with them and find out if there is anything you can do to help. If you really want to make a difference you are going to have to be the one to step up and be a leader. Just telling them that they are doing something wrong without a fix, is not going to over well. You need to get a vote and the only way to do that is to show that you care and that you are there to make a difference. I took the field maintenance guys job, not something I really wanted to do, but I understood that I have a little more free time than the other board members and I could get the field mowed every week. I have a couple parents that come out every Friday and help me paint; there help goes a long way.
If you are just looking to get someone off the board you are in for a long fight. When you said that they vote the member and there is no way to get in on the voting, you are 100% right.
Just my thoughts
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Post by mahonz on Sept 30, 2011 14:32:42 GMT -6
Our Executive Board has Four Members. President, Vice President, Treasurer, Secretary. The President will only vote in the event of a tie.
They hold open meetings once a month that are open to the public. The P and T are elected every odd year for two years and the VP and S are elected every even year for two years. You can only be re-elected for three terms. Anyone can apply to run for any position and the elections are every October for the open positions. An assigned Committe of Volunteers review all applications.
The actual votes come from the teams. Each team must carry on their staff a Team Manager. This position cannot coach but rather takes care of all Admin needs for their particular team. This Team Manager is the only person allowed to represent to the Executive Board and is the only position allowed to vote at any meeting for any reason that requires a vote.
It didn’t used to be this way. It was just like what you are experiencing. A couple of savvy coaches got together about 20 years ago and busted the system up.
They hired a lawyer and got a copy of their Org’s By-Laws then compared every line item and every detail to Roberts Rules of Order.
Pay dirt.
They found at least 50 items they could directly attack. It wasn’t even a fair fight. The old guard stepped down and the new kids in town re-wrote responsible By-laws that live to this day.
Lawyers know how to do this and freak people out. Took no time at all.
Good Luck.
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soxfan
Probationary Member
Posts: 7
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Post by soxfan on Oct 4, 2011 7:39:34 GMT -6
thanks for the input. It sounds like this is more common than i thought. There are people that are willing to step up and not just complain but the problem is that none of the sitting members will vote them in because they know that their way of running business would be in jeopardy. Our fund raising coordinator is new and they are running her out of town because she does bookkeeping for work and saw that nothing is being documented correctly. Instead of fixing it, some members are "bullying" her and talking trash about her to the parents. An example of how crooked the org is, our league lost its non-profit status for not filing taxes. Some of our sponsors are backing out because they cant write off the $ they donate because we arnt non-profit anymore. Instead we have to fundraiser our butts off. We usually raise $7-8K for fund raising on top of our regular registration. The league is making $ but no-one can see where the $ goes. All that $ coming in and no taxes being paid out. We will be lucky if the IRS doesn't take our assets. Our latest issue was someone spent $600 at BJ food club, but no-one would say who spent the $. The parents are not happy having to spend all this time/effort using their kids cute faces asking strangers to buy raffle tics, donate etc. just so the checking account gets bigger for a loose board to use it as they see fit, which some suspect the $ goes into certain pockets. Its not like our equipment is top of the line. Most helmets are about 8 years old and the pads are entry level. Its just very frustrating knowing there isn't much we can do other than find another league. Thanks for letting me rant.
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Post by spos21ram on Oct 7, 2011 11:18:55 GMT -6
Not sure how your football organization works, but the pee-wee organization here is privately run, meaning there are no town officials overseeing the league. However, the town recreation board, which I am a member of, gives contributive funds to the organization. Because of this, if there was a situation going on like you described, we would call the board in and discuss all the negative feedback the pee wee board was receiving and we could probably do something about it. I would try contacting town officials about this.
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Post by bdv on Apr 18, 2012 19:50:12 GMT -6
Our board is elected. Each family with a participant in the league, football or cheer, gets a vote. Elections are at the end of year banquet and the board serves a full year with monthly meetings off season and weekly meetings in season. This works pretty well for us as we have a lot of parent involvement and good volunteer participation. We have board appointed, non voting, emeritus positions that can keep long time volunteers involved.
President and vice presidents must have at least two years board experience, and treasurers must be on the board and shadow the current treasurer a year before running.
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Post by davecisar on Apr 21, 2012 7:08:00 GMT -6
thanks for the input. It sounds like this is more common than i thought. There are people that are willing to step up and not just complain but the problem is that none of the sitting members will vote them in because they know that their way of running business would be in jeopardy. Our fund raising coordinator is new and they are running her out of town because she does bookkeeping for work and saw that nothing is being documented correctly. Instead of fixing it, some members are "bullying" her and talking trash about her to the parents. An example of how crooked the org is, our league lost its non-profit status for not filing taxes. Some of our sponsors are backing out because they cant write off the $ they donate because we arnt non-profit anymore. Instead we have to fundraiser our butts off. We usually raise $7-8K for fund raising on top of our regular registration. The league is making $ but no-one can see where the $ goes. All that $ coming in and no taxes being paid out. We will be lucky if the IRS doesn't take our assets. Our latest issue was someone spent $600 at BJ food club, but no-one would say who spent the $. The parents are not happy having to spend all this time/effort using their kids cute faces asking strangers to buy raffle tics, donate etc. just so the checking account gets bigger for a loose board to use it as they see fit, which some suspect the $ goes into certain pockets. Its not like our equipment is top of the line. Most helmets are about 8 years old and the pads are entry level. Its just very frustrating knowing there isn't much we can do other than find another league. Thanks for letting me rant. You can get instant non profit status by signing up as an AYF team, paying the $25 per team and doing the subjogated 501 c3 with them You dont have to play in an AYF league to do so
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