Wednesday, December 02, 2015

Wednesday Welcome News

The WSBA World Peace Through Law Section has an ongoing problem: most of our members cannot participate in meetings during the usual business day, even by teleconference. Most of them can't attend meetings in Seattle at al, or in any other particular location, because they live or work too far away - our Executive Board has several members who aren't even in Washington State!
Most sections must have this problem, of course, but at least their practice orientation rewards event attendees more directly than ours does; there really isn't much immediate financial advantage to uderstanding how law and peace can work together.
As a result, Section membership is small and not growing. Why would it? we aren't able to do much. I am personally unwilling to invest time in events that cannot be attendd by 90% or more of our ptential audience. If someone else wants to do the work, I'll support them and help as I can, but no-one has volunteered - perhaps I have been uniquely foolish in pursuing this windmill.
The final straw was my new gig starting December 14: I simply can not take time off work to do section events.
Resolved to see the positive side of this, I proposed to our Executive Board that we run meetings virtually, using the new forum as infrastructure. This would require a small procedural change, and I had hoped to pass this at the next Board meeting; but of course, there is no single time at which the Board's members can all meet, even by teleconference.
This is not such a bad thing, as it impelled me to write up the rule for the irtual meeting, and propose it. I'll give the Board a week to comment on it, and then propose it at the first sitting of the December meeting. Since the bylaws don't specify any particular quorum, I shoul be abe to get it passed with no organzational hurdles.
Whether it works in practice remains to be seen, but it's a reform with great promise. Let's hope for the best!

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