Minutes of OCA Board Meeting
5 May 2007 at American Bank of Commerce in Collinsville
following the ABOK Action Swiss

 

Board Members attending: Chuck Unruh – President, Jim Bedenbaugh – Vice President, Jim Gray – Treasurer, Mike Swatek – Secretary, and Members At Large Robert Phy, Ben Shaffer and Charles Unruh.

 

OCA Members attending: Rev. Ed Boyle, Raymond Griffin, James Tyner, Nick Perez, Rod Whitlatch, Bob O’Neal, David Yates, Brad Phy, Charles Snap and Darrel Alexander.

 

President’s Report – Chuck Unruh:

·        A meeting is planned at the US Championship on about 19 May with Bill Goichberg, Joel Channing, Chuck Unruh Frank and Jim Berry. It will be regarding any possibility of a resolution with the Berrys.

·        Chuck shared highlights of the recent USCF Phase II finance meeting in Crossville, TN which he participated in.

·        He also reviewed highlights of a visit with Bill Goichberg while in Crossville. Bill asked that an item be changed on the OCA website regarding Berry sponsorship of the US Championship in an effort to buy a position on the USCF Executive Board. The website statement was modified to eliminate this the same day. Bill also asked that the OCA consider the member voting age. It appears this will be done at the upcoming OCA Annual Meeting.

·        Oklahoma is one of only 3 states in a pilot program for discounted bulk purchase of USCF youth/scholastic memberships.

·        USCF Executive Director Bill Hall will be at the 62nd Oklahoma Open State Championship. He will be participating in the tournament and presenting the OCA with an award for top % growth in USCF adult membership, compared to all other State Chapters.

 

Treasurer’s Report – Jim Gray

·        $3628.20 cash on hand, of which $500.00 is being held in escrow for 529 scholarships.

·        See separate reports submitted for 2006 and 1/1/2007-5/3/2007.

·        Report approved unanimously

 

Secretary’s Report – Mike Swatek

·        Membership at the conclusion of the ABOK Action Swiss:
31 Patrons
85 Regular Members
51 Youth Members
167 Total OCA Members

·        This is the largest verified number of OCA members since 2003.

·        A graph was presented showing membership growth. Membership declined during 2005 due to fewer tournaments in a failed effort to encourage sharing of the tournament schedule without interference

·        Report approved unanimously.

 

Voting age bylaws amendment submitted by petition (see attached)

·        The following Bylaws amendment was submitted by Nick Perez, Raymond Griffin and James Tyner.

Proposed: Article III.2, entitled Rights and Privileges section b.

 

Current:

            b) any new or renewing OCA member shall be entitled to vote in the Annual ........

 

Change:

            b) is at least sixteen (16) years of age; and

            c) any new or renewing OCA member shall be entitled to vote in the Annual ........

·        A motion was made and seconded that the bylaws proposal had been properly submitted and should go to the members for a vote at the Annual Election on 24 June. Discussion confirmed this. The motion was approved unanimously.

·        Those present shared their feelings on this issue.

 

Discussion of voter eligibility under current bylaws.

·        There was some discussion of how to treat USCF Family Members. Should there be more than one vote allowed for OCA members under the same USCF Family membership?

·        There was some uncertainty whether the USCF treats voting members in a family membership as separate members with separate votes. This was confirmed to be true following the meeting.

·        As part of the voter validation process using the USCF Membership Services Area, the OCA has no way of distinguishing between different types of memberships.

·        In order to have a clearly stated OCA policy, Jim Bedenbaugh made the following motion:
In order to be eligible to vote, an individual must be on both the OCA and USCF membership roles as a current member.

·        The motion was approved unanimously

 

Voting age compromise bylaws amendment proposal.

·        A proposal that would have parents vote for their under age 16 OCA youth members had been discussed in Board correspondence.

·        Based on forum discussions, it appears that the proposal would serve no purpose regarding the complaints of some OCA members about under age 16 OCA members having the right to vote.

·        There was no motion to submit it to the members for consideration.

 

Board and Officer election method bylaws proposal

·        A change in the election of Board members and Officers which would very closely resemble that of the USCF has been under discussion by the Board for some time. The proposal that evolved out of those discussions was presented (see attached). Briefly, it proposes that Board members be elected for 2-year terms on a staggered schedule and that officers be selected by the Board following the election for a 1-year term. In order to avoid the possibility of holding more than one office, the bylaws requirement for an immediate past president is also eliminated. The Board would have the right to convey this title in cases where the immediate past president is not serving in another officer position.

·        Jim Bedenbaugh made a motion to accept the proposal and have the members vote on it at the Annual Election. Charles Unruh seconded the motion. He then needed to leave and asked that his vote be cast in favor of the proposal following the discussion.

·        After a fair amount of discussion the President put the motion to a vote with the following results:
In favor were Jim Bedenbaugh, Robert Phy, Mike Swatek and Charles Unruh.
Against was Jim Gray.
Ben Shaffer had to leave during the discussion and did not leave voting instructions.
in keeping with Robert’s Rules, it was not necessary for the President to cast an official vote.

·        The motion carried.

 

Bylaws amendment petition procedure amendment proposal

·        Another Bylaws amendment was put forward by Chuck Unruh which would change the bylaws amendment petition requirement from 3 members to 10% of the OCA members. It was stated to be a means of preventing a very small number of members from overloading the process. A larger threshold such as this is common on other corporate Boards.

·        After some discussion it was determined that 10% might be too high of a hurdle. The current membership is 167. Also, members could have difficulty getting in contact with so many other members. The proposed motion was then revised to require 10 members, instead of 10%.

·        The motion also included the addition of clarifying verbiage appended to the end of the same paragraph stating: “Any voting member may submit a proposed bylaws amendment to the Policy Board for consideration.”

·        The revised motion to requiring 10 voting members on a petition to put a bylaws amendment before the OCA members (see attached) was approved unanimously by the Board Members remaining at the meeting (all except Charles Unruh and Ben Shaffer).

 

The 17 March 2007 OCA Board meeting minutes were approved unanimously by the Board Members remaining at the meeting (all except Charles Unruh and Ben Shaffer).

 

After some discussion, it was decided unanimously that the Labor Day Memorial open this year will honor Bela Rozsa.

 

A motion to adjourn was approved unanimously.

 

Minutes reported by Secretary Mike Swatek

 

Revised 21 May 07: The minutes had been previously approved by the Board before posting on the website. A member present at the meeting suggested revising the term "a very few OCA Members" which was perceived as biased. The Board approved changing the term to “some”, shown in blue above.