|
Suggestions should clarify review process Judge Advocate offers tips on
updating Post by-laws Each year quite a few, like 20 to 30, Post Constitutions and By-Laws are submitted to the Department for review and approval by the Judge Advocate, which at least for the time being, is me. Although the duties of this position include counseling the Department officers and Executive Committee on all legal matters (not to mention working at my regular employment), the majority of volunteer hours are spent advising, revising, rending and amending those all important documents which form the basis for our American Legion Posts. Believe it or not, it can take up to a couple of hours to review them, contact the Post, discuss the whys and wherefores, review the amended version and then finally give the okay. Over the past several months certain errors, mistakes, misconceptions and the like have been all too commonplace among those items forwarded for review. With your help, my job and the level of your frustration will be greatly diminished. What follows is a list of the most common things that you may avoid in future. Some are perhaps petty. Others are of major import (you decide): 1) NUMBER THE PAGES: Have you ever inadvertently dropped a 20-page document and tried to reassemble it in the proper order? I have and it ain't fun. Number the pages. 2) OFFICER'S GUIDE: Printed in the 2009 edition on page 123 is a sample post Constitution & By-Laws. It is only a sample, a guide for Posts in all the Departments. It is not, 'one size fits all.' Too many Ohio Posts merely copy from the Officer's Guide not thinking that portions may not be applicable in The Department of Ohio. The most troublesome submissions contain this from the By-Laws, Art. II, Sec. 3 (page 125) "A vacancy shall exist when a member or officer is absent from the Post for a continuous period considered detrimental to the interest of the Post by the Executive Committee." Unfortunately, this is an entirely subjective standard. Actually it is no standard at all. What may be deemed detrimental to one member may not to another. Each Post may be the judge of its own members; however in our American Legion we believe all are entitled to a fair, unbiased and objective hearing. The accepted guide is found in Art. IV, Sec. 2 of the Department By-Laws. "Members may be reprimanded, suspended or expelled from the American Legion, and officers may be reprimanded, removed from office, suspended or expelled from membership only upon proper showing of cause." The procedure is then fully detailed. 3) RESIGNATION: Back in the 1980s J/A Kessler together with Adjutant Pat Hone recognized the problem of quickly addressing a situation where a committeeman, has not been doing his job, cobbled together the following which has been applied to other committee members as well as trustees, and has stood the test of time: "The resignation of an Executive Committee member shall happen in one of three ways: (1) written notice presented to the commander, (2) verbal resignation to the members in regular meeting and, (3) the absence for three consecutive meetings without prior notification and approval by the members at a regular meeting." 4) THE FINAL SAY: Perhaps of greatest importance is this. The Post Commander is not the Post Fuhrer, nor is the Executive Committee the Post oligarchy. We are a grass-roots organization. The general membership always, no exceptions, can accept or reject any thing proposed or done by any officer, Trustee, Executive Committee member, etc. They, and they alone, have the final say. So there you have it, or rather, them. Call them my pet peeves or whatever you like, but paying some attention should certainly aid in completing those revisions so badly needed by so many American Legion Posts, some of which haven't done a revision for over 40 years! Is yours one of them? |
