LifeRing-10

Welcome to LifeRing-10

2009-12-11T12:00:00.000-08:00

This blog is a platform for LifeRing membership discussion of the organizational structure of LifeRing.

The delegates to the 2009 LifeRing Congress adopted a far-ranging motion to form an Expansion Committee charged with proposing a plan to reorganize the LifeRing structure. The Committee met and has now made its proposals. The proposals are now before the LifeRing membership for the widest possible discussion.

The complete text of the Committee's report is available as a pdf file here and also as a blog post here, below, so that you can post comments to the report as a whole.

The seven sections of the report are also posted as separate blog posts below, so that you can post comments to individual sections of the report. They are:

(1) Introduction
(2) Proposed Bylaws Changes
(3) Commentary on Regional Representative (5.6 and 6.4.9)
(4) Commentary on the new Chairman of the Board Position (6.17)
(5) Commentary on Other Vice Presidents (7.1)
(6) Executive Council
(7) Energizing the Board is More Important than Expanding It

Please circulate these proposals as widely as possible among LifeRing members and friends. A final decision on these issues will be reached at the 2010 LifeRing Congress/Expo in Denver, June 5, 2010.

-- Marty N.
LifeRing CEO

Full Report of Expansion Committee

2009-12-11T11:00:00.000-08:00

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Expansion Committee Report 12/7/09

{Sec. 1} The 2009 LifeRing Congress created the ExpansionCommittee with the following motion:

Moved: That theCongress create an expansion committee charged with drafting a set of proposedBylaws Amendments to expand the organization's leadership ranks. TheExpansion Committee is to publish a proposed draft within six months. The draftis to be circulated widely among LifeRing participants and to form the basisfor a discussion in which every LifeRing participant has the opportunity to beheard. After revising the draft in light of the membership discussion,the Expansion Committee is to present the proposed Bylaws Amendments to the2010 Congress for a vote.
-- Proposedby Marty N.

Marty had introduced the issues in article in theDelegate's Briefing. He included a handful of ideas to kick off thediscussion:

· Create 8 or 10 or more regionalvice-presidents with responsibility in defined geographic areas

· Create vice-presidents with responsibility forpublic relations, fundraising, data management, meeting support, and website development

· Create an executive council composed of theregional vice-presidents and the other officers

· Create the post of chairperson of the Board

· Expand the Board of Directors from 9 to 11

The Expansion Committee reviewed these. Our proposal adopts all but the last, but with some modifications.

The next pages list short, simple Bylaws changes,followed by more lengthy "informational" commentary. TheBylaws changes define a structure for regional representatives andvice-presidents, but call out only minimum information regarding tasks andfunctions. As a policy, we concluded specificsbest be left in the handsof the Board of Directors to manage as LifeRing grows. Our commentaryhas some more specific thoughts on where to start. These are meant to benon-binding on the Board.

Expansion committee members included Carola Z.,Craig W., Michael W., Steve S., Andy R., Jim R., Bob O., Tom J., Kathleen G.,Robert B., and Dru B.

{Sec. 2} ProposedBylaws Changes

Article 5.6 [amended]: Current members of the Board ofDirectors, officers, and current Regional Representatives shall be delegates tothe Congress.

Article6.4.9 [added]: The Board shall have the power to appoint and remove RegionalRepresentatives. Such Regional Representative shall provide support to existingmeetings and encouragementfor the formation of new meetings within a region specified by the Board, including one or more on-line regions. Theresponsibilities of the Regional Representativesshall be specified by the Board.

6.4.9.1[added] The Board shall conform, if practicable, the boundaries of the RegionalRepresentatives to the boundaries of any not-for-profit organizationsestablished under Article 6.4.8

6.4.9.2:[added] Regional Representatives may appoint Area Representatives within aportion of their Region to assist them.

6.17 [added] The Board, at the first meetingafter the conclusion of the Annual LifeRing Congress shall elect a Chairman ofthe Board for following year. The Chairman shall serve atthe pleasure of the Board as a whole. Actions to elect orremove the Chairman shall require an absolute majority of the Board(five votes). The Chairman shall be empowered to represent theactions of the Board to outside agencies and shall take on other responsibilitiesas the Board shall assign.

7.1 [amended] LifeRing Inc. shall have theofficers required by law, namely a President, a Treasurer and aSecretary. In addition, the Board may appoint one or moreVice-Presidents to serve under the direction of the President. Said Vice- Presidents shall have such responsibilities as the Boardmay delegate.

7.1.1.[amended] The President shall serve as the organization's chiefexecutive officer, shall comply with the duties required by the law for such anofficer, and shall have such other responsibilities as the Board may delegate.

7.1.2.[amended] The Treasurer shall comply with the duties required by the law,shall keep the books and render financial reports, and shall have such otherresponsibilities as the Board may delegate.

{Sec. 3} Commentaryon Regional Representative (5.6 and 6.4.9)

(Originally 5.6 just called for members of the Board ofDirectors and officers to be delegates. 6.4.9 is new.)

The Board will have to decide the geographic or othernature of the reach of the Regional Representatives. LifeRing has fourdifferent situations which may require different handling.

First, Northern Californiahas a heavy concentration of meetings. We might have multiple RegionalRepresentatives -- perhaps as many as 10 -- or one Regional Representativeassisted by Area Representatives. The Bylaws language is open-ended onthis, but 6. 4.9.2 specifically allows for two levels of regional/arearepresentatives.

Second, we have a few regions where there are clustersof 3 to 10 of meetings: Denver, New York/Connecticut,Southern British Columbia, and Ontario.Each might naturally have one Regional Representative.

Third, we have broadly scattered meetings. HereRegional Representatives might cover large purely geographic regions such asthe U.S. Pacific Northwest, Western U.S. (other than Nor.Cal., Pac. NW, and Denver),U.S. Midwest, U.S. South, U.S. East (other than the NY area), Asia, and Europe. The Officers and Service Centermay still have primary connection with some isolated meetings and primaryresponsibility for establishing meetings in wholly new areas. Regions would, ofcourse, be subject to adjustment at any time to reflect changing realities.

Fourth, we have on-line activities, including thee-mail lists, forum, chat, and NING. Oneor more "Regional" Representatives may coordinate all the variousmoderators and convenors. Here too, theremay be value in having a second tier of Area Representatives for specific typesof on-line activities.

Thepurpose of creating the Regional Representative position is to remove as manyburdens from the President and the Service Center aspossible, and to create a cadre of experienced leaders for the future growth ofLifeRing. Section 8.2.2 of the By-laws lists the responsibilities of theService Center and many ofthose could be undertaken at a regional level. The Regional Representativeswould also provide a communications channel within the organization. We wouldexpect the Regional Representatives to be in regular contact with the convenorsin their area, with other Regional Coordinators, and with the LifeRing Officersand Board. The Board and Officers would need to define the form of that"regular contact". One can imagine at minimum expecting the Representativesto talk in person or by phone with each convenor monthly. One can imaginemonthly reports by phone, chat, or e-mail with the Board and/or Officers. Onecan imagine some form of regular phone or chat roundtable involving allRepresentatives. Filling the positions will not be easy and may not be possiblein some regions at the present time.

Itis envisioned that Regional Representatives will play a key role in expandingthe reach of LifeRing and so it seems appropriate to make them automaticdelegates to the annual Congress, as was suggested in the proposed By-lawamendments.

Note this bylaws change does not make Regional/AreaRepresentatives officers, and thus does not automatically subject them to therequirement of having a year of sobriety. The committee, in itsdiscussion, generally viewed the Regional and Area representatives as a tierbetween convenors and vice presidents. The board may choose to makethese people Officers via the powers granted in Section 7.1. The Boardmay choose to define organizational policy on sober time, independent of thebylaws, as is currently done for convenors.

{Sec. 4} Commentaryon the new Chairman of the Board Position (6.17)

The Chairman of the Board position is new. Wehave left the responsibilities open except for the one that seems absolutelynatural – to represent the board's actions. There have been cases in therecent past (e.g., a grant proposal) where the legal paperwork wanted asignature by the CEO/President and a second signature by someone whocould represent the actions of the Board.

The Committee proposed a one-year term because theBoard composition changes annually. Each current group of Directorsshould be able to choose the Chair of their choice. A longer term might also produce problems if thethree-year Director term doesn't coincide with Chairmanship term. Note election to Chairman (by the Board) is separatefrom election to the Board (by the Congress). If a Chairman is notreelected as chair, he is still on the board. Note finally that the one-year rotation/re-affirmation makes it a little more likely LifeRing will alwayshave an energetic Board Chairman, rather than somebody who comes onstrong but trails off after a year or two.

Section 6.17 makes it relatively hard to appoint andremove the Chairman. Given a quorum for a Board meetingis four (of nine), it is conceivable that without something like therequirement of an absolute majority vote, the vote of three boardmembers could elect or remove the Chairman. None of us on the Committeesee this as a problem any time soon, but it seems poor policy toenable a loophole for action by a minority dissidentfaction.

{Sec. 5} Commentaryon Other Vice Presidents (7.1)

(7.1 currently reads "LifeRing Inc. shall havethe officers required by law, namely a Chief Executive Officer, a ChiefFinancial Officer, and a Secretary.")

(7.1.1 currently reads The Chief Executive Officershall comply with the duties required by the law, and shall have such otherresponsibilities as the Board may delegate.)

(7.1.2 only replaces "Chief FinancialOfficer" with "Treasurer".)

The bylaws change is very simple and open-ended here,allowing the board maximum flexibility. The committee did, however, have extensivediscussions on which officer positions would be desirable.

As a preliminary issue, however, we concluded that ifLifeRing is have Vice Presidents, it seems best to rename the Chief ExecutiveOfficer position to that of President. (The less comfortable alternative wouldbe to populate LifeRing with Vice Officers.) Having changed ChiefExecutive Officer to President, it seemed natural to change Chief FinancialOfficer to Treasurer.

Because we created a Chairman of the Board position,we had to make very clear that thePresident, not the Chairman of the Board, carries the legal responsibilitiesassigned to a chief executive officer.

The Expansion committee had a lengthy discussion onwhich officer positions might be appropriate. Much of this was based onreview of what our current Chief Executive Office does. Much of themotivation here was to divide the functions now carried by Marty so thatindividuals not able to make the same time and intensity commitment could, as agroup, carry out the same work. That has to be balanced against thedifficulty of finding people to fill out that group, of balancing"motivation vs. positions", of getting the job done but not pilingtoo much on new positions. Note that however tasks are divided, thePresident would still be responsible for managing the Vice Presidents, carryingout the functions if a vice president role is not filled, and managing thenon-profit [510(c)(3)] as awhole.

The Committee would recommend establishing thefollowing Vice President positions.

1. Vice President for "ExternalDevelopment". This is the role of dealing with conferences and treatment organizations and of generating or organizingpublications. We would be extremely pleased if Marty could fill thisposition for the next several years and activelymentor successors. There may be considerable interaction with the Boardor a Board Committee here.

2.Vice President in charge of LifeRing Press. This person would manage the
salesside of LifeRing, which is separate from the management of meetings and of thenon-profit [501(c)(3)] corporation. Thisincludes finding and managing the contract of anoffice assistant ... and filling in when the jobis vacant. The office administrator would do the day-to-day work; the VPwould be more involved in coordination, planning, tax paperwork, finding peopleto fill the office assistant position, contracting, managing publications,etc. The management of the office – the physical space, the phone, the computers -- wouldprobably be shared betweenthis VP, the President, and the Treasurer. In the long term, this may be a paidprofessional position. In the interim, we seek a volunteer with business skills. This is a largest of the VP jobs, butbreaking it out frees up the President considerably.

3. Vice President in charge of the Congress/Expochair. This would be an annually rotating position, but a seasonally big one. This Vice President mightwork with the President, with the Board as a whole, or a committee of theBoard. We envision that the Vice President would manage all thelocal issues but that the President, Board, or Board Committee would assistwith program planning and speaker recruitment.

4. Vice President for Information Services. Thisperson would oversee both LifeRing’s internal information and internetinfrastructure. Although this position requires some comfort with all thesubject matter involved, a primary duty will be to find and supervise personswith the necessary expertise for particular infrastructure tasks. For example,a webmaster might focus on lifering.org and lifering.com and perhaps the on-linesoftware hosting the forums, chat, and the e-mail groups. (Note the On-Line Regional Representativewould coordinate the subject matter and contacts on Chat, the forums, Ning, andthe e-mail lists. The Board may play arole in website content issues.) A datamanager might focus on updating and/or restructuring LifeRing’saccounting, database and other systems for use by the President, Treasurer, andBoard.

Andwhat is NOT here?

1. Fundraising chair (at least initially). Thecommittee concluded that fundraising is a core responsibilityof the Board and should stay there. They may choose to develop afundraising committee and may seek a vice president for support, but the leadresponsibility should not be delegated.

2. Internal development, meeting support, and publicrelations. These appear in the Marty's initial proposal. The regionalcoordinators should be playing a
bigrole with internal development and meeting support. Public relationstoday mostly involve fundraising, the Congress,and the "external development" activities, all of which have been parceled out to other VPs. So thecommittee didn't see a role here. If LifeRing develops a get a stronger communications infrastructure (e.g., a newsletter or its internet equivalent) it may be appropriate addsomething there.

The group discussed the task of filling the VPpositions. Filling some may be difficult. We did note, however,that a substantial volunteer position can be a benefit to one's resume, thusmaking such jobs more attractive. The Board might also choose tocreate positions as position-holders are found. There might be someiteration too: the board might define a position, seek a candidate, and thenadjust the definition of the position around a candidate's skills andinterests.

Some VP positions may initially be filled by BoardMembers. Many Officers have simultaneously been Board Members. However, in the long run, it may be desirable for many of these positions to beseparate, thus providing another intermediate step for LifeRing leadershipdevelopment.

{Sec. 6} ExecutiveCouncil

Although the bylaws create the positions, theCommittee concluded the way they areorganized – who reports to whom – is best left to the Board and Officers todecide. The answer may change, depending on which of the Regional/Area Representativeand VP positions are created. The answer may change withtime.

As noted in the discussion of RegionalRepresentatives, the Committee did expect regular contact betweenRepresentatives and Officers or the Board, with the form of that contact leftflexible. If desired, there could be a Council of RegionalRepresentatives that regularly mettogether with the President. The President would then report to theBoard on routine regional matters; a Regional Representative might reportdirectly on non-routine ones.

Coordination among the other VPs may depend very muchon the individual VP. Some, like the External Development orCongress VP might work regularly with the President, the Board, and/or a Board Committee. The LifeRing Press andInformation Services VPs may operate fairly autonomously when things areroutine and may coordinate extensively with the President, other officers, theBoard, or a Board Committee when new things are in the works or when problemsarise. Here too, it seems appropriate to leave the Board maximumflexibility rather than formally defineone structure in the bylaws.

{Sec. 7} Energizingthe Board is More Important than Expanding It

The Committee chose not to pursue Marty's suggestionof expanding the board from 9 to 11. We noted that when LifeRing expandedthe board from 7 to 9 members a few years back, there was hope this wouldproduce a more active board. There was a sense in the group thatthe 7-to-9 expansion had not been particularly successful in meeting thatgoal. We rarely get even 7 board members at a meeting. Themore central question how to make the Board we have more active.

Any organization depends on a strong board to besuccessful. Therefore, we encourage LifeRing to take measures to activateand engage all individual board members in the work that needs to bedone. Below are some of the options we discussed. Others areless well developed, but we gladly submit additional notes to the board ifdesired.

First, the Committee noted that responsibility for fundraising will always remains with the Board,and that it is a very important one. They, or a committee from the Board,should take a more active role here. It was also noted that asLifeRing grows larger, support staff, and possibly paid support staff, would beuseful here. For now, however, the group felt it was best to focus thiseffort within the Board.

The Board should actively seek other tasks to take oneither as a whole or via committees. In additions to fundraising,as noted in the discussions of the VPs, there may be a Board or Board committeeroles in working with the Expo/Congress VP on program development, with theInformation Services VP on online web content development, and possibly withthe "External" Development VP. Board committees serve toenergize the board as a whole, but they also provide an extra opportunity forexperienced Board members to pass the knowledge on to newer ones, thus providingan additional rung in the experience ladder.

The Board should explore ways to make the Boardmeetings more productive, perhaps by finding something other than the chatformat. Our Committee recognized finding alternatives is difficult. Semi-annual or quarterly in-person meetings would begreat, but probably too expensive to consider. A conference-call may beeven more confusing and unproductive. However, one of both of thesemay work for smaller Board committees.

The Committee felt that the Board would bestrengthened by changes in our usual procedure for nominating and electing newBoard members. A nominating committeeshould be named and that committee should actively recruit qualified people torun for Board positions. A deadline for nominations -- from both the nominatingcommittee and the general membership -- should be set at least a week beforethe annual Congress with, of course, ample notification to all interestedmembers. Election of the new Board members should take place earlier in theweekend of the Expo/Congress – say, early Saturday – and several hours shouldbe set aside on Sunday for the first meeting of the new Board, using an agendahanded down by the old Board. It may be useful that the whole Congress portionof the weekend occur earlier so that the business of the organization could beconducted free from the distraction of many members having to leave.

[End]

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Section 1 Only -- Introduction

2009-12-11T10:00:00.000-08:00

The 2009 LifeRing Congress created the ExpansionCommittee with the following motion:

Marty had introduced the issues in article in theDelegate's Briefing. He included a handful of ideas to kick off thediscussion:

· Create 8 or 10 or more regionalvice-presidents with responsibility in defined geographic areas

· Create vice-presidents with responsibility forpublic relations, fundraising, data management, meeting support, and website development

· Create an executive council composed of theregional vice-presidents and the other officers

· Create the post of chairperson of the Board

· Expand the Board of Directors from 9 to 11

The Expansion Committee reviewed these. Our proposal adopts all but the last, but with some modifications.

Expansion committee members included Carola Z., Craig W., MichaelW., Steve S., Andy R., Jim R., Bob O., Tom J., Kathleen G., Robert B., and DruB.

Section 2 Only -- Proposed Bylaws Changes

2009-12-11T09:00:00.000-08:00

ProposedBylaws Changes

7.1.2.[amended] The Treasurer shall comply with the duties required by the law,shall keep the books and render financial reports, and shall have such otherresponsibilities as the Board may delegate.

Section 3 Only -- Commentary on Regional Representative (5.6 and 6.4.9)

2009-12-11T08:00:00.000-08:00

(Originally 5.6 just called for members of the Board ofDirectors and officers to be delegates. 6.4.9 is new.)

The Board will have to decide the geographic or othernature of the reach of the Regional Representatives. LifeRing has fourdifferent situations which may require different handling.

Section 4 Only -- Commentary on the new Chairman of the Board Position (6.17)

2009-12-11T07:00:00.000-08:00

Section 5 Only -- Commentary on Other Vice Presidents (7.1)

2009-12-11T06:00:00.000-08:00

(7.1 currently reads "LifeRing Inc. shall havethe officers required by law, namely a Chief Executive Officer, a ChiefFinancial Officer, and a Secretary.")

(7.1.1 currently reads The Chief Executive Officershall comply with the duties required by the law, and shall have such otherresponsibilities as the Board may delegate.)

(7.1.2 only replaces "Chief FinancialOfficer" with "Treasurer".)

The bylaws change is very simple and open-ended here,allowing the board maximum flexibility. The committee did, however, have extensivediscussions on which officer positions would be desirable.

The Committee would recommend establishing thefollowing Vice President positions.

Section 6 Only -- Executive Council

2009-12-11T05:00:00.000-08:00

Section 7 Only -- Energizing the Board is More Important than Expanding It

2009-12-11T04:00:00.000-08:00