One more motion:
You have already received, along with the ballots for voting members to the board, a Notice of Motion regarding reducing the size of the board and electing Vice-President and President from the general assembly of voting members at the Annual General Meeting.
As a board, we would like to present one more Extraordinary Resolution to you this year.
The motion has to do with the requirement at present, that Observers become qualified as RPP's within two years or can not be renewed as members for two years. There was careful consideration to this requirement at the National level while the entire PPOC by-laws were re-written last year, and the position taken there was to remove the two year clause. There could be any number of reasons that a person may not get a successful submission in to the print review committee within two years, not the least of which could be inadequate training opportunities provided by the association to help them get there. Keep in mind that one of the main reasons for the existance of our association is the training and mentoring of photographers who want to become professional in their image making and business activities. It is in our best interests as members to help to bring up the standards of image quality and business practices to a professional level, of our new and Observer members. We need to do all we can to give these people opportunities to improve themselves at their own pace and let them apply for the RPP status when they are ready. An Observer is a beginning status in our association with basically no rights of vote at meetings, may not hold office, shall not receive awards or trophies and the biggie - they cannot display the logo of our association in their business in any way. As an association, we have very little to lose by having an Observer stay in that category if they are not ready to move up. However, if we eject an Observer, so they can try again in two years, I think that the vast majority of them will never apply again. Nobody likes to be kicked out of the club.
I would like you to consider removing the two year restriction as a short term measure that would affect three potential members this year alone, and according to our PPOC Excecutive Secretary has been responsible for removing thirteen members in the past few years. One of the highest priorities of 2010 should be to undertake a complete re-write of the By-laws of our association to correct many errors and harmonize our association with the national body, PPOC. I am not a fan of patching things up as we go along but in this case, I think it would be worth it to prevent the loss of more members.
Extraordinary Resolution - Notice of Motion:
To remove the clause which requires an Observer to complete a successful submission of images to the Print Review committee within two years of membership or not be allowed to re-new membership for a period of two years. This would remove completely Article 5.7 of the bylaws which reads:
5.0 Print Review Committee
5.7 OBSERVERS who have not had their ten (10) print submissions fully accepted have a period of two (2) years, from the date of the first unsuccessful review, to re-submit alternate images. Should an OBSERVER not have an acceptable ten (10) print submission within the allotted time span, then their membership shall not be renewed. There shall be a two (2) year waiting period before a new application will be received by this Association.
sincerely, Ken Frazer MPA, F.Ph.
President PPOC-MB
