The Consent Agenda allows for quick approval of non-controversial items. The UUA Moderator proposed the Consent Agenda by including it on the Final Agenda with the final language of all business items. All non-controversial items in the Consent Agenda are voted on as a group and cannot be discussed by delegates during General Session; an item must be removed from the Consent Agenda in order to be discussed. If the Consent Agenda does not pass, all items on the Consent Agenda go back to their original place on the Final Agenda.
The following Consent Agenda Item, Bylaws Amendments – Technical Revisions and Clean-up, is the only item in this year’s Consent Agenda.
Bylaws Amendments – Technical Revisions and Clean-up has received technical revisions and an overall cleanup in advance of the forthcoming work of the Bylaws Renewal Team (BRT), a committee of the UUA Board of Trustees. Ensuring the BRT begins its conversations with stakeholders using the most accurate version of the UUA’s Bylaws will help streamline the bylaws renewal process which lies ahead.
This technical revision and cleanup affects 13 pages of the current bylaws. Please use the following PDF to review and consider any amendments.
I was confused by the change you are proposing to Section 7.7 until I looked at the present bylaws and saw that currently the section is “Intentionally Deleted.”
I see now that we are “closing the loop” on the previous deletion. I feel like this is a very good idea.
That’s an error and it is being corrected. Only the [district or] part should be deleted. The region should stay in the bylaws. Thank you for identifying that.
Thanks for this—is Article X, to which Section 7.7 referred, still the same as it was (it did not seem to be included in the linked PDF)? I was looking to see how our finance committee is now structured and how it might have changed, and the only current reference I find is on page line 2558, referring to members serving on the Finance Committee being considered officers for that purpose only.
How is our Finance Committee currently defined?
So the line should read as follows?:
submitted by a [district or] region by official action at a duly
i.e.,
submitted by a region by official action at a duly
I had a hard time with that sentence; looking at it again. . . .O.K., it makes sense now; thanks.
Note: We did not receive any proposed amendments to the bylaws technical revisions and clean-up, and we did not receive any proposed amendments to the business resolution, so there is no need for a mini assembly. It will be cancelled.
“need”
Hmm, I guess technically not, as there are no proposed changes, but as an opportunity to discuss the consent agenda, it still would have been welcome. For instance, my question, above, about the Finance Committee—where would I find that info in our by-laws? I would have asked that at the miniassembly.
Sally, the in 2019, the Finance Committee was transformed into the Values-Resources Alignment Task Force (now referenced to the Values and Resources Working Group). It’s a group made up of the Co-Moderators, The Financial Secretary, some Trustees, the Financial Advisors, and the Executive Vice President. You can learn more about the working groups intentions and goals here: https://www.uua.org/files/pdf/b/bot_vra_tf_122019.pdf
So I am seeing some confusion between the by-laws (cited by Larry, above, in the 2024 version), and what happened in 2019 (your link)—ah, I see that it is listed as a “work in progress”, though you seem to indicate that it is functioning now. I am printing out that document to understand more clearly.
I missed the reference to the 2015 agenda, which explains what happened to the finance committee: it was eliminated in favor of the full board taking responsibility for financial considerations. Here is the relevant item from the 2015 agenda, page 16:
Proposed Changes to Finance Leadership on the UUA Board of Trustees
The UUA Board of Trustees is committed to moving toward ever better governance practices. One change we have made since becoming a smaller board two years ago is to consider all financial decisions as a whole board, rather than delegating those important decisions to a Finance Committee. These bylaw changes institutionalize our practice of making financial decisions a priority for all trustees. In a larger board, the Finance Committee was an important institution; a smaller board can do this work as a whole. These bylaw amendments create the role of Financial Secretary on the Board, a person elected from among the Board’s members who will facilitate financial conversations and decision-making among the trustees, and who will serve on the Executive Committee (as the Chair of the Finance Committee does now). These amendments also remove a trustee representative from the Audit Committee. The Board will continue to be represented on the Audit Committee by the Financial Advisor.