CSYC Members-

As stated in the notice of the 2017 annual members’ meeting (contained in the announcement of the Commodore’s Ball), the meeting agenda includes approving bylaws changes recommended by CSYC’s Board of Directors.

The Board this year considered and discussed at length the design of the CSYC organization, with an eye toward refining the design and streamlining the organization.  I am pleased to report that as a Board, we have come to agreement on a refined organization design, which of course necessitates a revision to the club’s Bylaws, as they reflect the organization design.

The most significant change to the organization design and therefore Bylaws is a reduction in the number of Directors of the club from eight to six.  Currently our Bylaws require the club to have eight Directors, which is some 25% to 33% of our keelboat owners required to run the club every year.  We conclude that the most essential offices of the club are Commdore, Vice Commodore, Secretary, Treasurer, Racing Director, and Social Director, and thus feel six Directors is the appropriate number.

Accordingly the proposed revised Bylaws omit the current offices of Safety Chairperson (that office’s responsibilities fall to the Vice Commodore in the proposed revisions) and Membership Chairperson (that office’s responsibilities are typically functions of the Secretary of an organization).  We preserve the flexibility and principles of the current Bylaws in that one person can wear more than one hat if desired (with certain exceptions – the Commodore, Vice Commodore, and Treasurer must be different people), not all officers need be Directors (only the Commodore, Vice Commodore, Secretary, and Treasurer do), and everyone who volunteers their time and energy to an office (whether a Director or not) is rewarded with a vote on matters that come before the Board.

While revising the Bylaws, we also reorganized their content into an improved outline, and made other minor improvements to fill gaps, clarify terminology, etc.  And along with the Bylaws revisions we also prepared revisions to the club’s Articles of Incorporation, to clarify the club’s purpose and reserve Bylaws amendment power to the members, among other minor improvements.

I ask you to review the proposed new Bylaws, and corresponding proposed new Articles of Incorporation, and be prepared to vote for approval of the same at the annual members’ meeting at the Commodore’s Ball.  You can find our current governing documents, and the proposed revised governing documents, at the following links.

Current AoI: http://www.sos.state.co.us/biz/ViewImage.do?fileId=20001083979&masterFileId=19991059839

Proposed New AoI: https://csyc.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/Proposed_New_CSYC_AOI.pdf

Current Bylaws: https://csyc.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/CSYC_Bylaws_Revised_20160801.pdf

Proposed New Bylaws: https://csyc.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/Proposed_New_CSYC_Bylaws.pdf

Mapping Spreadsheet: https://csyc.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/mapping.xlsx

The mapping spreadsheet documents how our current Bylaws outline maps into the propsoed new Bylaws outline, since the outline is reorganized.

After much discussion of CSYC’s organization design, and work on propsoed revisions to CSYC’s governing documents, the Board voted unanimously to put these proposed revised AoI and Bylaws to the members for approval.  We as a Board recommend that the members approve them, and we hope to smoothly transact that business at the annual members’ meeting at the Commodore’s Ball.  So please review the new proposed documents, and be prepared to vote for their approval.

Thank You,
Randy Stafford, Commodore
Colorado Sail & Yacht Club