I am from an elementary school parent group. Our officers have had a lot of in-fighting this school year. This infighting is creating a lot of bad press which has caused two co-presidents to resign and will keep active members from volunteering or running for office this spring. Most of the officers are in the first of their two-year term. One question came to me regarding simply having all officers terms terminated and require them to run again if they wish to remain in office. Our current bylaws address the situation of removing an officer from office, but the problem is with multiple officers. It is believed that we need a clean slate to truly change our public/school image at this point. You got any advice that can help me out? Please! Thank you.
Dear Jeanne,
How about another tactic? Bringing in a parliamentarian to sit down with the group and trying to solve the problems. This person can mediate, train the officers and get the organization going in the right direction. You can remove the officers but will that cause more problems? It sounds like the reason you are having these problems is that no one understands how to work together in an organization, discussion issues calmly and disagree but yet solve the problem through a vote of the members after all the information is presented. If you want to clean house be sure to follow your bylaws are removing from office. You will probably have to do it one at a time and not as a bloc of people at a time. May I recommend that you contact Robert McConnell Productions and ask to speak with the company parliamentarian. This person can certainly steer you in the right direction. The phone number is 1-800-532-4017.
Another thought. If you remove all these officers you will have vacancies to fill. Do you have replacements waiting in line to take over?
Cheerio,
Little Ben
Question submitted by Jeanne Ashby on March 10, 2016