Open Board Positions [updated]

As you may know, after the election for OrigamiUSA's Board of Directors at the Annual Meeting on June 25, 2011, there remained 3 unfilled seats. According to our bylaws, the Board may, in its discretion, appoint members to fill those open seats. If you are interested, or even potentially interested in joining the Board, please read the rest of this message and contact us at the address below.

Currently, according to our bylaws, the Board must consist of 7 Local Directors and 4 Remote Directors. A Local Director must have the means, ability, and intent to attend our monthly meetings in person (and so should be local to the NYC area). Remote Directors attend meetings via dial-in teleconference.

The three open seats are Local seats, and so to fill those seats, interested candidates must be able to serve as Local Directors. However, the Board is contemplating amending the bylaws to change the mix of Local and Remote Directors, so if you are interested in serving on the Board but would have to be a Remote Director, please still contact us and let us know of your interest.

What does a Board member do? First and foremost, the Board is the ultimate decision-making body for the organization and so makes decisions on activities, expenditures, and policies. But most Board members also take an active role in various committee activities, providing both leadership and volunteer work as part of their service. Committee work is carried out by a mix of in-person meetings, phone meetings, and/or email discussion, depending on the committee and the location(s) of its participants.

If you think you might be interested but would like to learn more, here are some online resources that might be useful:

Bylaws — These are the official governing document for the organization.

Committees — This page lists all the current committees, who's on them, and what they do.

Board Notes — This page is the repository of notes of past Board Meetings. (Note: these are not the formal minutes; they are a condensed, more readable version intended for our membership.)

If you have general questions about the Board (or really, any question about the organization), feel free to send an email to any of the committees or, if you think your question is of general interest, post it on our members' mailing list.

And if you'd like to be considered to fill one of the open seats on the Board, please email the Elections Committee, at elections [at] origamiusa.org.

Update 2011-08-23: On August 3rd, 2011, the Board voted to amend the bylaws to change the number of Local and Remote seats from 7 Local, 4 Remote, to 6 Local, 5 Remote, thereby converting one of the open Local seats to a Remote seat. In the same meeting, the Board voted to appoint Jim Weir to the newly created Remote seat. In accordance with the bylaws, Jim will serve a 1-year term, and then his seat (which will continue to be Remote) will be up for election in 2012.

There remain two open Local seats, so interested parties should still contact the elections committee if interested.