Home › Forums › Officers – PRIVATE FORUM › Member vs Officer vs Region
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Interesting question. IMO, without a doubt, a region president must be a member of the region he/she represents. With regard to an office other than president, I would recommend against it, however if the reason were based on a lack of interest or enough membership in a particular reason, such would be an extenuating circumstance.
Difficult to form a strong opinion without any of the background information.
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Just sent emails about this. Instinctively my own answer would be yes, but it’s not really stipulated. It’s a good question, perhaps obvious to some, but you can see how it actually can happen. It’s probably something that should be in the bylaws. But since it affects regions, we should let the board decide. Perhaps we can discuss on our next call and have the group make that decision. Is it in one of your officers who doesn’t live in your region, or is someone in your region an officer somewhere else?
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We’d have to be careful about trying to dictate what any region does – as they are separate entities.
The question I have is the same as City’s – what’s driving someone out of the area being an officer. It’s weird – but I am not sure it’s our concern. I’d sure LIKE to have the President be “local” – but again – the region has their own charter, incorporation and bylaws.
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trying to understand the logic too unless they are a winter traveler or timeshare. But a Regional President obviously has to be a member of the region. Any other region one may join is up to them. As long as the level of service is being done within the Region they are President over. I do not see this as an issue as long as the members are happy.
Bruce
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According to our Bylaws:
Section 9 Region Officers/Leaders
Region Officers are the President, Vice President, Secretary and Treasurer of a region. A Region may also establish other subordinate leadership titles, directorships, coordinators, or other organized structure. The Region Officers shall oversee the operations of each Region. The Region President will be a Member of the National Board.
The VOA bylaws doesn’t stipulate that a regional officer must be a member of a local region in question. It’s assumed to be the case but we know what happens when we ass*u*me.
I think this is also going to come down to a regions’ specific bylaws. The regions are independent entities affiliated with the VOA. They are not subsidiaries of the VOA and the VOA’s governance of regions when it comes to their leadership structure is limited. After all, it may be possible that the VOA’s requirements for regional officers may conflict with the local regions’ bylaws pertaining to officers. I don’t think the VOA can govern the organizational structure of an independent corporation.
I do believe that regional officers must be members of the local region. Unless there’s an extenuating circumstance that requires leadership help from neighboring regions the officers should be local to that region.
One of the things that concerns me is the lack of an agreement or contract between the national VOA and VOA regions. There is none. Which makes it difficult to enforce items such as this issue. For that matter, how does the VOA know that the regions’ bylaws are in compliance with it’s own bylaws?
I’m not trying to stir the pot or make this topic bigger than it should be but these are those little sticky cow-pies some other organization stepped on and we know what happened as a result. But it would be a good start to collect the bylaws from VOA regions and make certain they match up with National, at least.
On this topic, I would recommend amending our bylaws to stipulate that region officer positions must be made of local members in that region unless an extenuating circumstance dictates otherwise.
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I fully agree that a President should be from the region he represents. No problem. My question is about the other officers. In my case, specifically about my VP. She wasn’t showing up on my master membership list. I thought she just had not got around to joining. When I asked her if she was going to join she stated that she had joined. What I determined is that she has 2 homes, one in AZ and one in Ill. She used her Ill address to register. She received her membership number. She travels a lot to racing venues and is gone from AZ quite a bit. No problem on the surface. However, when a person registers in a different region their dues are sent to the region they are assigned to based to on their address and not to the region they represent. By the way, her husband is also the Club secretary. When I talked with her she said she was going to call Alex. She also commented that she might join both regions. This would be an easy solution. My thoughts are that Club officers should be full members of the region they represent first and if they want to be a part of another region they could join the other region as a full member or an associate member. I didn’t know if anyone else experienced this Officer vs home Region anomaly and thought I’d get some feedback. I appreciate the conversation and look forward to the consensus guidance.
Thanks, BarrySmoknTires said:
Just sent emails about this. Instinctively my own answer would be yes, but it's not really stipulated. It's a good question, perhaps obvious to some, but you can see how it actually can happen. It's probably something that should be in the bylaws. But since it affects regions, we should let the board decide. Perhaps we can discuss on our next call and have the group make that decision. Is it in one of your officers who doesn't live in your region, or is someone in your region an officer somewhere else? -
The dual solution – join both regions – is the right one – and I have to agree – the “main” region (i.e. where her membership roster should be) should be where she’s an officer.
I think that is an excellent resolution.
(And one I hadn’t quite considered – just call me “one house Janni”) 😀
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Can a VOA member of one region be an officer in a different region? I just discovered this situation and would like an official position.
Thanks, Barry
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