Terry Caldwell can now be referred to as the “chair” of the Battlefords Chamber of Commerce.
At a special membership meeting held on Tuesday night, the Battlefords Chamber approved bylaw changes that will impact the structure of the board, from the top down.
The title of Chamber “president” is being replaced by “chair.”
Titles are being changed from president, first vice-president, second vice-president and past-president to chair, vice-chair and second vice-chair and past-chair, respectively.
As well, the executive director’s title is being changed to chief operating officer.
The board of directors is being reduced from 20 directors down to 15, with seven members retiring each year instead of 10. The past chair will automatically be appointed a member of the board.
The past-chair, chair, vice-chair, second vice-chair and one other member elected from the board will constitute the executive committee.
As well, a minimum of two directors on the board must be from Battleford, RM of North Battleford, RM of Battle River or RM of Meota. This was one of several provisions included to ensure the bylaws covered the entire service area of the Battlefords chamber.
In practice, however, the Chamber has already had representation on the board from outside North Battleford for years.
There are other changes as well, impacting such things as signing authority, as well as notification of members. That latter provision has been updated to allow for electronic notification.
One item not included in the bylaws was term limits for directors, where directors would b required to stand down from the board after serving a number of consecutive terms.
That had been discussed at previous meetings and could still go ahead as a policy change at the board level, but not as a bylaw change.
The reasons for the bylaw changes are many, according to the Battlefords Chamber’s Chief Operating Officer Linda Machniak.
One reason is the desire by the Chamber to be nationally accredited and the organization has embarked on that process with the Canadian chamber.
“The Chamber has decided that they would like to achieve that accreditation,” said Machniak.
That meant updating the bylaws to meet those requirements.
The Battlefords Chamber also wanted to modernize their bylaws, to “include more business-friendly titles for our officers and executive staff,” said Machniak.
The vote on the bylaw provisions carried with little debate Tuesday. However, the changes had been discussed at length at previous Battlefords Chamber board meetings over the last several months.
With the bylaw passed Tuesday, the changes can start to take effect immediately, but the full extent will not be felt for several months.
The most immediate change will be on the operations side, as officials can begin to use the new titles such as “chair” and “chief operating officer” immediately. But there will be time for business cards to get printed and for the rest of changes to be rolled out.
As for reducing the board from 20 to 15, that will not happen until the next election cycle scheduled for December 2018. Details of how that will happen are still to be worked out within the Chamber.
