Chair’s Update – March 2024

Greetings! On behalf of the entire CDS Board of Directors, I’d like to thank our Members for their thoughtful feedback and input to the revised bylaws that we discussed in January, approved and presented in February, and which were ratified during the special meeting of the general membership on March 25, 2024. The Board’s Governance Committee, led by Secretary Lisa Gilchrist, did a terrific job clarifying the bylaws and addressing barriers to board service commitments, professionalization, and empowerment of both Directors and Members in organizational governance.

As reported during that meeting, the next steps for the Board of Directors is to determine how best to transition from the previous bylaws to the new bylaws, particularly regarding the upcoming Board nominations and election process. The Governance Committee holds a clear intention to honor current terms of office while launching the new terms of office with staggering provisions for ongoing continuity. This may require a combination of appointments to one-year terms, voluntary early completion of current terms, and elections to vacancies. We will keep you posted as these procedural decisions are made and the Nominations process begins for the 2024 election cycle.

Following that task, the Governance Committee will turn its attention to aligning the CDS Policies and Operating Guidelines (POG) with the revised bylaws. We appreciate your patience with this “critical path” order of operations and hope to complete this work in advance of the Annual Business Meeting in July.

I deeply appreciate the Board’s commitment and follow-through to these organizational development tasks—while not terribly exciting, these efforts strengthen our Society and generate the robust and stable foundation we need to deliver Member services and advance our mission!