Ven-Mar Neighborhood Association

Ven-Mar NA Meeting held on Tuesday, November 9, 2004

Nov 11, 2004

The meeting took place at the Walgrove Avenue School. It was mainly concerned with the Ven-Mar Association Bylaws. Six members were present when Alex Utas opened the meeting at 7:20 pm. Three more members came in later. Also present were visitors who observed the proceedings to satisfy a requirement of a Master?’s degree program.

Copies of the 2002 Bylaws were distributed. Two members claimed that at the Ven-Mat meeting held on 6/4/2002, which they recalled attending, the Bylaws had not been approved, as was maintained by the Chair. The meeting went on to review the disputed bylaws and came up with the following points:

?· Article 1, Section 1: "Mission"
The first two sentences are misplaced and should be moved to another Section, leaving the Mission statement to read simply: ?“The Ven-Mar Neighborhood Association was created to improve and maintain the community?’s quality of life.?” The chair explained that the criticized text was included as a result of input from a corporate law attorney.

?· Article 1, Section 4: "How to Become an Active Member"
What constitutes ?“residence?” needs defining. After some debate which failed to produce a satisfactory definition, Rick Selan volunteered to seek help from Greg Nelson, Director of the Department of Neighborhood Empowerment.
The expression, ?“active member?” needs to be changed to ?“voting member?” wherever it appears in the text, mainly in Article 1, Section 4.
?· The Bylaws should be submitted to the Center for Nonprofit Management (606 S. Olive St., Suite 2450, Los Angeles 90014) for legal review as to compliance with the regulations governing tax-exempt non-profit organizations. No-one volunteered to do this.

AU