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Memo 4: From By-Laws to Policies
April 12, 2004
Index of Leadership Memos
In my last memo, I explained the rather large step of removing the Program Council from our congregational structure. We anticipate replacing Program Council with the Congregational Councils. As a result, of course, all mention of Program Council has been removed from the proposed By-Laws
The Governance Committee recommended putting these Councils into the By-Laws, and electing Eliot lay leaders to serve on these Councils in an At-Large capacity. In the Board’s continuing conversation around Governance, however, we have decided to govern the Congregational Councils by policies of the Board, rather than including them in the By-Laws. Here’s our reasoning.
Organizational development experts recommend that an organization’s By-Laws be as brief as possible. They should outline the bare essentials of an organization: purpose, Board of Trustees, officers, polity. If By-Laws are too detailed, they can have the effect of constraining an organization rather than supporting its operations. This is just what happened with Program Council.
As another example, our current By-Laws detail the composition and responsibilities of the Religious Education Committee. They do not talk about any other committee, only RE. Because of the way the by-laws are written, the RE Committee cannot fully explore the new Council model they wish to implement. RE is hoping for By-Law revisions to remove these constraints so they can organize themselves in a way that seems to work best for Eliot. And if five years from now they think of a way that is even better, they will be able to move to a new structure efficiently.
If the Board sets up Congregational Councils in their own Policies, then we have much more flexibility to change the Councils to reflect what works best for Eliot. We can set up this “pilot” Social Action Council, and then change the organization if we feel we need to. We don’t have to take every detail of the change to the congregation for a vote, If we put the Councils in the By-Laws, then we would need a congregational vote to change things.
Secondly, the Board feels the At-Large system of congregational representation that was used for Program Council is one if its weaknesses. Instead of people who are involved in a particular area coming together to make plans, we’ve had people elected from the congregation who may or may not be interested in a particular area on the Program Council. We feel the Congregational Councils should be made up of Chairpersons of relevant committees who have some interest in coming together. Our current thinking is that the Board would appoint an overall Chairperson for the Councils, but we could in the future decide to make Council Chairpersons elected positions.
In short, the proposed By-Law revisions remove Program Council, and also remove any mention of the Religious Education Committee, in the interest of allowing the Chapel to fulfill its mission in the most efficent way that lay leadership can now devise. Lay leadership is not going away. We just plan to move the organizational details into Board policies. This has the effect of making our governing structures more responsive to the needs and wishes of the membership.
The next memo will detail some of the other proposed By-Law changes. The By-Law revisions will be available to pick up at Eliot Chapel on Sunday, April 18.