The New BC Societies Act
As of November 2016, the transition process for the new BC Societies Act took effect, which meant that we had to examine our current constitution and bylaws in order to properly comply with the new rules.
Manda (Executive Director) and Carolyn (Secretary of the Board) went to a great information session held at the Shatford Centre in Penticton, sponsored by the Community Foundation of the South Okanagan. An expert in the field gave a great presentation on the new rules and outlined the transition process from start to finish - she also provided some resources to refer to along the way. All BC Societies have until November of 2018 to comply.
The Process
A committee was formed, including staff and members of the Board. Together, we sifted through our current constitution and bylaws, and rearranged items according to the new rules.
It was recommended at the workshop that each Society going through this process also examine the content of their bylaws at this time to see if any changes need to be made.
The committee spent several months pouring through the bylaws and discovered that there were some points that might require some clarity, or were redundant, or used outdated or unclear terminology. We took the time to clean up some of the grammatical issues, and made sure that terminology was consistent and clearly defined. Part of the new process is that our official documentation must be digitized and searchable, so we've made sure it's all written up in an easy-to-use .pdf format.
Membership Approval Needed
Now, we're ready to present the changes to our members at our AGM so that they can vote on the new and improved Constitution and Bylaws. Once our members have approved the changes, we can complete the transition process. Hooray!
Check out the changes for yourself!
Here's the official documents that our membership will vote on at our AGM April 26th:
Currently Approved Constitution and Bylaws
Summary of the Proposed Changes
Schedule B may also be a handy resource for your reference. It is the new Societies Act model bylaws, kind of like a template. If any items or conditions are not addressed in a given Society's bylaws, then Schedule B is serves as the standard.