Hello, Fellow FIA Members,
As part of the 2022 virtual affiliate convention program, our annual business meeting will be held this Saturday, June 25, from 10:00 a.m. to 11:15 a.m. Central time. Via zoom. Registered ACB members will be receiving the information independently once ACB National has received your registration.
We will be updating the constitution so that our current voting practices are more compliant with ACB. We will also be electing board members. Please join us for this important meeting and lend us your input and your vote.
Questions and comments: Contact president@friendsinart.org
Summary of proposed changes to FIA constitution
(Courtesy Michael Byington et al of FIA’s Constitution Committee
A summary of proposed amendments is as follows.
In Article I, add “of the American Council of the Blind” after the Friends In Art Name. A new Article 2 is then added to document that FIA is an affiliate of the American Council of the Blind (ACB). All articles then drop down by one number. These new, dropped down numbers will be used in the remainder of this report.
Article 3 adds the words “and visually impaired” after the word “blind.” It also adds a more detailed definition of “all forms of art.”
Article 4 amendments make the Treasurer, instead of the Secretary, responsible for the receipt of membership applications and money.
Currently, the Constitution says that the membership year begins with the calendar year. An Amendment would make the FIA Board responsible for setting the membership year.
Article 7 deals with meetings. The current wording states that an annual meeting should be scheduled around the time of other ACB meetings. Amendatory language is proposed to clarify that the ACB meeting referenced is the National conference and Convention.
The quorum number is changed from 15 to 10.
The only amendatory language proposed for Article 8, which relates to voting, establishes that voting may be via electronic meetings, in-person meetings, or a combination meeting with members attending either by electronic means or in person.
Article ten establishes the rules for amending the Constitution. It currently requires notice of 50 days given to the Secretary concerning proposed amendments, and requires the Secretary to distribute the proposed amendments to the membership 30 days before an official meeting. The proposed amendment would change the time to 30 days before an official meeting for the amendments to get to the Secretary, and would require the Secretary to cause the amendments to be posted to the FIA Website two weeks in advance of an official meeting.
Current IRS policies require that Constitutions of 501(C)(3) Organizations have a dissolution clause. The FIA Constitution does not have one. We thus need to add one and one is proposed as a new Article. Article 11 would state that if FIA is dissolved, any money in the treasury would go to ACB with designation for use in promoting the arts at ACB meetings. If ACB has been dissolved at the time FIA dissolves, then the FIA Board is to designate an organization or organizations having similar goals and purposes as FIA to receive the money.