Heads Up: New Bylaws Being Proposed

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Greetings, all.  

Some years ago, we met at a fun Special Meeting at the Black Diamond Library to adopt new Bylaws for the South King County Genealogical Society. These were the result of months of hard work, reading, writing, and consulting with others about how to help our Society work more smoothly. For the most part, we've been happy with the outcome, although virtual meetings have no Black Diamond Bakery cookies 🍪.


Updated Revised Code of Washington

The State of Washington updated the section of the Revised Code of Washington (RCW) governing non-profits a couple of years ago, and our bylaws have not yet fully incorporated these updates.  While reviewing our governing documents, we have also come up with changes we think will make it easier to recruit leadership and streamline the way things work for all Members.

First, the Board has now adopted a few small changes in the Standing Rules, and new policies about conflicts of interest and records retention which officers must sign.

SKCGS Speaker Series

We now have eight "Membership Meetings" per year, although usually there is no official business most of the year outside of the Annual Meeting. Of course we still want to meet and have our wonderful speakers, so we would like to change the name to better describe what we do, which is "SKCGS Speaker Series" for all meetings except Special Meetings and the Annual Meeting. This will mean a lot less work for both our Secretary and Member at Large, who both need to ascertain current Membership before each official meeting to see if there is a quorum, and the Secretary needs to prepare Minutes, even when no business was transacted.

The rest of the changes have to do with new RCWs sections about committees. The Membership will not see any changes there; it is a reclassification.

Finally, we need to update nomination and voting procedures now that we meet virtually. The proposed Bylaws will soon be sent to all Members. We hope you will read and vote to adopt these changes.

Thank you for caring about the wellbeing of our Society and our volunteers!


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Send your stories to m.strickland@skcgs.org


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Valorie Zimmerman



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