INTRODUCTION. The deadline to submit proposals to the Glasgow 2024 Business Meeting was July 10. The formal agenda will be out soon, but in the meantime the movers of 15 submitted items have provided copies for publication and discussion on File 770.

“Meetings, Meetings, Everywhere” proposes to allow additional “‘mini Business Meetings’” to be held throughout the year, which can be attended by anyone holding a WSFS membership in that year. It defines what’s required for those meetings to happen, and what they can do.

These would be “Secondary Meetings”, while the “Primary Business Meeting” continues to happen in person at a Worldcon. The legislative powers of Secondary Meetings would be to propose and vote on amendments to business present on the agenda passed by the Primary Meeting, for items on their first year of passage only. Secondary Meetings would be able to ratify or reject business in its second year of ratification.

The proposal also removes the “physically present” requirement from the relevant rules and replaces it with “verifiably present”.

An additional motion proposes changes to the Standing Rules to reconcile them to the main motion. It also strikes the ban on proxy voting from the Standing Rules.

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SHORT TITLE: MEETINGS, MEETINGS, EVERYWHERE

Moved, to amend the Constitution by adding and removing text as follows:

1.5.3: The rights of WSFS members who have an attending supplement of a Worldcon include the rights of WSFS members plus the right of general attendance at said Worldcon and at any duly organized the WSFS Business Meetings held thereat.

Section 2.1: Duties. Each Worldcon Committee shall, in accordance with this Constitution, provide for

(1) administering the Hugo Awards,

(2) administering any future Worldcon or NASFiC site selection required, and

(3) holding a WSFS Business Meeting supporting WSFS Business Meetings as provided for in section <TBD>.

Section 2.3: Official Representative. Each future selected Worldcon Committee shall designate an official representative to the Primary Business Meeting to answer questions about their Worldcon.

Section 2.9: Financial Reports.

2.9.1: Each future selected Worldcon or NASFiC Committee shall submit an annual financial report, including a statement of income and expenses, to each Primary WSFS Business Meeting after the Committee’s selection.

2.9.2: Each Worldcon or NASFiC Committee shall submit a report on its cumulative surplus/loss at the next each Primary Business Meeting after its convention until all surplus is expended or all debt discharged.

2.9.4: In the event of a surplus, the Worldcon or NASFiC Committee, or any alternative organizational entity established to oversee and disburse that surplus, shall file annual financial reports regarding the disbursement of that surplus at each year’s Business Meeting, until the surplus is totally expended or an amount equal to the original surplus has been disbursed.

4.1.4: The site-selection voting totals shall be announced at the currently seated Business Meeting and published in the first or second Progress Report of the winning Committee, with the by-mail and at-convention votes distinguished.

Article 5 – Powers of the Business Meeting

Section 5.1: WSFS Business Meetings.

5.1.1: Primary Business Meetings of WSFS shall be held at advertised times at each Worldcon. Secondary Business Meetings of WSFS may be held throughout the year, so long as each such meeting is announced at least two weeks before its date and is attended by a quorum of WSFS members.

5.1.2: The current Worldcon Committee shall provide the Presiding Officer and Staff for each Primary Meeting.

5.1.3: Standing Rules for the Governance of the Primary Business Meeting and related activities may be adopted or amended by a majority vote at any Primary Business Meeting.

Amendments to Standing Rules shall take effect at the close of the Worldcon where they are adopted; this rule may be suspended by a two-thirds (2/3) vote.

5.1.4: Primary Meetings shall be conducted in accordance with the provisions of (in descending order of precedence) the WSFS Constitution; the Standing Rules; such other rules as may be published in advance by the current Committee (which rules may be suspended by the Business Meeting by the same procedure as a Standing Rule); the customs and usages of WSFS (including the resolutions and rulings of continuing effect); and the current edition of Robert’s Rules of Order, Newly Revised.

5.1.5: The quorum for the any Business Meeting shall be twelve members of the Society physically verifiably present. Verification of membership for attendees shall be the responsibility of the administering organization.

5.1.6: Deadline for Submission of New Business. The deadline for submission of non-privileged new business and committee reports to the Primary Business Meeting shall be thirty (30) days before the first Preliminary Meeting. Proposed agenda items may be withdrawn by the consent of all proposing members at any time up to fourteen (14) days before the published deadline for submitting new business. A list of such withdrawn business must be made available to the membership. The Presiding Officer may accept otherwise qualified motions and reports submitted after the deadline, but all such motions shall initially be placed at the end of the agenda. This rule may be suspended by a two-thirds (2/3) vote.

5.1.X: Secondary Meetings shall have the ability to propose and vote on amendments to business present on the agenda passed by the Primary Meeting, for items on their FIRST year of passage only. Secondary Meetings shall only be able to ratify or reject business in its SECOND year of ratification, and shall provide vote tallies to the Primary Meeting for inclusion in votes on those items.

Section 5.2: Continuation of Committees. Except as otherwise provided in this Constitution, any committee or other position created by a Primary Business Meeting shall lapse at the end of the next following Business Meeting that does not vote to continue it.

Section 5.3: Constitutional Pass-along. Within sixty (60) days after the end of each Worldcon, the Business Meeting staff shall send a copy of all changes to the Constitution and Standing Rules, and all items awaiting ratification, to the next Worldcon Committee

Section 6.6: Amendment. The WSFS Constitution may be amended by a motion passed by a simple majority at any Business Meeting but only to the extent that such motion is ratified by a simple majority at the Business Meeting of the subsequent Worldcon. The WSFS Constitution may be amended by any motion passed by a simple majority of votes aggregated across the Primary and Secondary Business Meetings, provided that it shall be ratified in the same form and in the same manner in the subsequent year. Should the item be amended by Secondary Meetings during the first year and these amendments adopted by the Primary Meeting, then the item shall be be considered thusly:

(1) If the amendments reduce the scope of change of the motion, as determined by the Primary Meeting, then the item shall be in its second year of ratification as amended.

(2) If the amendments increase the scope of change of the motion, as determined by the Primary Meeting, then the item shall once again be in its first year of ratification.

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Moved, to amend the Standing Rules by adding and removing text as follows:

Rule 1.1: Meeting and Session. The Primary Annual Meeting of the World Science Fiction Society shall consist of one or more Preliminary Business Meetings and one or more Main Business Meetings. The first meeting shall be designated as a Preliminary Business Meeting. All meetings at a Worldcon (preliminary, main, or otherwise) shall be considered a single “session” as defined in the Parliamentary Authority (see Section 5.1 of the WSFS Constitution), regardless of whether such gatherings are called “meetings” or “sessions.”

Rule 1.3: Main Business Meeting(s). The Main Business Meeting may reject, pass, or ratify amendments to the Constitution, including all reported vote counts from Secondary Meetings in any vote tallies to be taken. One Main Meeting shall be also be designated as the Site-Selection Meeting, where Site-Selection business shall be the special order of business.

Rule 1.X: Duties of the Meetings The Primary Business Meeting shall debate, amend, and ratify motions discussed at the previous year’s Secondary Meetings as appropriate. The Primary Business Meeting shall also set the agenda for discussion in Secondary Meetings between Primary Meetings.

Rule 2.2: Requirements for Submission of New Business. Two hundred (200) identical, legible copies of all proposals for non-privileged new business shall be submitted to the Presiding Officer before the deadline in Section 5.1.6 of the WSFS Constitution, unless such proposals are distributed to the attendees at the Worldcon by the Worldcon Committee. All proposals must be legibly signed by a maker and at least one seconder. Any proposals being submitted on behalf of a properly constituted Secondary Meeting shall be accepted as new business, unless they contravene other Constitutional requirements.

Rule 5.1: Nonstandard Parliamentary Authority. If a Worldcon Committee adopts for the governance of the Business Meeting a parliamentary authority other than that specified in the Constitution, the Committee must in timely fashion publish information about how to obtain copies of the authority in question. Secondary Meetings may adopt any democratic governance procedure, provided that the procedure is included in the Meeting announcement and that it is readily available to prospective attendees.

Rule 7.9: Proxy and remote voting. Only WSFS members physically verifiably present at the any Business Meeting shall be recognized for purposes of debate, or may move, second, or vote on motions on the floor of the meeting. Proxy voting is not permitted.

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SPONSORS: Kate Secor, Kevin Sonney

DISCUSSION: Basically what this does is allow “mini Business Meetings” throughout the year, which can be attended by anyone holding a WSFS membership in that year, as long as someone wants to do the legwork and paperwork to hold them. It defines what’s required for those meetings to happen, and what they can do. It also allows the secondary Meetings to run on something other than Roberts Rules, which means they can serve as laboratory experiments for seeing if there is anything else that might serve.

However, this motion does preserve the primacy of the Primary Business Meeting, which will continue to happen in person at a Worldcon. The new timeline of the Meeting would look like this:

The Primary Meeting is the intake point for new motions, just like it is now, but new motions are not discussed at that meeting.

At the last Primary Meeting of the year, the Meeting will agree on the agenda for next year – including “business passed on” and new items to be debated throughout the year by any Secondary Meetings that may happen. This ensures that the Secondary Meetings have a consistent set of items to discuss. While Secondary Meetings may propose new business, these items will be treated like any other proposal of the membership.

Over the course of the year, Secondary Meetings may or may not happen, at which the agenda set by the prior Primary Meeting is discussed and results returned to the existing Business Meeting staff.

At the next year’s Worldcon, the Primary Business Meeting takes up the agenda set the year before for first or second passage, and sets the agenda for the next year. The timelines for proposing new business would remain the same, but the function of the Preliminary Business Meeting of triaging the motions proposed would happen at the end of the Meeting for next year’s agenda, rather than at the beginning for this year’s.

This allows all WSFS motions to go through a whole year of discussion before the Meeting votes on it. Even if no official Secondary Meetings happen, it is entirely likely that a lively conversation will ensue in several venues. This should help raise the profile of the Constitution as the governing document, and the process for amending it.

Hopefully, on a somewhat selfish note for Primary Meeting attendees, this will also lead to better-considered voting, shorter in-person discussions, and fewer amendments offered from the floor that have not been written out beforehand.