What happened at the 6 August 2005 meeting

There were more people there than at any other Society meeting I've been to, including the meeting where the change to the 20 kHz band plan was adopted. The atmosphere was tense, but controlled.

The pending vote by mail amendment, which was finally voted on in accordance with the rules, was defeated with 79 yes votes to 144 no. Other bylaws amendments that were pending included an increase in the dues from $10 to $15 a year, which was adopted; deletion of the requirement for a nondisclosure agreement, which was adopted; and adopting a fee for coordination, which I had made as a way to pay for the vote by mail amendment and which I requested and received permission to withdraw from the membership after the defeat of the vote by mail amendment made it unnecessary.

The Gang of Three had a surprise ready: they came in with 86 proxy votes for their slate. There was a lot of wrangling over whether they would be accepted, and the membership finally voted to hold them until legal advice could be sought. As it happened, though, the issue didn't matter: when the votes of those present were counted, the slate put forth by the Committee to Save the Texas VHF-FM Society won by more than 86 votes, so the proxies wouldn't make a difference even if they were counted. The Society's lawyer later said that they should not be, in any case. The complete totals can be found on the Society's web site.

The membership voted to indemnify its officers from expenses related to the Gang of Three's lawsuit and to only accept any settlement that protects its officers' interests as well as its own.

The membership also adopted a bylaws amendment to mandate the same advance notice provisions for bylaws amendments as were already in place for amendments to the Articles of Incorporation. This will prevent, once and for all, members from blind-siding the Society with bylaws amendments at the last moment, in a meeting they can pack to get them rammed through, as the Gang of Three did in January 2005.

The meeting was long, loud, and contentious, but in the end the membership spoke loud and clear, and what it said was a resounding no to the Gang of Three and its program.