MAZAMA BYLAWS: Proposed Amendments

Written by Aimee Filimoehala, Mazama Vice President
Printed in the January/February 2021 Mazama Bulletin

The Mazama Executive Council endorses the following proposed amendments to the bylaws. Updating and modernizing the bylaws will allow the organization to attract many new like-minded members, to improve operational efficiency, and to take a definitive step toward increasing diversity and inclusivity in the Executive Council, which is critical for a modern council’s decision-making ability. Understanding the reasoning for these bylaw changes will be facilitated by a town hall meeting in early spring. A special election to vote on the bylaw changes will be held in early May 2021. We continue to look to our past for a foundation, while also reaching to the future as we aspire to challenge ourselves to be better.

Glaciated Peak

According to our current bylaws, an individual must summit a glaciated peak to qualify for Mazama membership. The original intent of this requirement served to foster a sense of community and ensured that all Mazamas shared a love for the mountains. There has been an ongoing and genuine interest from nonmembers to become part of our member community while enjoying outdoor activities being offered through the Mazamas, including:

      • Hiking, backpacking, snowshoeing, and rambling
      • Rock climbing
      • Skiing (Nordic and Backcountry)
      • Canyoneering
      • Outings

Removing the requirement of summiting a glaciated peak allows us to:

      • Remove a barrier to becoming a Mazama, which is in line with the council’s goal to make it easier for participants that share the values of the organization to actively participate in and contribute to the Mazama experience.
      • Directly support our mission of inspiring everyone to love and protect the mountains.
      • Advance efforts of inclusiveness and diversity in our organization regardless of socioeconomic status, physical abilities, age, and outdoor interests.
      • Increase membership while improving both political presence and financial stability.

Our identity is preserved through our behavior and established culture. Other well-established mountaineering organizations such as the American Alpine Club and The Mountaineers have no such requirement and are still considered climbing organizations by their members and the larger community. The Mazamas will continue to recognize climbing achievements through badges and awards, including:

      • Completing the Basic Education Climbing Program,
      • Completing the Intermediate Climbing School,
      • Completing Advanced Rock
      • Summiting a Glaciated Peak,
      • Summiting the Guardian Peaks
      • Summiting the Seven Oregon Peaks
      • Summiting the 16 Northwest Peaks

Operations

Recent unpredictable and unavoidable events have highlighted limitations in conducting day-to-day business given our existing bylaws. In order to improve our ability to comply with bylaws while operating effectively, the Executive Council is recommending we separate some of the day to day operational structure currently dictated in the bylaws into a separate operations document. Recommended changes to the bylaws will:

      • Change the name of the Executive Council to the Board of Directors (Board), and its members will be board members or directors;
      • Allow board communication by electronic means according to Oregon law as needed;
      • Remove the requirement for two authorized signers for all financial transactions and allow the Executive Director or an authorized officer to sign for expenses up to $1,000;
      • Move the creation and management of committees to conduct essential work to an operations document.

Board Makeup

The existing Mazama Bylaws require board members to be a Mazama member in good standing for at least three years. A recommendation to emphasize skillset, applicable experiences, and diverse backgrounds vs. length of time within the organization is being made. The practical needs of our organization require knowledge and proficiency in specialized areas such as fundraising, accounting, and law, to name a few. With the current requirements, we have severely limited our ability to find and recruit the talent that is needed for our board. If we remove these requirements and instead place value on experience vs. length of time with the Mazamas, we will be able to recruit highly skilled board candidates and improve confidence in our members that we are operating in their and the community’s best interests.

Recommended changes to the board makeup include:

      • Removal of the requirement for three years of continuous Mazama membership to run for the board. These nine board members will still need to be voted in by the membership.
      • Three additional board members, who need not be Mazama members, will be appointed by the nine board members for their special skills or experiences, including their connections in the broader non-Mazama community, and they will share the same voting rights and responsibilities. Appointments will be made for three-year terms with the exception of the initial appointments. To stagger vacancies and to provide continuity, the initial appointments will be: first appointee for 1 year; second appointee for 2 years; and third appointee for three years.

Keep an eye out for the official voter guide in the March/April Bulletin. We will be holding a virtual town hall meeting on Wednesday, March 24, 2021, to discuss the proposed bylaw amendments.

If you have questions or comments about the bylaws, please email bylaws@mazamas.org.

Mazama Members: Two Proposed Bylaws Changes

by Steve Hooker, Mazama President
On your Mazama ballot this fall you’ll find two proposed bylaw changes regarding dues. Dues were last increased more than 10 years ago while cumulative inflation over that period has been nearly 20 percent.
The first proposed bylaw change would increase dues from $60 to $72 per year for regular members. Students, members over 60 who have been members for 5 years, and spouses or domestic partners of regular members would still pay half this rate, or $36 per year. If approved by our membership this change would go into effect for new members in October 2016 and in 2017 for those renewing.
Your Executive Council unanimously supports this proposal and here are a few of the reasons why:
  • The Mazamas is a financially healthy organization in part because we have several different sources of income. While program fees, contributions, and grants from the community continue to grow, member dues still represent about 12 percent of our annual revenue. This is down from 19% in 2006.
  • Even as dues have remained unchanged for ten years, expenses like insurance, utilities, maintenance, supplies, and outside services have gone up each year.
  • The Mazama Mountaineering Center serves more than twice the number of events, classes, and programs than in 2006 when we operated out of the old space at NW 19th and Kearney.
  • We are midway through our strategic plan that is delivering many improvements, not the least of which is a new IT system that will automate much of what is done manually today. We’ll finally be able to do away with paper climb cards!

The second proposed bylaw change would allow Executive Council to raise dues periodically without a bylaw revision. However any increase would be limited to no more than 3 percent per year cumulatively. For example if Executive Council thought an increase in dues was necessary in October 2021 dues could go up to no more than $81 ($72 x 1.03 x 1.03 x 1.03 x 1.03).
This proposed bylaw change is also unanimously supported by your Executive Council.
You will be asked to consider each proposed bylaw change separately. Thus you could vote for both (the recommendation of Executive Council), neither, or one but not the other.
I hope you will agree that the Mazamas provides an outstanding value for both our members and the community that we serve.
Please feel free to share your comments or feedback with me at stevehooker@mazamas.org
Thank you,
Steve Hooker
Mazamas President