USAWA

Hey everyone! Beth Skwarecki here, the new Secretary of USAWA. At our 2024 national meeting, the membership voted in a new rule that splits the Secretary/Treasurer (formerly one position) into two, a Secretary and a Treasurer. I’d like to explain that change, and include some information on how members will interact with these two roles.

Why the change was needed

Briefly: because the Secretary/Treasurer did a ton of work. While the bylaws list five duties performed by the President, four performed by the Vice President, and three performed by At-large board members, there are a whopping fourteen duties assigned to the Secretary/Treasurer.

This may be a suitable workload for some people in some circumstances (honestly, I am impressed by everybody who held this position in the past!) but in 2024 we are a growing organization. Due to this growth, our Secretary/Treasurer has had to deal with increasing numbers of meet sanctions, concerns from membership, etc, while still doing the work of keeping our finances in order.

Eric spoke to me earlier this year to ask if I would be interested in the Secretary/Treasurer position if he were to step down. Upon discussion, we decided to make a proposal to split the roles. This proposal was presented at the national meeting and passed unanimously.

I’ll give an overview of the proposal here, but you can read the full thing in the 2024 national meeting minutes. Several items in the rulebook and bylaws had to be amended, but the most important ones were Article 5, defining the board, and Article 9, defining the duties of the Secretary/Treasurer.

The board still has five members (Article 5)

The Executive Board of the USAWA was, and still is, a group of five people. Under the old bylaws, the board contained these specific five positions:

• President
• Secretary/Treasurer
• Vice President
• At-large member #1
• At-large member #2

With the change, passed during the 2024 national meeting, the board still contains five people, but the four officer roles are separated so that the Secretary and Treasurer are no longer required to be the same person. Any two roles may be combined, so that in the future we could go back to having a combined Secretary/Treasurer if the membership so desires. Or, for example, we could have a President/Secretary and a Treasurer/Vice President plus three at-large members. Any board positions not filled by officers shall be filled by At-large members. There must always be at least one At-large member.

After the membership passed this change to the rules, Eric Todd stepped down as Secretary, while retaining the role of Treasurer. He then nominated me (Beth Skwarecki) to become the new Secretary. (This vote also passed unanimously.) I was already an At-Large member of the board, so the five board seats still belong to the same five people. Next year will be an election year, so this could change. Currently the board seats are as follows (and the positions are elected in this order):

• President (Denny Habecker)
• Secretary (Beth Skwarecki)
• Treasurer (Eric Todd)
• Vice-President (Chad Ullom)
• At-large member (Abe Smith)

Duties of the Secretary and Treasurer (Articles 9 and 10)

The section of the bylaws describing these duties has now been split, with financial duties going to the Treasurer and duties relating to forms, applications, and communication being the purview of the Secretary. Both positions still serve on the board and attend meetings as described in the bylaws.

These are pretty straightforward, but as a member, here are the major things you need to know:

• Meet sanction applications should be sent to the Secretary; if approved, payment should be sent to the Treasurer. (We also removed the requirement for a physical signature on the meet sanction form, so applications can be submitted to the Secretary by email.)
• The Treasurer shall maintain the bank account, negotiate contracts, and perform all other financial duties.
• The Secretary shall maintain records, such as the membership roster and meeting minutes.
• The Secretary shall receive complaints and grievances under Article 20, Part C. We also corrected a grammatical error in that rule, so that it now correctly states:

Any appeal, grievance or complaint by a member must be directed in writing to the USAWA Secretary, who will then present the issue to the Executive Board to be decided by majority vote. Failure to follow this protocol will result in appeals, grievances and complaints not being officially recognized.

The rulebook will be updated soon with these and other recent changes. I also plan to write a few more articles explaining other changes that were (or, in the case of knee sleeves, were not) passed by the membership. Please direct any questions or official communication to me at bethskw@gmail.com.