Bylaws of the Gulf Coast Division of the United States Fencing Association

This page is reserved for the current Bylaws of the Gulf Coast Texas Division of the USFA. The Webmaster regrets that he has never received any document which can truthfully be called the entire and correct current Bylaws of the Division.

This situation began with the July 31, 2005 special meeting of the members of the Division.

A broad-based group of eight people referred to as the "bylaw committee", who did not yet have any official status elevating them above any other group or individual, brought a draft of proposed replacement Bylaws, known as the "July 23rd draft", to the meeting. To the first approximation, the meeting adopted that draft as the Bylaws of the Division. But, the full truth was more complicated. The Division didn't actually do a complete and finished job of adopting new Bylaws.

The minutes of the July 31st, 2005 meeting are available on this Web site. They were available in a different draft not too long after the meeting itself, and were entertained at the the April 1st, 2006 annual meeting, but the meeting took no action to adopt or revise them because an objection to the draft was voiced (which doesn't relate to what the Bylaws actually are) and the assembly decided that there wasn't information available to decide about the objection, but decided that there would be on a future occasion. That future occasion was the March 24, 2007 meeting, at which the assembly received an explanation for the apparent inaccuracy in the July 2005 minutes. The meeting ordered that that minutes be accepted with the questioned section revised, enhanced to show that the motion actually uttered was not what was in the draft, but that the question put to the assembly actually was what appeared in the original draft. This one section was the only question of accuracy of the minutes which was ever raised, and it only concerned the exact text of a motion which did not pass.

Those minutes explain that the vast majority of the "July 23rd draft" was adopted verbatim. Of what was not adopted verbatim, a big part was adopted with explicitly specified emendations. The problem is the rest, where the membership ordered that the draft be altered in appropriate fashion as to achieve specific objectives but where the membership did not provide any words! The membership implicitly ordered the bylaw committee to take the "July 23rd draft" with the alterations made in the meeting, and then do whatever was necessary and appropriate to achieve the remaining orders of the membership which were not accompanied by actual words which could be used as Bylaws. The minutes say: "By general consent, this was assumed to include authorizing the bylaw committee to prepare actual wording for such portions of the draft Bylaws for which the assembly has passed motions stating the philosophy which needed to be embodied in the Bylaws but not specifying actual wording."

Now, we get the the heart of the problem. The last draft to come out of the bylaw committee (not available on this Web site) was produced on July 29, 2006, but the bylaw committee still had not yet finished the job of coming into compliance with the orders of the membership!

In summary, in the eyes of the law, we know what 95% of our Bylaws are, word for word, but we still do not yet have a complete copy of our current Bylaws because the bylaw committee has yet to complete the job which it was given by the membership on July 31, 2005. Until that happens, nobody has given the Webmaster, and nobody can give the Webmaster, a complete and correct copy of the current Bylaws.

Notwithstanding being unable to know the complete and exact wording of the Bylaws, it nonetheless is possible to know what the meaning of the Bylaws is. Anyone can do this, by reading the complete "July 23rd draft" as submitted to the July 31, 2005 meeting, then noting the limited portions where the membership ordered the adoption of specific replacement wording, and then noting the remaining wishes of the membership which were ordered but never phrased in terms of how the Bylaws should read.

For further information about why there still is not yet a complete and accurate version of the Bylaws, please consult the bylaw committee.

For any assistance concerning what it is that the current Bylaws must say, even if the exact words are not known, feel free to contact any Officer of the Division. The Officers should be able to answer your questions, and also point to why the answers are true, either personally or by procuring that information for you.