More about the Steering Committee

"The Steering Committee" is familiar to most of our members, but since there is an election this month, we felt this was a good time to expain how it came about, and the reasons for its peculiar design.
Last Spring, before elections were held, there was a meeting of people interested in the development of OWA's government. Like me, they were mostly people with a distrust of "Executive Committees" as they are conventionally formed, and we felt that in order to keep our interest in the OWA we might try to design a system that we would be able to enjoy.

We knew, first of all that we needed some kind of organization because of the experiences of Boston's Womens group as related to us by Dolores Hayden. Her warnings to us last winter made some of the members argue for a leadership as broadly based as possible to make sure it represented a consensus of the membership. Others felt that the officers should be of a specific rather than a ceremonial character, i.e., not "President" or "Sargent-at-Arms."

So the Steering Committee was created with five equal members and five alternates. The five original tasks were Treasurer, Education Coordinator, Publicity Coordinator, Employment Coordinator, and Publisher. Members were duly elected and meetings began. We soon discovered the advantages of having the alternates function as regular members. Finally we added two student members and wrote up the BY-Laws in the form approved in December.

The Committee functions very well and so far the original goals have become fact as explained below:
1. Administrative duties are shared in rotation among the Steering Committee members, who occasionally deligate things to others from the general membership_ Each Committee member acts as chairman and organizer of one general meeting, arranges for food. Each member generally offers her house for one of the meetings. Each member is editor of the Newsletter for one month. Each member volunteers (hopefully) to take notes at a meeting.
2. There are always plenty of ideas and all sides of any question are aired, much as at general OWA meetings. Decisions are made after discussion by concensus.
3. Each Committee member has a special ongoing project in addition to shared administration. Some of these Jobs will probably expand into task forces as OWA gets older. New projects will arise, such as our Calendar and the Board Membership in ESCMT.
4. No one is really overworked, though many work very hard and each project is potentially time consuming and we all feel that more could be accomplished. A great deal of help has come from OWA members and our group depends members contributions to the Newletter. As more members become ex-members of the Steering Committee, they will surly continue to be helpful.

This design can accommodate a large membership. As of this moment the Committee constitutes about one third of the membership. Thus a high proportion of OWA members are involved which should continue to keep OWA alive and growing.

This is the second rough draft of the Bylaws of the OWA :