Bylaws and rules of governance: keeping it all together.

What a daunting task! Who is responsible for the bylaws or Rules of Governance in your state or local? Whom do you ask? Where do you start? How important is it? Let's take a look at these questions and see if we can clear it all up for you.

Whom do you ask? State associations or local societies may ask the trustee in that district to provide a sample (template) of the state bylaws or local rules of governance to use as a guideline. Any member of the Governance Committee will also assist if you have any questions. There is a check-off sheet (012) in the ADAA Manual of Procedures that will give you step-by-step check-off instructions. Ask your District Trustee to provide that for you as well. It's that easy!

Then, you start by retyping the sample, filling in applicable information regarding your state or local. All underlined language MUST be as written, because this is mandatory, approved language passed by the House of Delegates. Then, write a cover letter with pertinent information to include the bylaws author, name of state or local organization, return address, phone number and email address. Email or mail a copy to the bylaws review committee member assigned to your district and your trustee, not Central Office.

Central Office will only need the FINAL. If you do not hear back from your reviewer within 30 days, get in touch with me or your trustee, not Central Office. I will be glad to contact the committee member or review the document for you. After reviewing your document, it will either be approved or sent back to you for corrections. At this point, if there is any mandatory, ADAA underlined language, only your reviewer needs to approve it, and then you send it on to Central Office provided there are no corrections. You do not need to have your membership vote on mandatory underlined language. However, if there is information included that is applicable to your state/local membership that is not mandatory ADAA underlined language, the document will come back to you with a cover sheet having the committee member's name and approval date as well as a line for the date when your membership approves the document at your next General Assembly or House of Delegates. Then, after your membership approves the document, forward a final, approved copy to central office and one to your trustee.

How important is this? In order for your state to seat delegates for Annual Conference, or receive rebates, the bylaws must be in order, especially if there is ADAA underlined language. Any time ADAA makes a change to that underlined language, states/locals must also put the new (underlined) language in their bylaws and then resubmit their bylaws to the proper recipients to be considered "current." In other words, after the Annual Conference House of Delegates votes and passes any bylaws amendments (underlined language), states/locals have one calendar year (January-December) from the date the House of Delegates made the change to get the bylaws in compliance or they will not receive rebates. Nor will they be able to have representation in future Annual Conference House of Delegates until compliance is confirmed.

That's it! Hopefully not as bad as you thought; sometimes it's better just to see the instructions in writing.

I hope this is helpful information for you. If you have questions or concerns, email me at susan. [e-mail]. See you in San Francisco!!!

By Susan Rexroat, CDA, CDPMA, BA 5th District Trustee/Council on Governance

Susan Rexroat, CDA, CDPMA, EDDA, has been active with the ADAA on the national and state level serving on various national committees and as president of the Florida Dental Assistants Association. She is currently Fifth District Trustee and Chair of the Council on Governance. In addition to her duties as an instructor at Traviss Technical Center, Lakeland, Florida, she found time to establish the dental assisting program at her local technical school. She is a graduate of Florida's Polk Community College.