The SOP was originally adopted at the first meeting of the Council. The four task groups ("meeting", "regions", "communications", etc. during the formative year prior to reorganization) were charged to provide content, but 3 of the 4 never produced anything in writing. These are the bracketed sections in the original SOP. In the March 7, 2015, revision of the SOP, you will see that these sections have been completed.
The election procedures are made specific to make it easier to follow them in the future. Look closely and you will see that the dates can be adjusted, specially if the FNPS Annual Meeting date or Sabal Minor deadline change in the future. Much of the timing (two-weeks prior to the April 1 Sabal Minor deadline) is to allow time to publish the candidate names in the Sabal Minor and complete election prior to the FNPS Annual Meeting. Sabal Minor publication is NOT a requirement of the FNPS Bylaws, but it is in the spirit of transparency that FNPS members and the public understand that Council elections are occurring and not taking place in a back room.
An addendum contains a sample email for the March 15 election announcement (opening self-nominations) and we will create another sample email for the April 15 election announcement (opening the online voting for Reps). This will make it easier to administer future administration of Council votes, creating a "standard".
Finally, there were a few additional language changes to re-emphasize that Council Officers are also Council Directors on the Board, AKA the DUAL role of Council Officer-Directors. We omitted the option to have six Reps, i.e., 3 Officers plus 3 additional Directors. Some on the SOP Committee felt that the language concerning Council-Board relations was too acquiescent; others felt that it was important to emphasize a cooperative, trusting tone in the language. All agreed that it is important to correctly express the powers and limitation of powers based in both the language and the intent written into the FNPS Bylaws
http://www.forum.fnps.org/index.php/topic,931.0.html.
The file ending in R11 below is the March 7, 2015, revision posted on the Council site (meaning the SOP Committee edited it 11 times). Once officially adopted by the Reps (after the election) we can give it a proper revision name. The original version is and will be available for comparison with the current version if anyone wishes to compare them. There is any easy link to the original version
http://council.fnpschapters.org/index.php?id=standard-operating-procedures from the current version
http://council.fnpschapters.org/index.php?id=standard-operating-procedures-1 on the Council website.
