For Prudence & Rebecca.
I went through the meeting minutes and the committee reports against the Constitution and By-Laws, looking for two things: motions that changed a Standing Rule directly, and conversations that recurred often enough, or mattered enough, to warrant a rule of their own.
Doing that turned up a second problem. A great many rules repeat one another, and several contradict one another — largely for want of one obvious section to live in. So alongside the reconciliation I am part-way through proposing a new structure for the Standing Rules.
Before you get the complete updated list, there are questions I need your help with. They unblock the structural decisions, and they settle confusions that recur right through the book. This paper comes first so that the rulebook, when it reaches you, can be as clean and as definitive as I can make it — answering these now is what keeps the same confusion from reaching you once per rule it touches.
What the proposal will look like when it does reach you. For each rule: the existing text, the change proposed, a summary of what changed, why it is proposed, and the evidence for it. Click any rule and you get a longer history and rationale. You will be able to go through them one at a time and mark which you want taken to the Board and which stay on the cutting room floor. There will also be a version in the structure the rules have today, with the changes made in place.
On how much is in there. I was deliberately aggressive in capturing anything that might belong in the rules — every motion that touched one, every conversation that came back often enough to suggest one was missing. I fully expect there will be proposed rules you do not want, and that is the intended shape of it: it is far easier for you to strike something that should not be there than to find something that was never captured. Nothing in the proposal arrives as a recommendation you have to argue down. It is a candidate list you edit.
First, though, the higher-level questions — the ones the documents cannot settle for me.
What I am trying to hand you is one coherent set of proposals — a set where, if the Board adopted every one of them, no two would overlap or contradict each other, and the whole thing would be organised well enough to read. Everything in this paper is a question that stands between me and that. Nothing else is.
Everything here is something I could not settle from the documents, and that moves more than one rule at a time. Anything the By-Laws, the Standing Rules or the minutes could answer is drafting work and is done before you see it. Anything that lands on a single rule is asked on that rule's card in the book, where you will be looking at the text it concerns — asking it here as well would spend your attention twice.
There are four of them, in the order you will meet them:
Before any of that, two things you should have in hand: the principle the whole of Part 4 rests on, and the standards I set myself. Both come first because everything after them was drafted against them — if you disagree with one, a good deal further down moves with it.
These items assume that a Standing Rule cannot override the By-Laws — that a provision the membership adopted is not displaced by one the Board adopts. That is near-universal parliamentary law, and the club adopts it by reference at Article XI Section 1: "The rules contained in the current edition of Robert's Rules of Order, shall govern the Club in all cases to which they are applicable and in which they are not inconsistent with these By-Laws and any other special rules of order the Club may adopt".
Be aware of what that clause does and does not do: it subordinates Robert's Rules to the By-Laws and to the club's own special rules. The governing documents nowhere state the hierarchy between a Standing Rule and a By-Law in terms — the phrase "Standing Rule" does not appear in the Constitution or the By-Laws at all. I am relying on general parliamentary law, and if you read it differently, several items in Part 4 soften from "conflict" to "tension worth resolving".
{{ASK:PRINCIPLE-HIERARCHY|Should I treat a By-Law as overriding a Standing Rule throughout this work?|Yes — a By-Law overrides;No — they sit at the same level;Ask the parliamentarian before I rely on it}}
These were settleable from the documents, so I settled them rather than asking. They are recorded because a decision you cannot see is one you cannot disagree with — so each one has Agree / Disagree on it, and a box if you want to say more. Silence is taken as agreement, so please do click.
Two tests, and a candidate has to pass both.
It requires or permits something of an identified person or body. A rule with no addressee is a note. If you cannot say who is obliged, there is nothing to comply with and nothing to enforce.
{{ASK:S-TEST-ADDRESSEE|It requires or permits something of an identified person or body.|Agree;Disagree}}
It governs every occasion of a thing, not one occasion. This is what separates a rule from a decision the minutes already record. The worked example is MMB 1, which opens with two sentences of edit log — "Replaced 'Age' with 'Birthdate'", "Revised the paragraph about payment" — recording form changes and requiring nothing of anyone. A record that something happened is not a rule and does not belong in the rulebook.
{{ASK:S-TEST-CONTINUING|It governs every occasion of a thing, not one occasion.|Agree;Disagree}}
One consequence worth saying out loud, because it decides a great many borderline items: procedure and workflow qualify. Much of what the club does is routing — who sends what to whom, in what order — and that is exactly the material a Standing Rule is for, where the club needs it fixed rather than remembered. It does not qualify merely by being how the work happens to be done now.
{{ASK:S-WHAT-IS-A-RULE-NOTE|Do procedure and workflow belong in the Standing Rules at all?|Agree — they qualify;Disagree}}
This is not a test of whether something is a rule. It is the check applied afterwards, to a thing already established as one — and it is the same question Part 4 asks of a dozen rules. A Standing Rule must implement the By-Laws or occupy ground the By-Laws leave open. It may not contradict them, and it should not restate them: a rule that copies a By-Law creates two texts of one provision, so when the By-Laws are amended the Standing Rule silently becomes wrong and nothing says which governs. Implementing a By-Law — naming who does the counting, and by when — is different, and is valuable. Discipline is where this bites hardest: Article VI of the By-Laws governs expulsion, so a Standing Rule can implement that Article but cannot add to it.
{{ASK:S-AUTHORITY-CHECK|And then a separate question: is it the Board's to make?|Agree;Disagree}}
Restating is what produced the duplicate clusters this restructure exists to remove. Adopting a set of proposals that restates obligations would reproduce the defect I am asking the committee to fix.
{{ASK:S-ONE-OBLIGATION-ONE-RULE|One obligation is written once, in one place, and cross-referenced everywhere else.|Agree;Disagree}}
The numbers move under this very proposal. A drafted rule that names another by its present number points at the wrong rule, or at nothing, the moment both are adopted.
{{ASK:S-NO-CITING-BY-NUMBER|Rules do not cite each other by number.|Agree;Disagree}}
One of the proposed parts would hold a single section, while the finance and accounting section would run to 66 entries once the proposed additions are folded in — the largest block in the book to read in one sitting. By the existing rules alone the largest is AWD, at 36. The National is already subdivided four ways. Where a rule lives changes what it is read against, so the new structure is a change to the rules in its own right: it goes forward as a proposal to be voted on, not as a tidy-up the committee is handed as already done.
{{ASK:S-SECTION-SHAPE|Oversized sections are subdivided — and the restructure itself is put to a vote, not adopted by being presented.|Agree;Disagree}}
{{FB:STANDARDS-ALL|The standards as a whole — anything missing, anything that should not be a standard}}
I have drafted a great deal — every rule the club already follows without having written it down, as well as the ones that need changing. Sent as one document it is a lot to review in a sitting, and volume is its own risk: the twentieth rule gets less attention than the second. But splitting it has a cost too, because rules that bear on each other are best read together.
The three ways I can see:
What I would do, and what I cannot yet promise. Scoping by whether the club already operates the obligation is the most defensible of the three, because it turns on the record rather than on my opinion of a rule. But I cannot sort the set that way reliably yet: the evidence behind a proposal shows what was found, and it cannot show that no motion exists. If you pick that option I will do the work; if you would rather not wait, everything-at-once is the honest alternative.
{{ASK:X-SCOPE|How should the proposal reach the Board?|Everything at once — I would rather see the whole set;Split by exposure — money, member rights, privacy and By-Laws conflicts first;Split by whether the club already does it — housekeeping first, changes after;Something else — I will describe it below}}
The observation first. Reading the rules end to end, a great many of them exist to codify who does what, or how a workflow runs — who receives an application, who forwards it where, in what order, by when. I have not counted the category, so I will not tell you it is the largest — but it is a great deal of the book. The officer-portal work found the same thing from the other direction, and reported that most of the Recording Secretary's job is routing rather than deciding.
The new website and portal can carry a great deal of that — and can enforce it far better than a paragraph in a book can, because the software can simply not let the step be skipped. Which raises a question I cannot answer for the club.
The two ways it can go, named so we can refer to them without restating the question each time.
If it helps: rules drafted the rule-backed way name the actor, the trigger and the deadline, and say nothing about the mechanism — which is exactly the shape a portal needs in order to implement them. So rule-backed does not mean the rule describes the software; it means the software has something to implement.
Who decides this. It sets what the club binds itself to and what it merely does, which reads as a Board question — or at least one the Board should ratify once there is a recommendation. If you read it the same way I will write it up as a Board paper rather than folding the answer into the rulebook.
{{ASK:SCOPE-PORTAL-VS-RULE|For procedure and workflow, which way should this go?|Rule-backed — write the rule, let the portal implement it;Website-carried — leave it to the site, do not write it as a rule;A mix, and I should propose where the line falls;This is the Board's to decide — take it to them, not us}}
Going section by section through the minutes turned up 62 places where the record contradicts itself, or where a question was opened and the answer is not in the minutes.
Most of these can be asked in the context of the single rule they affect, and that is where I have put them — on that rule's card in the book, next to the text they concern. 17 of the 62 cannot: each names a rule other than the one it is filed under, so answering it at one rule leaves the other wrong. They span 10 sections; the remaining 45 stay with their rule.
12 of those 17 are listed below, across 8 sections. The other 5 are set out in full elsewhere in this paper — "Sponsors are waived for Junior applicants" in Part 4; the BOD 12 worked example below; the NAT 14 and NAT 21 worked example below — so they are not repeated in the list.
One caveat on the figure: three further findings are borderline cases that could reasonably be counted, so read 62 as the firm number and 65 as the outside one.
Also bears on: NAT 25, NAT 26, WEB 7
What moves with the answer: NAT 25, NAT 26 and WEB 7 are the photo rules, and none of the three carries any timing at all — no delivery date and no obligation on the photographer. A deadline is one provision that has to sit in one rule and bind the rest; written into ARI 6 alone, the rules that actually govern the photographs stay silent. The answer decides whether four rules acquire a date or none does.
{{ASK:DIS-ARI-711ec8e9|The Aristocrat editor asked on the record for a photo-delivery deadline in the rules, and none was ever added. Should the proposal add one?|Yes — put a deadline in the photo rules;No — leave it to the editor and the committee;There is already a deadline in practice — I will say what it is}}
Also bears on: NOT 6, STC 15
What moves with the answer: BDE 1 and BDE 2 are silent on the Nominating Committee entirely. The only Standing Rules that touch it are NOT 6, on what the committee's report must contain, and STC 15, on when it is appointed — so whatever the petition asked for lands on those two rather than on the rule this finding is filed under. Until we know what it proposed, we cannot tell which of them needs changing, or whether the answer is a By-Laws amendment and no Standing Rule at all.
{{ASK:DIS-BDE-6e2392d4|A 115-signature petition to change how candidates are nominated was disapproved in 2022, and the minutes never say what it actually proposed. Do you know what it asked for?|Yes — I can describe what it proposed;No, and I do not know where to look;The papers exist and I can find them}}
Also bears on: STC 29
What moves with the answer: BDE carries no rule on election validity, recounts, tabulation method, or when the alternate tabulator may act; STC 29 covers only who lists the tabulators. If the blank-envelope requirement left the By-Laws by amendment, the club has a By-Laws change with no record of the vote, and STC 29 is the only rule standing anywhere near it. The answer decides whether we draft into BDE, into STC 29, or into neither.
{{ASK:DIS-BDE-47e345cc|The club appealed to the AKC to remove the blank-envelope requirement from its By-Laws, and the current By-Laws no longer carry it — but I cannot find the amendment being voted anywhere. Was it put to the membership?|Yes — it was voted and approved;No — it came out some other way;I do not know;I can find the record}}
Also bears on: ACC 8, NOT 3
What moves with the answer: It shares half its ground with "Member in good standing" in Part 4, and only half. Both turn on what the dues calendar does to a member between 31 December and 1 March, so the Part 4 question — what the club actually does when someone pays after 1 March — settles this one's third option. What it does not settle is the date itself: ACC 8 lets a member pay to 1 March with a $10 administrative fee and NOT 3 fixes 15 January as the final notification, while members have been told in writing that the Directory cut-off is 31 December and, in another year, 15 January. No rule states any of them, in a section that says nothing about who is listed at all — so there is no DIR card to settle it on.
{{ASK:DIS-DIR-bff593c5|Members are told in writing that late dues cost them their Directory listing — on two different dates, with no motion adopting either — while ACC 8 lets them pay to 1 March with a fee. What is the real deadline?|31 December;15 January;1 March, consistent with ACC 8;There is no adopted deadline and one should be set by motion}}
Why it is here rather than on a rule card: it does not land on one rule. Either no rule exists on the subject, or the record does not say which rules it reaches — and either way there is no single card to ask it at.
{{ASK:DIS-JNR-03ae5e2a|The junior class structure at the National has changed at least three times since 2015, each time turning on who was willing to pay for ribbons and trophies, and no rule anchors it. Should the rules fix the class structure?|Yes — set the classes in a rule so it stops moving;Yes for the classes, but leave the funding to each committee;No — it should stay a committee decision each year;I would want the Junior Showmanship chair's view first}}
Also bears on: MMB 1
What moves with the answer: Not the Part 4 fee item, and worth being clear about the difference: that one asks what a Junior owes when they turn eighteen and apply as an adult. This one asks what a Junior owes on the way IN, where JNR 6 says the application fee "may not be waived" and a director recorded ten months later that the club had agreed to waive it. MMB 1 carries the fee schedule, so if the practice is that Juniors do not pay, both texts are wrong — and five separate proposals already rewrite MMB 1, so the answer bears on which of those survives. Answering the aged-out question does not answer this one.
{{ASK:DIS-JNR-ca4b0191|In November 2006 the Board expressly refused to waive the Junior application fee; in September 2007 a director stated the club had agreed to waive it, and I can find no motion doing so. Which is current practice?|Juniors pay the application fee;The fee is waived for Juniors;It has varied, and I am not sure;There is a motion and I can find it}}
Why it is here rather than on a rule card: it does not land on one rule. Either no rule exists on the subject, or the record does not say which rules it reaches — and either way there is no single card to ask it at.
Who reported it: not recorded, and that is not for want of looking. The November 2021 minutes list every standing committee with its chair beside it — Ready Borzoi, ROM, Shop, Specialty Guidelines, Standardized Trophies — and "Standing Rules" is the one line with no name after it. The report itself is unsigned. The earliest Standing Rules chair named anywhere in the minutes is appointed in January 2023, more than a year later. So there is no author to go back to, which is part of why this needs your memory rather than more searching.
{{ASK:DIS-NAT-B-77f589bd|In November 2021 the Standing Rules chair reported a backlog of membership-approved National Specialty changes that had never been written into the rules. The report does not say which. Do you know?|Yes — I can identify them;No;The committee's own records would show it}}
Also bears on: ELJ 14
What moves with the answer: ELJ 14 is where this requirement actually lives now — it was coupled to the dues notice in December 2023 and decoupled again in August 2024, and its revision line carries all three dates. NOT 1 to NOT 3 record none of them, so the rules headed "Dues Notices" do not tell whoever prepares the mailing what goes in it. Setting the date at NOT 3 alone would leave ELJ 14 saying something different; one answer has to move both.
{{ASK:DIS-NOT-3bd9aef2|The requirement bundled with the dues notice has been written three different ways in three years, and none of NOT 1–3 records any of them, so nothing tells whoever prepares the mailing which is live. Which one is?|After 1 March, due 31 May — the August 2024 version;With the dues notice, due 15 March — the December 2023 version;November of even years — the 2014 calendar;I am not sure}}
Also bears on: TSE 9
What moves with the answer: TSE 9 states the opposite principle for the club's existing mechanism: regional clubs cannot request a BCOA TSE, because its purpose is to reach areas where no specialty club exists. Both RGS rules presuppose an applicant club distinct from BCOA. A BCOA-run regional specialty is the club holding its own event in a region, which is the case none of the three contemplates — so adding rules for it means deciding how it sits against TSE 9's exclusion, not merely writing a new RGS rule.
{{ASK:DIS-RGS-3233529b|As of January 2026 BCOA has voted to hold a regional specialty itself, which the rules do not contemplate — and the minutes give the new event three different names in five lines. Should the proposal add rules for it?|Yes — add rules for BCOA-run regional specialties;No — wait until the format settles;Yes, and I will tell you what it should be called}}
Also bears on: ELJ 9
What moves with the answer: ELJ 9 is the only rule in the book that constrains judging at a regional specialty, and it does so from the National's side — barring a National Breed judge from judging a Borzoi specialty in the USA for a year beforehand, and from all-breed Borzoi assignments in that region for six months. A judging rule written into RGS has to be drafted against ELJ 9 or the two overlap, which is the duplication this restructure exists to remove.
{{ASK:DIS-RGS-48999c1b|Three recurring judge problems attach to regional specialties — National assignment conflicts, two clubs engaging the same sweepstakes judge, and mentoring — and neither RGS rule mentions judges at all. Should the proposal add a judging rule?|Yes — regional specialties need a judging rule;No — ELJ 9 covers what needs covering;Yes, but only on the conflict with National judging}}
Why it is here rather than on a rule card: it does not land on one rule. Either no rule exists on the subject, or the record does not say which rules it reaches — and either way there is no single card to ask it at.
{{ASK:DIS-WEB-a6b86c49|The club has run social media since at least 2015, reports it to the Board as a standing item, and has no Standing Rule on the subject at all. Should the proposal add one?|Yes — add a social media rule;No — leave it to the Webmaster and the Board;Yes, but the Board should adopt a policy first and the rule should follow it}}
Also bears on: STC 25
What moves with the answer: Three rules, and they cannot all be read literally: WEB 6 reserves the site strictly for BCOA information, WEB 5 admits paid commercial sponsor links for the National, and STC 25 presupposes a BCOA Shop website taking payments. The deleted rule was the text that held the line between them. Restore that line and all three change; leave it out and WEB 6 goes on contradicting the shop the club actually runs.
{{ASK:DIS-WEB-b033c15e|A rule that has since been deleted drew the line that made these fit: the club may sell its own goods, members may not sell theirs. Should the new rules restore that line?|Yes — restore the distinction;No — the practice has moved on and the rules should follow it;I do not recognise this — I will explain below}}
Three worked examples, to show the shape:
Sources: the August 2024 minutes, the Fall 2024 minutes, the January–February 2025 minutes
What the two rules say. NOT 4 gives the Recording Secretary two weeks to send a draft to the President, Vice-President, Corresponding Secretary and Treasurer, and those four seven days to return changes — three weeks in all, among five people. BOD 12 covers something different: approval of the minutes by the whole Board by email, for which "suggested time limits ... might range from 4 to 6 weeks". One is a requirement on four officers; the other is a suggestion to the Board, and neither rule mentions the other.
The scenario. The Board meets face-to-face in November. Under NOT 4 the Recording Secretary circulates a draft by early December and the four officers reply within the week. Then BOD 12 takes over, and says only that four to six weeks might be suitable — so nothing is late, ever, because nothing is required. The November 2024 minutes were approved by email on 5 February 2025: eleven weeks. In the meantime the club cannot release information the minutes carry.
What the record shows. The clash was raised in August 2024 — the agenda item reads "Is the time frame unrealistic? Conflicts with BOD 12" — a motion to set the period at four to six weeks with a seven-day response was made and then withdrawn for discussion at the November face-to-face, and the Fall minutes name four members to review the rule and stop there. No motion ever resolved it.
What would help: Two things. Was anything agreed in that November discussion that never reached the minutes? And if not, what should the deadline be — four to six weeks, which is what BOD 12 suggests today and what the withdrawn August 2024 motion would have made binding; two weeks to circulate and seven days to reply, which is what NOT 4 already requires of four officers and what the Recording Secretary proposed in January 2025 for the whole Board; or eight weeks as a backstop. Whichever you pick, I would write NOT 4 and BOD 12 as one timetable rather than two, so there is a single answer to "when are the minutes due".
{{FB:DISPUTE-BOD-12|BOD 12 — two rules give the minutes two different timetables, and practice matches neither}}
Sources: the January–February 2025 minutes, the March–April 2025 minutes, the Spring 2026 Board minutes, the 2026 Annual Meeting minutes, the 2024 Annual Meeting minutes
This entry was doing two jobs at once, and separating them changes the answer to one of them.
Issue 1 — may non-members attend the Annual Membership Meeting? Decided twice, opposite ways, and printed neither time. In Spring 2025 a motion to approve a Standing Rule "allowing only BCOA members at the Membership Meetings" was made, seconded and carried — "All in favor; none opposed. Motion passed." On 12 May 2026 the Board reversed it: "Motion made to allow non members to be present at the annual membership meeting and that they will be identifiable as guests" — all in favor, none opposed. Neither version was ever written into the rules. A member who opens the published rulebook to find out whether they may bring a guest finds BOD 2, which is about the Board meeting, and nothing else.
Issue 2 — if non-members are present, how is a vote taken? Two advisers gave two answers, and the club has since done a third thing. A guest speaker invited to the January 2025 meeting to answer questions on the constitution and by-laws is recorded as advising that a vote "should be done by ballot, not by raising of hands". The March-April minutes record a Board member explaining a proposed rule "recommended by the hired parliamentarian" — a different adviser — and there the fallback is "any vote that would happen would have to be a roll call vote." Ballot and roll call are not the same thing: one is secret, the other is not. Note also that the second is a Board member's account of the recommendation rather than the parliamentarian's own words. BOD 2 as printed says neither.
And then it happened. Two days after the Board admitted guests, the Annual Membership Meeting was held at Bellevue, Nebraska on 14 May 2026 with "80 members present. There were also 17 guests and 2 juniors present at the meeting." A motion to pass a new Standing Rule on Regional Specialty scheduling was decided there: "Vote conducted by a show of hands. In favor: 38, Opposed: 19, Abstained: 23." That is neither a ballot nor a roll call — it is the one method the January adviser named and advised against — taken with non-members in the room, on the exact question BOD 2 leaves open. A second rule was carried from the floor at the same meeting on the same terms.
A third problem sits underneath both, and it is not BOD 2's. The BCOA Parliamentarian's Summer 2024 report, on three motions to amend ELJ 5 at the Pasco annual meeting, states: "The three motions related to amending the Standing Rule ELJ-5 ... are null and void because they conflict with the Bylaws, in which the management of the BCOA's affairs is entrusted to the Board ... Only the BCOA Board can amend, add, or delete a BCOA Standing Rule." On that ruling, both May 2026 rules are void whatever method was used to vote them.
What would help: Three things, and the first two are for the Board rather than for the rules. Does the club accept the Parliamentarian's 2024 ruling that only the Board may adopt a Standing Rule? If it does, the two rules carried at Bellevue need ratifying by the Board or withdrawing, and I should not draft either into the book. And how should a vote be taken at a meeting with guests present — ballot, roll call, or show of hands — because the club has now been advised two ways and done a third. Then: is there a written recommendation from the parliamentarian that I have not seen, as against the minute's summary of it?
{{FB:DISPUTE-BOD-2|BOD 2 — the Annual Meeting — who may attend, and how a vote is taken if non-members are there}}
Sources: the November 2021 Board minutes, the 2026 Annual Meeting minutes, the ASFA delegate's Spring 2024 report
What the two rules say. NAT 14, revised 22 November 2021, reads "All national specialties should hold events for everyone: conformation, obedience, rally and lure coursing". NAT 21, from 18 May 2013, reads "Each year, that specialty's committee may decide whether to hold either or both an AKC and an ASFA trial." One says every National holds coursing; the other leaves it to the committee each year. The 2021 amendment left NAT 21 untouched and neither rule mentions the other.
A trap in the record, worth stating because it hides the amendment. The November 2021 minutes carry it as "NAT 17 Motion to add obedience, rally, and lure coursing". That document numbers rules on its own scheme, three out from the current one — its NAT 17 is today's NAT 14, its NAT 20 is today's NAT 17. Anyone checking that motion against the printed NAT 17 finds the health-clinic rule and concludes the amendment was never made.
And a third rule pulls at it. LUR 3 says only "Continue our membership in ASFA". ASFA's own constitution, quoted in the convention book a BCOA delegate filed with the Board, makes dues payable by 1 May and provides that "No member club may vote, schedule, or hold an ASFA trial whose dues are not paid for the current year"; ASFA's 2020 notice is worded as a decision "to not require clubs to hold an ASFA field trial in 2020 in order to maintain their status". That a hold-a-trial condition normally exists is my reading of the waiver, not something ASFA states, and I flag it as such.
What the Annual Meeting did in May 2026, and what it did not. At Bellevue, Nebraska on 14 May 2026 the membership carried two rules that bear on this. The first: "The scheduling of a Regional Specialty shall not take priority over official BCOA National Specialty events, so that field events can be scheduled on three separate days ..." — 38 in favour, 19 opposed, 23 abstained, on a show of hands. The second, four lines later under Motions from the Floor and carried unanimously: "that the three running events at the National be required to be run on different days". Neither settles whether a National must hold lure coursing at all. Both presuppose that it does — which is NAT 14's reading and not NAT 21's — without saying so, and they overlap each other on scheduling. Both were also passed by the membership rather than the Board, which the Parliamentarian's Summer 2024 report says cannot be done: "Only the BCOA Board can amend, add, or delete a BCOA Standing Rule."
What would help: Which governs — NAT 14, so every National holds lure coursing, or NAT 21, so each committee decides? Whichever you pick, the other rule has to be redrafted rather than left standing, and I would write the ASFA obligations into LUR 3 at the same time so the club can see what its membership actually requires. Separately, and this one is the Board's: were the two Bellevue rules meant to settle scheduling only, and does the Board intend to ratify them? Until that is answered I cannot tell whether they belong in the book at all.
{{FB:DISPUTE-NAT-14-and-NAT-21|NAT 14 and NAT 21 — must a National hold lure coursing, or may its committee decide?}}
Every one of the 62 has its source, the minute quoted and what the printed rule says. Ask me for any of them in this format and I will pull them out.
Each item states both texts. The governing clause is quoted rather than paraphrased, with its Article and Section, so nothing here has to be taken on trust. They rest on the principle set out in the introduction.
The order these come in. Severity first — the ones that change who may vote, who may stand for office or what a member pays come before the rest. Where two are equally severe, the one live in the rules the club is operating under today comes first, because that one binds whether or not this proposal is adopted.
🔴 high
Where this appears. 2 new rules
Why it is here rather than on a rule card: The phrase "in good standing" is used 22 times in the By-Laws and 6 times in the Standing Rules — counting only club standing, not standing with the AKC — and is defined in neither. One answer here moves the quorum, the endorsers on an application, nominating petitions and candidacy at once.
There is no existing Standing Rule to quote here — the gap is the finding.
What the By-Laws say.
By-Laws Article II Section 1
A quorum for such meetings shall be ten percent (10%) of the members in good standing. The quorum shall be established on the first (1st) day of March of each year and shall remain a constant figure for the remainder of the year.
Where they collide. The By-Laws build a great deal on "member in good standing" and never say what it means, so two of their own provisions pull in different directions. Article II Section 1 fixes the quorum as a constant figure, set once on 1 March and held for the rest of the year. Article I Section 5(b) meanwhile terminates a membership automatically once dues are sixty days overdue, and bars anyone with unpaid dues from voting at any meeting. So membership moves during the year while the quorum is required not to. Whether that is a real conflict depends entirely on what "in good standing" is counting — the roll on 1 March, or the roll today — and no rule and no By-Law says which.
**And the harder half: what happens when payment is not made by 1 March?** Article I Section 5(b) terminates a membership automatically once dues are sixty days overdue, and Article I Section 6 provides that a membership "terminated after the first (1st) day of March by reason of lapsing must be reapplied for in accordance with Section 4, Election to Membership" — that is, the person is no longer a member, and rejoining means a fresh application, sponsors, a Board vote and the initiation fee again. That is a severe consequence, and nothing in the Standing Rules mentions it.
What I need from you.
{{ASK:X-QUORUM-GOOD-STANDING|The By-Laws fix the quorum as a constant figure set each 1 March. If a member falls out of good standing after that date, should they still count toward it?|Yes — the figure is set on 1 March and does not move;No — the count should follow who is actually in good standing;This needs the parliamentarian before we decide}}
{{ASK:X-QUORUM-GOOD-STANDING-B|When a member pays their dues after 1 March, what does the club actually do?|We take the money and treat them as current;They must reapply as a new member, with sponsors and the fee;It has not come up that I can recall;Not sure — I would want to check}}
🔴 high
Where this appears. BOD 13 — 2 proposed changes ← 2 separate proposals rewrite this one rule · BOD 5 — 2 proposed changes ← 2 separate proposals rewrite this one rule
Why it is here rather than on a rule card: Two existing rules, BOD 5 and BOD 13, and the sanction in one has to match the pledge in the other. Neither card can be settled without the other.
The rules as they stand today.
BOD 5, Code of Conduct (18 Nov 2006, rev. 10 Apr 2014 and 2 Aug 2021)
Each Board member will sign a Code of Conduct by December 31st to cover the subsequent year. All nominees and petitioners must sign to be considered a Board seat.
BOD 13, Code of Conduct (2 Aug 2021)
If Board Member's signature is not received by the Recording Secretary by Dec 31st, the Board Member will be excluded from Board meetings until signed form is received and / or removed from office under Article III Sec 1
And the Board has already changed this, after the edition this book prints. The text above is what the published Standing Rules say. The motions below carried and are in no printed edition.
BOD 5 — revised by motion on 12 May 2026, Spring 2026 Board Meeting. All in favor. None opposed. Motion passed.
Each Board member must sign a Code of Conduct by the first Board meeting of the new year.
The rule the Board replaced had a SECOND sentence — "All nominees and petitioners must sign to be considered a Board seat" — and the motion neither repeats it nor says it goes. Nothing in the recorded discussion mentions candidacy at all. Read literally the ballot-access requirement has been deleted; read as amending only what it quotes, it survives. The Board should be asked which it meant, because an entire proposal in this book (ELB 7) exists to argue that that sentence is unenforceable.
BOD 13 — revised by motion on 12 May 2026, Spring 2026 Board Meeting. All in favor, none opposed. Motion passed.
If Board Member's signature is not received by the Recording Secretary before the first board meeting of the new term, Board Member will be excluded from board meetings until signed form is received, or until removed from office, pursuant to terms of Article III, Section 1.
What the By-Laws say.
By-Laws Article III Section 1
Any Officer or Board member who fails to perform the responsibilities of his/her office, fails to attend two (2) meetings or fails to return two (2) mail or email votes during a fiscal year without just cause may be removed from office by two thirds (2/3) vote of the Board.
Where they collide. BOD 13 excludes a Board member from meetings automatically, the moment the form is late. It does mention Article III Section 1 — but as an alternative ending ("until signed form is received and / or removed from office"), not as a gate in front of the exclusion. Nothing has to happen first. The By-Laws never let a seated Board member lose their place that cheaply: removal under Article III Section 1 takes a two-thirds vote of the Board, and suspension of privileges under Article VI Section 3 takes a majority vote and only after written charges and a hearing at which the member may appear and bring witnesses. Every route the governing documents provide requires a vote, a process, or both. A form that arrives on 2 January triggers none of them, and BOD 5 — which sets the deadline — says nothing about a sanction at all.
What I need from you.
{{ASK:X-EXCLUSION-FROM-MEETINGS|Should a Board member whose Code of Conduct is unsigned be excluded from meetings at all?|Only after a Board vote, as the By-Laws require for anything else;Yes, automatically, as BOD 13 says today;No — an unsigned form should not cost a seat at the table;This needs the parliamentarian before we decide}}
🔴 high
Where this appears. BOD 14 — 1 proposed change · BOD 16 — 1 proposed change
Why it is here rather than on a rule card: Two existing rules, BOD 14 and BOD 16, which give different answers on whether a Board member attending remotely may vote.
The rules as they stand today.
BOD 16, Voting at Face to Face Meetings (2 Aug 2021)
Voting is limited to those in physical attendance. Special consideration will be given on a case-by-case basis to call in and vote.
BOD 14, Board Meetings (2 Aug 2021)
There will be at least FOUR seasonal meetings (Winter, Spring, Summer and Fall) Two of them may be a Face to Face
And the Board has already changed this, after the edition this book prints. The text above is what the published Standing Rules say. The motions below carried and are in no printed edition.
BOD 16 — revised by motion on 14 April 2026, Spring 2026 Board Meeting, first session (teleconference). In favor: 10. Opposed: 1 (L. Hoflin). Abstained: 1 (K. Novotny). Motion passed.
Officers may attend face to face meetings virtually by videoconference or comparable electronic means when necessary, provided two-way communication is available and the officer can fully participate and the identity can be verified. Prior approval must be received from either the President or Recording Secretary. A virtual officer shall be deemed present for quorum and voting purposes. The chair shall announce any special procedures for recognition, voting, and technical interruptions. If a technical failure prevents meaningful participation, the officer's virtual attendance shall cease until communication is restored.
This REVERSES the old rule rather than adjusting it. A virtual officer now counts for quorum and may vote; the text this book prints says voting "is limited to those in physical attendance".
What the By-Laws say.
By-Laws Article II Section 4
Meetings are defined as gatherings where attendees see and/or hear each other. This includes meeting (in person) "physically" in the same room, or conducting a meeting by video conference or teleconference.
Where they collide. BOD 16 limits voting to "those in physical attendance", with call-in votes allowed only as a "special consideration ... on a case-by-case basis". The By-Laws define a meeting as a gathering "where attendees see and/or hear each other" — which is what a Board member on a call is doing. On that definition they are at the meeting, and BOD 16 then removes the vote of someone the By-Laws count as present. Note also that this is a discretion: whether a given member may vote turns on a case-by-case decision, which is not how the By-Laws treat any other entitlement to vote.
What I need from you.
{{ASK:X-REMOTE-VOTING|Should a Board member attending a face-to-face meeting remotely be able to vote?|Yes — if they are at the meeting, they vote;Yes, on the Board's April 2026 terms — prior approval, identity verified, present for quorum;No — keep voting to those physically present;Case-by-case, as the published BOD 16 provides;This needs the parliamentarian before we decide}}
🟠 medium · live in the rules today, not merely in a proposal · confidence: moderate — flagged as arguable rather than settled
Where this appears. MMB 1 — 5 proposed changes ← 5 separate proposals rewrite this one rule · JNR 6 — 2 proposed changes ← 2 separate proposals rewrite this one rule
Why it is here rather than on a rule card: Two existing rules, MMB 1 and JNR 6 — and three separate proposals restate MMB 1, which is the duplication problem itself. The restructure has to decide where the Junior sponsor rule lives before the book can be laid out.
The rules as they stand today.
MMB 1, Membership Application
Sponsors are not required for Junior or Foreign applicants.
JNR 6, Juniors — membership application (18 Nov 2006)
To encourage BCOA junior members, the application process will be streamlined by waiving the annual dues and sponsor forms. If needed, Board members could sign the application form for the junior. Per BCOA Constitution, the application fee may not be waived.
What the By-Laws say.
By-Laws Article I Section 4, with Article I Section 2(e)
The application form shall also require the endorsement of two members of the Club who are in good standing. — and, for Foreign members only: "Foreign membership carries NO voting privileges and requires no sponsors."
Where they collide. Two of the drafted proposals make the same waiver in different words — "Junior applicants do not require Sponsors, and the sponsor forms are waived" and "waiving the annual dues and the sponsor forms" — and a third governs the related home-visit waiver. The By-Laws carve out Foreign members expressly and make no such carve-out for Juniors. The presence of one express exemption and the absence of the other is the strongest available evidence that the Junior waiver has no By-Laws basis. An alternative reading exists and the text does not settle it: that Section 4 governs applications under Section 4 only, and Section 2(d) creates a separate Junior route.
What I need from you.
{{ASK:X-JUNIOR-SPONSORS|The club has waived sponsors for Junior applicants for years, and the By-Laws do not appear to allow it. How should the proposal handle that?|Keep the waiver and propose a By-Laws amendment to authorise it;Drop the waiver — Junior applicants need two sponsors like anyone else;Leave the rule as it stands and flag it to the Board as a known exposure;I read the By-Laws differently — I will explain below}}
🟠 medium
Where this appears. 2 new rules
Why it is here rather than on a rule card: Turns on when Junior membership ends and what an aged-out Junior owes, which two new rules both try to answer. Settling it decides both.
The rule as it stands today.
JNR 6, Juniors — membership application (18 Nov 2006)
To encourage BCOA junior members, the application process will be streamlined by waiving the annual dues and sponsor forms. If needed, Board members could sign the application form for the junior. Per BCOA Constitution, the application fee may not be waived.
Note which way the existing rule points: JNR 6 already says the application fee may not be waived, and gives the Constitution as its reason. The conflict below is between the By-Laws and a rule I have drafted, not between the By-Laws and anything the club currently operates.
What the By-Laws say.
By-Laws Article I Section 4
The prospective member shall submit current dues plus an initiation fee of five dollars ($5.00), both of which shall be refunded if the application is rejected.
Where they collide. Article I Section 2(d) routes an ageing-out junior into exactly that process — they "may apply for single or household membership upon reaching their eighteenth (18th) birthday".
What I need from you.
{{ASK:X-JUNIOR-FEE|When a Junior turns eighteen and applies for adult membership, does the club charge the application fee a second time?|Yes — they pay the fee again;No — they are not charged twice;It has not come up that I can recall;Not sure — I would want to check}}
{{FB:PAPER-OVERALL|The paper as a whole — anything missing, anything that should not be here}}
Every count in this paper is computed from the underlying findings rather than typed, and the quotations are reproduced from the minutes and the By-Laws without tidying. Ask me for the workings behind any figure, or the full record behind any item, and I will send it.