Subcommittee Standards

(Aaron Priven, Cons. Chair, 8/1/01)

The Chapter, acting through the Executive Committee, has been delegated (among other things) four important powers from the Sierra Club Board of Directors:

• the authority to communicate opinions on national and other policies and positions to the appropriate bodies within the Club,
• the authority to take positions on behalf of the Club on public issues within its territory,
• to publicize or otherwise take action to support those positions,
• and to take actions within its territory in support of positions and policies made by other entities of the club.

As a form of shorthand, the first and second powers are referred to as "positions" and the third and fourth as "actions."

The role of the Conservation Committee is to to make recommendations to the Executive Committee on positions, and, with the help of Chapter conservation staff, to coordinate actions. In turn, the role of Conservation subcommittees is to make recommendations on positions to Conservation, and to coordinate actions, as long as those positions and actions are within the specific charge of the subcommittee.

In both cases, the purpose of this delegation is twofold. The first reason is to allow more time to deal with complicated subjects than can be dealt with at the higher level. The second reason is to allow those who are interested only in the more specific issue to more easily participate in only the discussions and actions that interest them.

There are two other kinds of subordinate bodies under the Conservation Committee: task forces and issue coordinators. The difference between these other bodies and a subcommittee is that task forces and issue coordinators coordinate actions, but do not make formal recommendations on positions. (An issue coordinator is, essentially, a one-person task force.)

This is important because each level relies on the lower level to fully investigate and debate the issues before recommending a position to the next higher level. The Conservation Committee has a responsibility to the Executive Committee, and the subcommittees have a responsibility to the Conservation Committee, to ensure that every reasonable action is taken to ensure that this investigation and debate occurs. While task forces and issue coordinators are responsible for coordinating actions with the Conservation Chair, and should always welcome further involvement by Club members, subcommittees must take positive steps to encourage Sierra Club members to contribute to and participate in debates and investigations on positions.

Subcommittees are required to comply with the following standards.

• Subcommittees must have a charge approved by Conservation, specific enough to distinguish it from the charges of other subcommittees. In practice, there will always be some overlap between subcommittees, but the charge should attempt to draw a line between the subject areas, so that someone can decide to attend or not attend a subcommittee depending on his or her interests.
• Subcommittees must have regular, public, and noticed meetings. There are three venues for publicizing meetings that should be used: the Yodeler newsletter, the Chapter Schedule, and the "sfbay-agendas" electronic mail list. The deadlines for the Yodeler and the Schedule may preclude notice of meetings in these publications, but every effort should be taken to place notices there, and it should always be possible to place meeting notices in the e-mail list. Subcommittees are encouraged to treat this as a minimum rather than a maximum. Posting notices on web sites, newspapers of general circulation, posters around town, etc. may all be appropriate depending on the situation.

Agendas and meeting notices should also be sent to regular attendees and others who have indicated an interest, either by e-mail, fax, or postal mail depending on the recipient's needs. Whenever possible meetings should be held in Club offices or public meeting rooms rather than in private homes, and in places accessible by transit as well as by automobile.

Although it is always appropriate to cancel a meeting rather than hold one where there is no business to conduct, in general meetings should be held regularly, and at a fixed location or series of locations. If there is insufficient business for quarterly meetings, that is a good indication that the business that might be transacted there may well be transacted at Conservation instead. An inactive subcommittee, or one with an insufficient number of members to give issues thorough and public debate, should disband and allow its subject area to be discussed fully at the Conservation Committee. (Conservation has the option of creating a task force or appointing an issue coordinator to cover the relevant issue, which would not have the same responsibility for public involvement.)

• Subcommittees should have a defined leadership. This can be a single chair, a chair and vice-chair(s), or co-chairs. It is always preferable to have more than one leader of a subcommittee. Leaders of subcommittees are nominated by the subcommittees subject to approval by Conservation.

Subcommittee leaders are responsible for facilitating open discussion on controversial issues. While it can be assumed that leaders have opinions on areas within their subcommittees, they must be fair and allow all participants to participate in debates on positions, and actively support the inclusion of more members in discussions and actions.