The following amendment was proposed by Ember, Pacho, Quest, Squonk, Sue++, vroo, and Y_0 and placed on the ballot by a majority vote of the board. It was published in the October 2024 Enigma, and adopted by a vote of the League.

Amend Bylaw 4 as follows (removing stricken-out text and adding underlined text):

4. Business Meetings

A. A business meeting shall be held each summer at the annual convention. The order of business at the meeting shall be as follows: reading of the minutes of the previous meeting; reading of the names of members who have died since the previous meeting, and a moment of silence in their honor; reports from the treasurer, and from other officers, individuals, and committees, as appropriate; unfinished business; new business, including presentation of offers to host future conventions, and election of the same commencement of the vote specified in Bylaw 6; miscellaneous announcements; adjournment.

B. Members may attend the meeting in person or online. Members shall be able to participate fully in all aspects of the meeting regardless of how they attend.

C. In the event of disruptions that preclude online participation or voting, including the vote specified in Bylaw 6, the business meeting shall proceed at the direction of the Board of Trustees with such modifications as they deem appropriate.

Strike Bylaw 6 and replace it with the following:

A. A convention of the membership shall be held each summer. Each year, the membership will vote to select the site of the convention to be held two years thereafter.

B. Any member or group of members (“prospective hosts”) may present to the membership an offer to host the convention two years thereafter by notifying the Board of their intention at least 75 days prior to the start of the convention. The Board may extend that deadline if no prospective host has notified the Board by that date. These proposals shall be published in The Enigma at least 30 days before the convention. In advance of the business meeting, the Board shall provide a means for members to ask questions of prospective hosts and for hosts to share answers and other information with the membership.

C. The Board shall schedule the convention site vote to commence during the business meeting. The vote shall remain open until one hour before the scheduled time of the last official event of the convention. The Board shall provide notice of the opening and closing times of the vote through official League channels.

D. Voting for the convention site shall be conducted online by secret ballot using ranked choice voting.

E. The convention site ballot shall list all of the proposed sites and “None of the Above”.

F. The results of the convention site vote shall be announced at the convention and through official League channels.

G. In the event that

• no site receives a majority of the ranked choice vote,

• “None of the Above” is the selected choice,

• a site is unable to be selected for any other reason, or

• a selected site becomes unavailable,

the Board of Trustees shall become the de facto convention-site selection committee, or the Board may appoint a committee of members and delegate responsibility to them.

The following amendment was proposed by Tortoise and co-signed by Saxifrage, Spoon, and Firetruck, and placed on the ballot by a majority vote of the board. It was published in the August 2021 Engima, and adopted by a vote of the League.

The current text of the item is: Annual dues shall include a subscription to The Enigma. The Board of Trustees may, at its discretion, alter these dues in special cases, such as to cover the cost of overseas and large print subscriptions and to reduce dues for students and persons with limited incomes.

He proposes this be amended to: Annual dues shall include a subscription to The Enigma. The Board of Trustees may, at its discretion, alter these dues in special cases, such as to cover the cost of overseas subscriptions and to reduce dues for students and persons with limited incomes. The Board of Trustees shall not charge additional dues for subscriptions in accessible formats, such as large print.

Tortoise writes: “This is something I feel strongly about, to ensure that the NPL is welcoming to people with disabilities. This includes both prospective members and existing members who may become disabled later in life. For many public services, it is illegal under the Americans with Disabilities Act to charge an additional fee for accessible services. Membership in the NPL is not a public service, but I believe that we should not impose an additional cost to subscribers who request an accessible format.”

The following amendment was proposed by Teki and placed on the ballot by a majority vote of the board. It was announced and discussed at the 2019 convention and was described in the Secretary’s minutes and published in the September 2019 Engima, and adopted by a vote of the League.

[Change] section 3 of the Bylaws to remove “shall be $18, which” to leave the first sentence reading, “Annual dues shall include a subscription to The Enigma.” The rest of the section that refers to the Board setting the dues will be unchanged.

The following amendment was proposed by Qoz and placed on the ballot by a majority vote of the board. It was published in the October 2019 Enigma and adopted by a vote of the League.

PROPOSED BYLAW AMENDMENT — by Qoz

The following bylaws amendment is intended to improve how sites for future conventions are selected. In Robert’s Rules of Order, designed for parliamentary procedures, decision making uses motions, which have up or down votes. Other than elections of officers, there is no provision for voting between multiple options. For choosing a convention site, this is awkward, even when there are just two candidate locations. A motion for a single site must be made and seconded. If the motion is for a site that is not a member’s top choice for the given year, then they must vote against the motion in order to have an opportunity for a subsequent motion for their preferred site. They have to do this even if they’d be happy to have a convention at that location in some future year.

This change brings the bylaws in line with what we have actually done at times in the past. In more than one year, including 2019, the League voted between sites at the annual meeting, rather than voting on a motion for one location.

CURRENT BYLAW 6(B), as amended in 2006: At a business meeting, any member may present to the assembly an offer to host a future convention. When all offers for a particular year’s convention have been presented, and after appropriate debate, a motion may be entertained to vote to select a convention site from among the offers presented.

PROPOSED REPLACEMENT: At a business meeting, any member may present to the assembly an offer to host a future convention. When all offers for a particular year’s convention have been presented, and after appropriate debate, the chair of the meeting shall call for a vote among the candidate locations. During the vote, each member present shall vote for only one candidate location or abstain. Should no candidate location receive a majority of the vote, a second vote shall be taken between the two candidate locations receiving the most votes.

The following amendment was proposed by the board and placed on the ballot by a majority vote of the board. It was announced and discussed at the 2018 convention and was described in the Secretary’s minutes and published on the ballot distributed with the October 2018 Engima, and adopted by a vote of the League.

The following item shall be added to the Bylaws:

8. Code of Conduct An official Code of Conduct shall be maintained and made available to the membership at any time. The contents of that Code of Conduct shall appear as Appendix A to these Bylaws and may be amended by the Board of Trustees.

The following amendments were proposed by Kray at the 2006 Convention, published in the October 2006 Enigma, and subsequently adopted by a unanimous vote of the League.

PROPOSED BYLAW AMENDMENT — by Kray

The following bylaws amendment (with minor changes in wording) was authorized by the business meeting at the 2006 convention for placement on the fall ballot. It has two principal functions.

• It brings the bylaws in line with current practice for selecting convention sites. Several years ago, the convention business meeting voted to begin selecting sites two years in advance rather than one; under the old wording, it was then necessary to formally ratify the choice one year in advance. The new version removes this formality, by making two-year advance selection obligatory (with the usual exception: the Board may be authorized to make a selection later, or to replace a site already selected if it becomes unavailable).
• It fixes a couple of logical problems with the site selection process. Under the current wording, one can bid for any year arbitrarily far into the future, and as soon as one bid is placed for a given year, it becomes obligatory to immediately select a site for that year by a plurality vote. (E.g., at the 2007 convention, where the 2009 site will be picked, I can “poach“ the 2010 convention by prematurely bidding for it.) The new wording removes the obligation to choose (except for the “normal” selection of a site two years into the future); it also removes the specification of a voting mechanism. In each case, the proposal is to replace the underlined text with the proposed text in quotes.

CURRENT BYLAW 4: A business meeting shall be held each summer at the annual convention. The order of business at the meeting shall be as follows: reading of the minutes of the previous meeting; reading of the names of members who have died since the previous meeting, and a moment of silence in their honor; reports from the treasurer, and from other officers, individuals, and committees, as appropriate; unfinished business; new business, including presentation of offers to host the following summer’s convention, and election of the same; miscellaneous announcements; adjournment.

PROPOSED REPLACEMENT: “new business, including presentation of offers to host future conventions, and election of the same;”

CURRENT BYLAW 6(A): A convention of the membership shall be held each summer. The sites of future conventions shall be decided at the annual business meetings, and a business meeting shall not be adjourned if no site for the following year’s convention has been elected, unless the assembly has authorized, by majority vote, a committee to select the site at a later date.

PROPOSED REPLACEMENT: “and a business meeting shall not be adjourned if sites have not been elected for both of the two subsequent years' conventions, unless the assembly has authorized, by majority vote, a committee to select the site(s) at a later date.”

CURRENT BYLAW 6(B): At a business meeting, any member may present to the assembly an offer to host a future convention. When all offers have been presented, and after appropriate debate, the assembly shall vote, and the offer receiving the plurality of votes shall be elected.

PROPOSED REPLACEMENT: “When all offers for a particular year’s convention have been presented, and after appropriate debate, a motion may be entertained to vote to select a convention site from among the offers presented.”

There may be amendments to the bylaws prior to 2006, but we do not have a record of any such amendments.