Bylaws in Team structure???
 

This is my 4th year as a mentor and I have not seen or heard of another team that has bylaws in place. I now have a new adult mentor that is pushing HARD for all the trim and trappings of Bylaws. It is hard to believe that most teams have them. SO TWO QUESTIONS. 1. DO OTHER TEAMS HAVE BYLAWS? 2. IF NOT, ANY SUGGESTS ON HOW TO SHUT THIS DOWN WITHOUT RIFTING THE TEAM??.

Re: Bylaws in Team structure???
 

Could you please give an example of the types of bylaws the mentor is wanting to implement? Perhaps with more information, we can better help you in your situation.

Re: Bylaws in Team structure???
 

our car club has bylaws, but I doubt the robotics club does....

Re: Bylaws in Team structure???
 

340 has some by laws they state what the different sub teams are what they do and some requirements for traveling. in our school district all clubs need a "consitution" I'm not sure if this is the reason why we have it,but it does come in handy so people know whats what.

Re: Bylaws in Team structure???
 

Our booster club has bylaws. The team has a handbook that covers everything else.

Re: Bylaws in Team structure???
 

I Never heard ByLaws in Activity Clubs just Unions such as my own. Heck I don't even remember my old Team having ByLaws. As far as shutting down this one persons idea, try talking to them and explain to them how their ByLaws could cause problems with the way the Team is already being run. Robotics Teams have a few sets of rules to go by already: 1) The Board of Education, 2) The School itself, 3) The Robotics Team 4) FIRST Robotics. Those sets of rules are more than enough to keep a team member straight and organizing what is what, creating ByLaws will only complicate things and cause the team to be rather restless. Like I said try talking to the person as an individual if that doesn't work, try getting you and the rest of the Team to talk to this person, try and get them to explain why the ByLaws are needed. Unless like JooHoo said its being created for the Sub-Committees within the Team.

Is the Team in that bad of shape that ByLaws are needed? Or is this person just creating them to overthrow the team government and be the sole leader of the team?

Re: Bylaws in Team structure???
 

Many teams develop handbooks and some have by-laws. This would all fall under team organization. For teams who have non-profit status, 501(c)(3), by-laws are part and parcel of the process.

Re: Bylaws in Team structure???
 

To continue with Jane's comments, the link below is to a presentation MOE 365 gave at the First Robotics Conference in April regarding 501(c)(3) non-profit status. The presentation has information on By-Law creation.

http://moe365.org/moeu.php

It appears that, in the original post, what the mentor wants would fall into the rules/expectations area rather than by-laws. As was previously mentioned, many teams have handbooks, which may cover this topic. To be better able to respond, it would be beneficial to know what specific rules/expectations the mentor would like to have instituted.

Some possible areas would include:

- "how do we vote on a robot design"
- "what are the requirements for students to remain on the team"
- "what are the requirements for student team members to travel to competitions"
- "what financial obligations are expected from team members"
- "what behaviors are expected from team members"

Many teams have lists of expectations. MOE requires students to sign off on a Student Contract, which states that the team member will obey all team rules or risk being moved off the team.

Re: Bylaws in Team structure???
 

I know this is true at our school is well; our robotics club has a constitution so that it may exist, however no one currently involved with the club has ever seen it (meaning it was probably last updated 4 to 5 years ago...).

We have a handbook where we lay down the rules we've established and how students are expected to behave.

Re: Bylaws in Team structure???
 

You might also consider having a MOU (memorandum of understanding) for the mentors. Doesn't need to be fancy, but have expectations outlined about the roles of mentors.
There are quite a few teams with excellent team handbooks. We hope to get examples of these on the NEMO website in the resources section in the new year.
It's all about communication.

Re: Bylaws in Team structure???
 

Lightning Robotics has both bylaws & Handbook, our bylaws are just for the schools paperwork and mostly establish there is a a club. Our hand book however covers the majority of our teams policies and has been updated to fit our team's needs.

All our hand book revisions can be found athttp://lightningrobotics.com/files/?...ents/Handbooks along with our Style Guide, and RPM booster club bylaws.

Re: Bylaws in Team structure???
 

No bylaws, just rules. All rules are from the school or build site, except one that is pretty much a joining requirement. A rough outline follows:

1: Follow all school rules. (knives, behavior, academic grade passing or above)
2: Participate in our spaghetti dinner fundraiser. If you don't, you need to have a very good reason.
3: Follow all build site rules. (long pants, closed-toe shoes, don't leave our area in the site, sign a release saying you've been safety trained)

There are a few others, but they are mainly formality. (number in group to leave, curfew on the road, supervision) Sometimes, though, they are broken, and punishment follows.

Re: Bylaws in Team structure???
 

We have rules, but they change every year and Mr. McGowan changes them every year. Particularly the travel rules.

Re: Bylaws in Team structure???
 

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/search/results/25889

Here is the link to the Team 1155 Constitution which although not exactly a set of bylaws, functions as one. Also i will work on getting copies of the Student and Parent handbooks onto the whitepaper sections of the site but if anyone is interested in seeing them before i do PM me and ill send you a copy.

Re: Bylaws in Team structure???
 

Do you have other adults in authority above the mentor level--such as school principal or school board members--who think that bylaws are going to be necessary for your team? If so, you should probably do what those people request. If not, perhaps it would help to explain to the new mentor how your team works, and to demonstrate that the team's structure and rules are already adequate for running the team.

Caution: If you do adopt bylaws, make very sure that you have a section detailing how to change the bylaws. I know of an organization, legally a nonprofit under state law, that is trying to figure out how to make necessary changes to its bylaws when the bylaws don't allow for being amended.

Re: Bylaws in Team structure???
 

Wait...what are so bad about by-laws? You haven't told us anything about them. I'm sure every FIRST team has rules and guidelines- like safety rules, participation rules (i.e. keeping a certain GPA), guidelines about how the team is structured, etc etc. The best course of action would be for your entire team to discussed whatever is being proposed by this mentor, and those of you who have problems with the suggestions can express them. I'm pretty wary of giving you ideas about how to completely trample someone else's opinion... =/

If your team discusses it and there is still a conflict, I'm sure the people on CD would be happy to give you advice about how to handle the problem, but we certainly need more information than what was given.

Re: Bylaws in Team structure???
 

Our team is incorporating this summer, so bylaws come with it. However, our current plan is to enact bylaws to govern organization/administration.

Example- Limiting the chairperson of the board to a term of x number of years would be a bylaw. Requiring students to pass a safety test before using tools would be a team rule, but not a bylaw.

Re: Bylaws in Team structure???
 

Many teams have handbooks which lay out the expectations, rules, and agreements for team members. For some teams, this may include by-laws. For others, it may just be "rules", or "expectations". You might want to look through handbooks to see what other teams are doing and help to establish a standard of what is right for your team. There are many handbooks available on CD, and there is also a list of handbooks available on usfirst.org, here.

Re: Bylaws in Team structure???
 

Bryan,
Make sure that as you develop the program for your team, you are talking about and working on two different aspects of the development, and communicating that well to others as you plan and discuss it.

1. the formation of the non-profit

2. team rules/guidelines/expectations set down in writing, usually in some form of a handbook.

You are using the term, bylaws, in both areas and that can be a little confusing, esp. because the non-profit is a completely different process than the development of a team handbook.

Good luck with both, sounds like you guys are going to have a very busy and productive off season.
Jane