kevin_standlee | WSFS Business Meeting Agenda Published

It's later than we would have liked, but the 2023 WSFS Business Meeting Agenda has been published. Apparently there were some people who thought there was a rule that required the agenda be published a certain number of days in advance, but there is no such rule. Technically, the agenda doesn't have to be published in advance at all. In theory, you'd know what was on the agenda by showing up at the meeting, just like it used to be. There is a rule that sets the deadline for submitting new business to 30 days before the first Business Meeting. It used to be 18 hours before the Preliminary Business Meeting!

Getting the Agenda ready was challenging this year. Not only are there a total of 13 new proposals (including two from committees), but there was the requirement from the host convention that the agenda be translated and made available in Chinese. This is especially important as many of the proposals are coming from the Chinese members.

I won't be giving my opinion on these proposals, except for one where I'll recuse myself from the head table because I am one of the sponsors. I also will present the report of the WSFS Mark Protection Committee, of which I am Chair. In addition, I'll add another country to my tally of countries in which I've presided, as meeting Chair Donald Eastlake III will present the report of the Nitpicking & Flyspecking Committee of which he is Chair, so during that report and the debate over business arising from it, I will preside over the meeting as Deputy Chair.

As I've said before, I'm going to try and record the Business Meeting if I can. It will be challenging as we have nobody yet recruited to mind the camera, so we have to hope that things work as planned, and we also won't have anyone to pan across the room during any serpentine votes, as Lisa has always tried to do to show people watching the meeting that the vote is actually happening.

I don't know if Chengdu plans to live-stream the meeting. Even if the meeting is live-streamed, remember that only WSFS members physically present at the meeting can vote.

There's still a lot we don't know about this year's meeting. It's apt to be one of the most challenging to manage for lots of reasons. Just bear in mind that those of us trying to manage the meeting don't have a hidden agenda: only this published one.