The past month had been quite an education, and I’d like to share with you what I have learned—the good for me that has come out of the struggle we have just gone through.

Having an Election Committee separate from the duties of the officers is one of the best ideas that has developed, in my opinion. A separate committee frees the candidates from any suspicions of conflict of interest, and allows the Secretarial candidates fair time to do campaigning instead of adding to their duties. This temporary committee has a once-a-year responsibility, and has let more members be involved in an important way.

My faith in committees is compounded. I have watched a small group of people, the New Election Committee, who barely knew each other, become fast friends by working together to make the new election as completely free of bias and as fair as possible. They’ve also learned more about what they can accomplish with their computer software. I like Charles Darwin’s quotation, "It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change."

I have a greater respect for committee members who tackle revision. Our Constitution and Bylaws is a whole lot more than just a bunch of stilted, boring words. Though I detest the formal legalese of the "shalls" and "wills" and would rather use common, everyday language, those words were put together by ICON members as guidelines by which our organization operates. The members who wrote them put great care and thought into them. Now that’s not new, because I know how many, many hours of analytical thought and careful planning, writing, discussion, and rewriting, the members of the Constitution and Bylaws Revision Committee put in last summer, trying to provide guidelines that are both strong and fair. Those guidelines have been put to the test, and now I can see a few places where wording changes would make interpretation clearer, and changes in the election procedures could to be made to protect the candidates. Nothing is perfect; it’s just the best that can be determined at the time, and there will always be change.

Robert’s Rules of Order aren’t so intimidating when the authors are available to explain and interpret the complexities. The writers of ICON’s original Bylaws had the wisdom and foresight to include a higher authority. Bylaws Article VI states, "Robert's Rules of Order shall govern all matters of operating procedures and conduct not covered by the Constitution and Bylaws." In my years of working with Junior High Student Council at Study, we barely touched Robert’s Rules of Order—just recognizing the order of business to run a simple meeting, about like we use at ICON meetings. When it became necessary to refer to Robert’s Rules of Order, Version 10, interpretation and guidance by the authors were immediately available on the Internet at http://www.robertsrules.com. Thank goodness for advances in technology.