The Vero Beach Bridge Club now has a new set of bylaws, which doesn’t give its present Board of Governors quite as much power as it had sought, but does strengthen procedures for disciplining and even expelling members who do anything detrimental to the club at or away from the bridge tables.
At a special membership meeting last Monday, proposed new bylaws were overwhelmingly approved. To address some objections raised at an informational meeting the previous week, the board rescinded a proposal to extend board members’ terms from the present two to three years, and kept monthly Board meetings where members can attend and ask comments, instead of holding Board meetings only every other month.
“Frankly, I was surprised they did that much,” said one member who had been concerned about the proposed changes.
However, the new bylaw section on discipline was pushed through as proposed by the board. It allows the Board to bypass its own Conduct and Ethics Committee and discipline, up to expulsion, any member deemed by the Board in its infinite wisdom to have engaged in any acts detrimental to the club.
That provision had been criticized as “overly punitive” and “threatening.”