Background: If you remember from the November minutes, the EVP presented a membership report and PowerPoint presentation in open session. By the context, sounds like it did not look good. Although presented in open session, he asked that it not be shared. Here's how it was described in the minutes:
"A membership report was handed out; the EVP felt the report was critical in Council’s thinking strategically. He believes that Council will rally around the newly elected President and he is dedicated to working with Council to accomplish this. A Power Point presentation followed. The EVP requested it not be shared outside of Council now but should be considered for future action (emphasis added)." ... AMA EC Meeting Minutes, Nov 2016
Issue #1: In every organization with which I've been affiliated, public and private, anything presented in open session is available to all upon request.
Issue #2: In crafting my request for the PowerPoint, I could not find the rules by which the board operated, rules required by Article XIV, Order of Business, of the AMA bylaws:
"The order of business for each Executive Council meeting shall be determined by the President in consultation with the Executive Director. The President shall be the Chairperson of the meeting. The rules governing the conduct of all such meetings shall be determined by the Executive Council (emphasis added)." ... Bylaws of the Academy of Model Aeronautics, Incorporated, document 001bylaws.pdf, page 9.
So, I sent an email to my district VP asking for two things: The information presented in Open Session and a copy of the rules governing the conduct of EC meetings - rules required by the bylaws. That was two months ago, and to date I've received neither. However, there is progress, which will force more transparency on the EC and their conduct. In the January minutes, the President announced:
"Rich also indicated that we would use Robert’s Rules of Order to run the Executive Council meetings (emphasis added)."
It's a small victory, but one that helps bring some accountability and transparency to the board's actions. Forcing them to live by the structure of defined rules (Robert's) will allow us to hold them accountable to a defined procedure to do business - thus making it more difficult to make up rules as they go along.