Here's my two propositions, without comments:

Part 1: Vote or NOT - to set up a recruitment committee, as described below:

a. A committee of two to four people who will volunteer, either from the Board or from the general membership, to oversee the whole administrative and logistic aspect of 'inviting' and 'processing' new members. This committee will also propose recommendations for future changes in this field.

b. This committee, and ONLY this committee, will be moderators of the tt-inc. mail-list on e-groups.com or wherever such a mail-list will reside in the future.

c. The functions of this committee, among other things, will be:

- Handle all the aspects of bringing new members to the Troubled Times, Inc., accepting and registering the new members, and getting them 'acclimatized' in the Corporation.

- Act as the contact link between prospective/new members and the general membership

- Draw up a reasonably 'standardized' flyer-type explanation about the Corporation, which we will send to a potential member together with a personal letter. (This is better than just providing a link to the TT-Inc. website.)

- Periodically go through the names of contributors from the other tt lists, to look for prospective members.

- Keep an updated list of who has been asked to join, when, accepted/refused/ etc., and also do follow-ups.

Part 2: Vote to change the wording of Article 8 (Membership) Section 2 to the following:

Section 2: Application Approval

a. Membership in the mail-group "tt-inc" (currently located on "e-groups") will be open only to applicants who were duly accepted as follows to become members of Troubled Times, Inc. (my proposed addition.)

b. All applications to Troubled Times, Inc. will be processed within 60 days of receipt of such application.

c. The Membership Committee will from time to time invite prospective members to apply for membership in the Troubled Times, Inc. Application for membership will be in the form of application for subscription to "tt-inc" the mail-group.

d. The Membership Committee will post a notice on tt-inc on e-groups that certain person or persons have applied for membership, and the reasons they have been invited to join.

e. Within 14 days of posting the above notice, members will be able to voice objections to a given applicant. If two Board members object to a particular applicant - an open vote by the general membership on the issue of accepting that applicant will be held.

f. If the need for the described vote arises - the applicant will be informed that his application is being decided in a vote, and will be given a chance to convince the membership to accept him.

g. Each member will be provided with a link to a Web page where an up-to-date list of current members is kept.