On Fri, Jul 29, 2016 at 12:17:16PM -0400, Steve Litt wrote:
>
> True story. As one of ten founders of a LUG in 1999, and
> concerned about some future "evil group" "kidnapping" the LUG, I
> convinced everyone to put a very difficult quorum requirement into the
> constitution. Everyone was excited about the new quorum requirement:
> All of us had concerns because the previous LUG had been a (pretty
> darned good, in retrospect) cult of personality. Eight years later,
> when LUGs weren't so hip and populated anymore, that quorum requirement
> prevented the LUG from electing new officers, essentially killing it.

The Assoociationn for COmputing Machinery (better known as the ACM) hit
that hurdle a number of years ago when they couldn't get a quorum for
needed bylaw changes. They proposed an amendment to reduce the quorim
and couldn't er *that* passed. They tried again, and sent a letter to
the entire membership asking them please to vote on that amendment, or
it would likely be impossible to get any amendment done ever again, no
matter how important or trivial. Even if you explicitly abstain it
counted toward the quorum. It passed, and the ACM survives to this day.

-- hendrik