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Society Standing Rules                                               Page 1

Standing Rules
Longmont Genealogical Society, Inc. (aka LGS)


A. Purpose

The Standing Rules of the Society supplement the By-laws and document policy and decisions for the conduct of the Society’s business which are made by the LGS Board and are of general interest to all officers, Volunteer Coordinators, and the membership of the Society. They document policy decisions that affect Society or Board operations and which should be codified in a manner that is easily accessible to the membership and to the Board.


B. Standing Rules; Content, Approval and Amendment

The Standing Rules shall not contain any policy or direction contrary to the content of the Society’s By-laws. However, they may supplement, extend or clarify the Bylaws. They are approved by and may be amended by a majority vote of the Society’s Board as provided for in By-laws Article VI-C.


C. Meetings
  1. General membership meetings shall be held on the second Wednesday of the month at 1:00 P.M at the First Lutheran Church, 3rd and Terry Streets, Longmont, Colorado and will be streamed over a virtual platform (currently Zoom) for the benefit of those not able to attend in-person.
  2. Board meetings will normally be held on the first Wednesday of the month from 1:00 to 3:00 P.M. at the Longmont Senior Center and may also include attendance via a virtual platform (Zoom), if requested. Advance request/notice of at least 24 hours is expected for implementing a hybrid (Zoom) component for Board meetings. Board meetings are open and all members of the Society are welcome to attend. Meetings may be held bi-monthly starting with the January meeting to satisfy the By-laws requirement for 6 meetings per calendar year. After January, meetings may be held on different months or more frequently if the Board feels the need for additional working sessions.
  3. Board meetings may be held at alternate times/locations with the prior consent of a majority of the Board members, including being held via electronic means. The President should poll the other Directors for their concurrence and to establish a time and place for the meeting to occur. In a contingency, Board meetings may be held via e-mail discussion and a vote by e-mail. Again, the President should poll members to determine a suitable time for a virtual meeting to assure a quorum can attend.
  4. A general membership meeting may be moved to a virtual meeting (primary option), or canceled, at the discretion of the President on any day that the St. Vrain Valley schools are closed due to bad weather. This information will be included in Quarterlies published during fall and winter months. Members will also be notified of cancellations or move to a virtual meeting format by e-mail not later than 10 A.M. the day of the meeting.

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Society Standing Rules                                               Page 2
  1. In the event that any meeting falls on or near a holiday or at any other inconvenient date, the President (with approval of the Board) may schedule an alternative meeting date.

D. Membership

Membership dues are as follows (approved by membership vote, Sep. 2022):
  • Individual $25.00 per year
    •
  • Family (same household)$30.00
  • Honorary-life Free life membership (Given to Charter Members who
    are current LGS members when reaching 90 years of
    age)
  • Organization $25.00 per year (Entitles organization to have one
    representative attend LGS membership meetings, or in
    lieu of attendance may receive the LGS Newsletter
    printed and mailed without further cost)

E. Speakers
  1. The Vice President shall be given an annual budget allocation to pay speakers, cost of reproducing handouts for the membership, mileage or a lunch for the speaker. Mileage or lunch for the speaker may be negotiated so long as the total amount fits within the approved budget. Amounts to be paid shall be agreed to in advance between the Vice President and the speaker.
  2. The Vice President/Programs chair is encouraged to document in written form agreements made between the speaker and the Society to include such items as: agreed to stipend, subject matter of presentation, whether speaker will present inperson or by virtual means, etc. A Speaker Information Sheet (SIS) may be used for this purpose.
  3. The Vice President/Programs chair shall provide the Treasurer by e-mail or in writing the amount of the speaker fees not later than three days before the program meeting. The Vice President shall be furnished sufficient funds to cover speaker’s fees by the beginning of each general membership meeting, or the payment may be mailed if appropriate.

F. Special Interest Groups
  1. A petition for the formation of a SIG shall be in writing, e-mail is acceptable, and should state the SIG’s purpose and benefit to its LGS members, its initial membership, and proposed interval of meetings. Other details such as time or location of meetings should be provided, if known.

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Society Standing Rules                                               Page 3
  1. A SIG may request financial support at the time of the petition for formation, or at a later time. A funds request shall include the amount of funds requested and how the funds are to be spent to benefit the SIG members or LGS as a whole. Approval of financial support is at the discretion of the Board.
  2. A SIG Leader (see By-laws IX.A.3) will report periodically to the Board on the SIG functions or respond to questions from the Board as may be made from time to time.
  3. Request for payment of expenditures by a SIG, within the approved fund allotment (see F.2), shall be submitted to the LGS Treasurer, using a payment request form (available from the Treasurer). The LGS Treasurer will make payments on behalf of LGS and the SIG.
  4. Upon prior request a SIG shall be provided time at a General Membership meeting to report on activities of interest to the general membership, solicit members to participate in SIG activities, or make announcements of interest to LGS general membership.

G. Reports
  1. All officers and volunteer coordinators shall, at the end of each year, write a report summarizing the affairs of their office or area of responsibility for the preceding calendar year. This report should be completed by the first Board meeting of the year. One copy shall be turned over to the successor of that office or coordinator position, or included in the materials retained for that position as a matter of record and a second copy shall be provided to the President for the upcoming year.
  2. The LGS Treasurer shall prepare and distribute by e-mail to all Board meeting attendees, prior to the following month’s Board meeting, a monthly report showing: income, expenses plus starting and ending balances for the month just ended.
  3. The Secretary shall prepare and distribute to all attendees at a meeting of the Board, a draft of the minutes of any LGS Board meeting for review and comment by not later than 2 weeks following that meeting. For a LGS membership business meeting a copy should be distributed to the Board within the same time frame.
  4. The Secretary need only document in official minutes that portion of any LGS Membership meeting at which official LGS business is conducted, e.g. a motion is made, a vote conducted or other business such as a By-law required presentation made. The Secretary does not need to document in minutes any meetings which are just for the presentation of Programs, even though those may include announcements or other discussions.
  5. A copy of the past twelve months of Treasurer’s reports and Secretary’s minutes shall be available for members to read at each general membership meeting with an offer to send a copy to any member by e-mail.

H. Financial
  1. As expressed in By-laws Article XI, Section C, all expenditures of LGS funds are expected to be in accordance with the LGS approved budget. If any expenditure is anticipated outside of a budget line or in excess of the budgeted amount it is expected that the matter will be brought before the Board for approval before funds are expended. The Board may approve requests submitted post facto, but the person expending funds under such circumstances does so at their own risk.
  2. Anyone incurring an approved expense on behalf of LGS shall submit a payment request form (available from the Treasurer) to the LGS Treasurer. The Treasurer will validate the expenditure against the budget, Board motion or other approved expenditures and issue a check, after obtaining the approval of a second LGS financial signatory, to the party indicated on the request form. In case the Treasurer has any question about any expenditure request, he/she shall bring the issue to the Board at the next meeting for guidance/approval.

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Society Standing Rules                                               Page 4

  1. The Treasurer is authorized to pay all approved recurring/budgeted expenses without Board approval. Payment requests using the payment request form (available from the Treasurer) are to be presented within sixty days and represent a bona fide transaction on behalf of LGS.
  2. President, Secretary and Treasurer shall all be listed as signatories on LGS financial accounts. Normally the Treasurer and Secretary will co-sign checks or withdrawal requests. In the event of a temporary absence of the Treasurer the Secretary will assume the Treasurer’s duties. The President may provide the second signature with either the Treasurer or Secretary.

I. Quarterly Newsletter
  1. The Quarterly editor is a volunteer coordinator under provisions of the LGS Bylaws. The editor may have a staff who will also be volunteers.
  2. If sufficient volunteer staff exists, the Quarterly staff will prepare a newsletter titled The Heritage for the use and benefit of LGS members every three months: Feb, May, Aug and Nov. (Less frequent publication may occur, if less staff time is available.)
  3. The Heritage will be distributed to the membership in electronic format via email. Members desiring to receive it in hard copy by mail shall sign up at least one month in advance and shall be assessed a fee of $3.00 per issue, or $12 per year to cover printing and mailing expenses.
  4. The Quarterly staff will be provided with sufficient funds to cover printing and postage for those persons who have subscribed to receive The Heritage in printed format.

J. Document Retention and Destruction Policy
    (Approved by 5 Jun 2024 Board Meeting Motion)
  1. Permanent retention of appropriate documents will be managed digitally. One copy should be held in an appropriate Cloud storage location under a Society account, with back-up copies created on flash drives to be held by the President and Secretary of the Society.  Records to be retained include:
    1. Audit/review of annual financial records
    2. Budget, monthly and year-end financial reports
    3. Minutes of all Board and business membership meetings
    4. By-laws and Standing Rules: current version, plus two previous versions.
    5. Original IRS and Colorado Secretary of State filings
    6. Annual filings with IRS and Colorado Secretary of State
    7. Officer and Coordinator Annual Reports
    8. Other documents as convenient, including:
      1. Quarterly publication, the Longmont Heritage
      2. Programs of anniversary celebrations
      3. Significant newspaper clippings

  2. Financial records (except as noted above) need not be maintained permanently. Paper records are to be kept for seven (7) years in annual files and then to be shredded and discarded by the current Treasurer. These records to include:
    1. Deposit tickets and all bank statements
    2. Copies of all checks written, with receipts for non-routine reimbursements or payments.
    3. All statements from the bank and credit unions where LGS has accounts

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Society Standing Rules                                               Page 5

  1. All LGS officers or coordinators who are the originators or holders of the documents as listed in section 1, shall provide digital copies of the final versions of these items to the Technical coordinator via email every six months, June and December, for uploading to the Cloud storage. The Technical coordinator shall upload the items provided to the Cloud storage account and shall make flash drives holding all archived items for the President and Secretary to hold as a backup. It is recommended that most items being archived be converted to Portable Document Format (.pdf).

K. Other Procedures
  1. Research Request Policy:
    1. LGS will not actively solicit to perform query research, however if a query is received the President shall seek a volunteer researcher from the Society’s membership. The volunteer along with the President shall decide if LGS will accept it.
    2. If a query is accepted these procedures will be a followed:
      3.
      1. A minimum donation of $15.00 to include printing and postage per research request is required from the person requesting research and must be received before the research is performed.
      2. Since research is done by unpaid volunteers, research requests must be brief, simple and limited to that which can be done using Longmont sources or other nearby resources. Limit requests to one or two questions per query.
    3. If the request requires more than an hour of research, either an increased donation shall be required, or a list of local genealogists for hire shall be provided, after which there shall be no financial obligation to the Society.
  2. Paid Advertising Policy: ((Approved by 5 Oct 2022 Board Meeting Motion)
    1. No paid advertising will be accepted for: The Heritage, the LGS website or LGS Facebook page.
    2. No materials or services are to be advertised at the membership meetings, other than a speaker may offer his/her own publications or services at a meeting for which they are the presenter.

  3. Publication of Zoom Codes:
    1. Zoom codes and links for LGS sponsored meetings shall not be publicized in a manner generally accessible to the public; e.g. on the LGS website or on Facebook (inclusion in The Heritage is acceptable).
    2. Zoom codes will be provided by direct e-mail to LGS members; and to guests who register to attend meetings.



















Revised in: 2000, 2003, 2008, 2011, 2013, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2023 and 2024.*
*Last approved at LGS Board Meeting 5 June 2024