Let Your Voice Be Heard: ABA's Town Hall and Annual Membership Meetings

This year's American Booksellers Association Town Hall and Annual Membership meetings will be held on Friday, June 1, at the Jacob Javits Convention Center.

The Town Hall Meeting, from 3:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. in Room 1C02 - 1C04 of the Javits Center, offers ABA member booksellers the opportunity to express opinions and share ideas with ABA Board members and staff in a less formal setting than the ABA Membership Meeting, which follows. At the Town Hall, booksellers are encouraged to ask questions and make suggestions on any topic of concern.

In order to provide the opportunity for as many members as possible to speak during the meeting, a sign-up sheet will be prominently displayed in the Book Sense Lounge beginning Friday morning. Sign up is on a first-come, first-served basis, though the Board will do its best to make sure all members with questions or issues have the opportunity to speak. Booksellers will be called upon in the order in which they sign up.

New and outgoing members of ABA's Board of Directors will be at the association's Annual Membership Meeting, to be held from 4:00 p.m. - 5:00 p.m. Room 1B02 - 1B04 of the convention center. ABA's official annual meeting will provide membership with an update on the past year's activities and accomplishments and a look ahead to future association projects.

This year, membership will also be asked to vote on proposed changes to Article VII (Committees and Advisory Bodies) of the association's bylaws. The proposed changes and an explanatory letter from ABA President Russ Lawrence of Chapter One Book Store in Hamilton, Montana, were sent to all Regular Members with the Board of Directors election ballot in early April. Additionally, Lawrence offered insight into the reasons for the proposed changes in a recent interview with BTW.

The bylaws adopted by ABA membership eight years ago "established what was called an 'audit committee,' but gave it duties that are best described as 'governance review,'" explained Lawrence. In the interim, Congress passed the Sarbanes-Oxley Act to regulate corporate accounting excesses, and although few of its provisions apply directly to not-for-profits, some of them are now recommended as best practices for not-for-profit trade association management. These include the establishment of an audit committee as a valuable tool to ensure financial accountability and transparency for the membership.

"The bottom line," said Lawrence, "is that we need to amend the bylaws to rename what we originally called the 'Audit Committee' as the new 'Governance Review Committee' and to establish a new 'Audit Committee' that will function in the way such committees customarily do."

The proposed changes "bring our bylaws into accordance with our practice and nomenclature," he noted. "Second, it will help to ensure members' confidence that the financial operation of the ABA is as competent and transparent as possible." (Read the complete interview.)

Voting cards will be available outside the meeting room two hours prior to the meeting.