Updates from the SOCCA Secretary

The past year was a busy one for SOCCA, and 2024 culminated in the Active Members of SOCCA voting to approve a comprehensive slate of amendments to the Society’s bylaws. The bylaws are an important document defining the operations and governance of the Society. As such, their periodic review and amendment is important to ensure the organization can continue to meet the needs of its membership. Several aspects of the amendments are worthy of emphasis.

Like many similarly sized professional organizations, SOCCA’s Executive Committee is comprised of five officers: a president, president-elect, treasurer, secretary, and an immediate past president. SOCCA officers have been serving two-year terms in each of these roles, and the sole officer election is for the secretary position. As such, every two years the membership elects a secretary from a slate of candidates comprised of current directors, the elected individual serves a term of two years as secretary and then advances to treasurer, and so forth. SOCCA is extremely fortunate to have a very dedicated and engaged membership, and creating opportunities for leadership within the organization is an important priority for the membership and SOCCA alike. As such, effective at the 2026 SOCCA Business Meeting (typically held in conjunction with the Annual Meeting), SOCCA will transition to one-year officer terms. In electing a new secretary annually, corresponding with advancement of officers through Executive Committee positions also on an annual cadence, this will serve to substantially increase opportunities for service both on the Board of Directors and the Executive Committee.

Member service on one, or more, of SOCCA’s numerous productive committees is another avenue for engagement within the Society. These committees provide important opportunities for members to collaborate, advance initiatives important to our subspeciality and our patients, and to network with colleagues. Historically the SOCCA bylaws have defined seven standing committees: Executive, Nominating, Communications, Membership, Education, Bylaws, and Research. Conversely, the bylaws previously allowed only for the creation of ad hoc committees reporting to a standing committee or to the SOCCA President, which facilitated the creation of additional groups over time as SOCCA’s membership grew and sought additional avenues for engagement and impact. Indeed, several such groups have been formed over the past five years. However, this entailed unnecessary complexity when naming, establishing, organizing, and managing these groups. In order to ensure SOCCA can adapt as the needs of the Society and its membership change, the revised bylaws now allow for a more flexible and separately defined committee structure. The bylaws now only define the three committees that are absolutely necessary to the governance of the Society: Executive, Nominating, and Bylaws. All other governance concerning committees of any type will be defined in a forthcoming SOCCA Policy document. This living document can be revised as necessary and ratified with approval of the Board of Directors, placing the Society on more nimble footing to organize various types of committees to meet its needs and that of the membership.

In addition to these major changes, myriad other bylaws amendments were ratified that serve to better align the bylaws with our current operations and priorities. In particular, member engagement remains of crucial importance to the Society, and with that in mind two other amendments were made to the bylaws to further this aim. First, term limits on committee service previously defined in the bylaws were removed to allow for greater flexibility, particularly considering that the optimal duration of service may vary between major committees, subcommittees, ad hoc committees, working groups, task forces, and so forth. Second, the bylaws now allow for elected committee leaders to serve as Ex-Officio (i.e., non-voting) Directors, which should serve to facilitate better bidirectional communication between the Board and SOCCA’s expansive committee structure.

The bylaws require that the Bylaws Committee be formed and convene no less often than every five years, and so no later than 2029 we can expect to again revisit the bylaws. Member feedback concerning the Society’s governance and operations is always welcome. Finally, I would like to extend a token of gratitude to Jennifer Rzepka, our Executive Director, and the recent members of the Bylaws Committee (Kunal Karamchandani, Mark Nunnally, Shahla Siddiqui, Mike Wall, and Liza Weavind) for their time and efforts.

Author