Postscripts

---

What's in a Name?

A lot, in the case of the Austin Writers League, which may soon become the Writers' League of Texas. Tonight, just prior to AWL's monthly meeting, a forum on some proposed changes to the organization's bylaws is scheduled to take place at 5pm at First Unitarian Universalist Church (4700 Grover). AWL executive director Jim Bob McMillan says there are two reasons for the name change: A surprising 43% of members don't even live in Austin. "It's kind of a logistics thing," he says. "People would call us up and say, 'I'm from Conroe but I'm interested in ... but why am I calling the Austin writers' organization?' and we'd have to tell them that we have programs beyond the city of Austin." Secondly, a name like Writers' League of Texas is "more attractive to some larger funders, like Southwestern Bell and HEB," who might make larger donations to the organization if its scope is accurately reflected in its name. But members will vote not only on the name change but an entire set of bylaws that, if approved, would actually remove the members' ability to vote. "The Corporation shall not have voting members. Members shall not be members of the Corporation, and shall not have voting rights therein," Section III of Article IV of the proposed bylaws officiously declares, and that has some members up in arms. Approval of the bylaws would make AWL a board-run nonprofit with 15 board members instead of the current nine. The new bylaws would also remove the board's responsibility to disclose the results of AWL's annual audit. "We seriously object to this," says Jeff Morris, an honorary lifetime member who has been involved in various capacities with AWL since its founding in 1981. "This is not the principle upon which the League was founded." Morris and others who dislike the bylaws stress that they are pleased with the present board and AWL administration but nonetheless point out that AWL "was founded as a democratic organization and we want it to remain such," as Morris says.

But voting for the status quo is not a viable option, say McMillan and various board members. They point out that in a routine vote, only a small percentage of the 1,263 members routinely hand in ballots (with that amount of members, AWL is reported to be the second-largest regional writing organization in the nation). And when ballots are mailed to the full membership, "the cost is about $600 every time we want to make a decision!" says Colleen Aycock, vice president of the board. Aycock says her "fiduciary obligation" as a board member is to keep the organization's finances in the black, so she's voting in favor of the new bylaws. Nonetheless, "member control leads to member involvement," insists Jennifer Evans, another lifetime member who also was involved in AWL's founding.

AWL's growing pains are not at all unprecedented for a nonprofit that has steadily increased its scope beyond its original mission. Aycock refers to the proposed bylaws as "standard boilerplate" for nonprofits and denies the idea that AWL is simply following a trend of nonprofits across the nation that are turning from a member-run structure to board-run. "Everybody's already there," she says. "We're just catching up. It isn't even a trend; it's something that's already happened." "The Austin Writers League, it seems to me, is experiencing, quite frankly, a kind of success," says John Paul Baptiste, executive director of the Texas Commission on the Arts. "But that success can also be extremely debilitating if it's not carefully managed."