Caution! This message was sent from outside the University of Manitoba.
Dear CALS Board Members,
I hope this message finds you well! Please find the updated awards documents attached for your review. As these revisions require Board approval, we will need to proceed with a vote; please see the policy below regarding online voting. (Thanks Fenton!)
The updates reflect the generative discussion at our last online Board meeting, as well as a follow-up meeting with a small group who have served on the Awards committee to review my initial drafts. (Thanks Audrey, Kyle, and Fenton!)
The most substantive changes are to the Leisure Scholar Award and the Emerging Scholar Award and reflect revisions to eligibility, evaluation criteria, and the nomination process. For the CALS Connection Grant, an explicit statement that it may be used for CCLR. For the Marion Miller Award, the key revisions clarify that submitted papers must be sole authored by the student (where advisor co-authorship had previously been included) and that paper lengths are 6,000-8,000 words which aligns closer to journal submission standards.
Across all awards, I also aimed to improve consistency in language, formatting, and overall presentation.
I kindly ask that you review the materials and submit your vote by Friday at 10:00 a.m. Please feel free to reach out with any questions or comments in advance of voting.
Thank you very much for your time, input, and thoughtful consideration. As far as I know, this is the first thorough review of all the awards since they were created around 10 years ago. (With the exception of the Marion Miller Award.)
Warm wishes,
Dawn
Dawn E. Trussell, Ph.D.
Professor, Chancellor’s Chair for Research Excellence
Brock University | Department of Sport Management
1812 Sir Isaac Brock Way | St. Catharines, ON, Canada L2S 3A1 brocku.ca | T 905 688 5550 x 4580 | F 905 688 4505 Email: dtrussell@brocku.camailto:dtrussell@brocku.ca
CALS EMAIL VOTING PROCEDURES October 21, 2025
Email votes are only used to make decisions that need to be made before the next board meeting, when it is not possible to call a special meeting, or when discussion has occurred at a previous board meeting (e.g., feedback on documents and voting on the final document).
1. An email vote is not a meeting, but rather approval obtained separately from all board members. 2. The topic to be addressed should be kept as simple as possible; preferably one item. 3. Since an email vote is not a meeting there can be no discussion on the resolution. Therefore, any resolution by email vote must be passed by unanimous consent of all eligible voting members, or it must be rolled over to a proper meeting where deliberation can occur prior to a vote. 4. The resolution can only pass by unanimous consent if everyone who is eligible voted, and the approved resolution must later be ratified at a regular meeting. 5. The vote must be posted for 72 hours. 6. Each board members is asked to add discussion or approval notes. 7. The vote is not anonymous.
A note on abstentions.
A member(s) can abstain from an email vote and still have that vote be permissible under this framework so long as all members manifest receipt of the notice of an email vote, and no objection thereto, abstentions do not affect this process. This is because, “To “abstain” means not to vote at all….” [RONR 12th, 4:35] So long as no one objects or affirmatively casts a “no” vote, the e-voting process remains valid, so long as it is later ratified. So long as there are no objections or “no” votes, abstentions do not affect the e-vote
A note on Robert’s Rules.
Reference to Robert's Rules reveals an interesting fact about email votes, which is that email votes are not meetings. A call for a simple vote by email does not satisfy the requirement of simultaneous aural communication among all participants equivalent to the one room or area rule [8:2(1) and 9:31]. This rule goes to the heart of preserving the deliberative nature of a democratic assembly [1:1]. Also, under general parliamentary law a board can transact business only in a regular or properly called meeting of which every board member has been sent any required notice (9:2-5, 9:13-16) and at which a quorum (40:5) is present. The personal approval of a proposed action obtained separately by telephone, by individual interviews, or in writing, even from every member of the board, is not the approval of the board, since the members lacked the opportunity to mutually debate and decide the matter as a deliberative body [49:16]. This means that an email vote is not a meeting, so technically it is not a valid means to transact business except that it can be made valid through the process of ratification at the next regular meeting. The motion to ratify is used to confirm or make valid an action already taken that cannot become valid until approved by the assembly.
However, unanimous consent is permissible under Robert's Rules even though it deviates from the normal deliberation requirement because if everyone votes and everyone votes "yes" there is no minority, and if there is no minority to protect there is no need for deliberation. However, if anyone votes "no" or objects the question must be rolled over to an actual deliberative meeting that does comply with 8:2 or 9:31, so that the rights of the minority can be protected through the deliberation process