Conduct Committee

The GVIAS Conduct Committee is an independent group of volunteers to the GVIAS Board.

Mission Statement

The GVIAS Conduct Committee exists to provide a compassionate assessment process into conduct concerns raised by community members (including concerns raised about members of the GVIAS Board or Conduct Committee).

The Conduct Committee is to provide a more impartial and meaningful process to recommend exclusion or conditional participation of people at official GVIAS events.

Conduct Committee only recommends actions to the GVIAS Board, it remains the responsibility of the GVIAS Board to enact those recommendations as they see fit.

While some mediation is likely to occur during assessments, it is not the primary goal of the Conduct Committee and participants are encouraged to seek help from friends, loved ones and mentors to help resolve personal issues they may have.

Principles

The Conduct Committee will handle issues that are highly sensitive and also of great concern to our community as a whole. Wherever possible, processes will be made transparent, while the personal information of the involved parties will remain confidential.

The conduct committee does not make public statements about specific incidents. Periodically the Conduct Committee will release a report summarizing the number of active assessments, closed assessments and recommendations made. For any questions about the Conduct Committee’s activities, please contact the GVIAS Board.

Currently the members of the Conduct Committee are:

• Bonkosa Ilanga (lead)
• Joseph Lunderville (Lead)
• Serena Balthes (lead)

• Carly Weston
• Lauren Shay
• Valerie Roberts
• Vesna Bokic

Membership & Leadership

The Conduct Committee is comprised of experienced “Burner” community members with active involvement in GVIAS regional events. The Committee shall consist of a minimum of 9 members, including the leads. The size of the Committee may expand or contract based on necessity and effectiveness.

Member Selection

Whenever the Conduct Committee requires additional members, they will send a public Call-Out for applications and nominations via the GVIAS Newsletter and related Facebook groups. Conduct Committee members, GVIAS Board and Conduct Liaison can also nominate people who then must apply formally through the application process. Nominees who have formally applied will be submitted for vetting by the community before the Conduct Committee selects from the applicants at a monthly meeting.

Conduct Committee Member Tenure

• Minimum of one year
• No maximum tenure
• A member (or lead) may be removed by majority vote of the Conduct Committee for any cause upon notice to the member and opportunity to respond prior to a vote, or at the discretion of the board
• Three leads may be nominated by members of the CC or self-nominated
• Leads serve for minimum of one year
• Leads are recommended to take a periodic break from leadership while still remaining active members of the CC

Conduct Committee Member Expectations

All Conduct Committee members are expected to conduct themselves in accordance with formal and informal community standards. They understand and willingly accept that they are subject to increased scrutiny as community leaders. Should any grievance with a Committee member be brought to the attention of another Committee member or the GVIAS Board, this information will be shared with the rest of the Conduct Committee immediately so action can be taken to address the situation.

Conduct Committee members agree to hold information related to report inquiries or discussions in strict confidence. Members will not talk about reports, cases or impacted individuals to the public.

Decision Making

Wherever possible, the Conduct Committee will make decisions by consensus. Consensus does not necessarily mean agreement of all members, but that all members can agree to accept the decision of the group.

A majority of CC members must be present at any meeting that discusses recommendations of action to the Board.

If a member of the Conduct Committee (regarding an assessment) has a conflict of interest or is involved in a particular situation, they will be recused from that particular matter and will not have access to the related report. If either the reporter or reportee feels that a member of the Conduct Committee or the Board may have a conflict of interest regarding a situation, this can be discussed with the leads.

Meetings

The Conduct Committee aims to meet once per month when there are completed assessments to discuss, with an additional meeting of the Leads.

Overview of the Conduct Committee Process

To learn more about the Conduct Committee’s processes, please refer to the FAQ.

Amendment of Process

This is a living document and is subject to review and revision.