Forward to the 2026 Bylaws

With several vacancies on the Minnesota Climbers Association Board of Directors in 2026, it provided the current board an opportunity to reevaluate the process of filling board openings to bring us to eleven dedicated volunteers.

Since the MCA’s inception in the mid-2000s, new board members were traditionally brought on by nomination by current board members, or by an application process.

In 2022 the board adopted a new method - board members elected by the climbing community.The goal was to broaden the pool of candidates outside of our social circles. Rounds of elections were conducted in 2023 and 2024. While these elections delivered us some amazing board members, the engagement from the climbing community was minimal. The number of applicants often matched the number of openings, so the process of an election was unnecessary.
Voting on board members was available to all MCA Members. To become a MCA Member, a $25 annual membership was required. There was a process open to community members wanting to vote, but unable to afford a membership. Voting was available to all who wanted to participate. The MCA received low-voter participation for all elections held since 2022, with the average number of votes coming in from around 30 climbers.

To promote, advertise and run an election turned out to be more time consuming for the board than anticipated. Given the generally low-participation, it became evident that our time could be better spent doing other things to serve Minnesota climbing.

In the spring of 2026, after some intense discussion within the board, we decided to move towards aligning the board position openings closer to a job application, with the current board acting collectively as the hiring manager. It was recognized that there were specific roles that needed to be filled on the board. The application process allows the board to add new board members with intent to fill specific needs. This would be difficult to do within an election system. It has traditionally been a challenge for the MCA to convey our work to the Minnesota climbing community, let alone to describe what qualities make for an effective board member.

We acknowledge that the application system removes the democratic process from community involvement in filling board positions. Our aim is to construct a board of effective and diverse individuals from the Minnesota climbing community to fulfill the mission of the MCA.
Meeting the current needs of the board with intention will help fulfill our goals and stay true to our mission..

While we take all revisions of our bylaws seriously, following 2026 Minnesota Statutes Chapter 317A. Nonprofit Corporations, nonprofits, such as The Minnesota Climbers Association, are not required to have bylaws, we chose to in order to provide structure and guidance to current and future boards and provide accountability to the community we serve.

See 2026 Minnesota Statutes, 317A.181 Bylaws, for more about nonprofit bylaws.

The current edition of the bylaws were rewritten in 2026 to reflect these updates.