After the IFCSS 5th Congress, the election of the delegates from CGSA at University of Maryland at College Park caused a conflict within the CGSA. The former and current CGSA presidents were all elected as the IFCSS council member and SVC member, respectively. One of the opponent's arguements was that, as the president of an independent student organization, the best policy is to be independent. On the Later Comer net, I heard similar voice that the LC, as an independent organization, should stay away from the IFCSS. Then we may ask, what is the independence and what is the relationship between the IFCSS and its member CSS organizations. As defined in their constitution, the IFCSS and most of CSS organizations are supposed to be independent CSS organizations. The independence means that the organization operates and acts only based on its members' opinions, not on anybody else. In the IFCSS bylaws, the IFCSS is difined as a COORDINATOR of the CSS organizations in the US. Its members can be any CSS organizations in the US. The IFCSS holds an annual Congress meeting during which the delegates from local CSS organizations vote to determine its directions, policies, and leadership. After the annual congress, the IFCSS is run by its HQ and Council. On the other hands, the only specific responsibility for its members is the membership fee which, in fact, was never implemented. Therefore, member organizations have no other obligations to the IFCSS. Any individual member organization dose not have to follow the IFCSS's resolutions and can have its own opinions on any issues no matter how different from the IFCSS's which should be the majority opinions of its members. In this sense, the individual member organizations are independent from the IFCSS. Reverse should be also true. Since people always have different opinions, the different points of views on some issues between the IFCSS and its individual members should not be surprised. But the IFCSS should never have opinions different from its majority members. For local CSS organizations, the first thing to do to improve the IFCSS is to improve the quality of their delegates. Although the IFCSS is the largest nationwide CSS organization, the IFCSS dose not have the majority CSS organizations as its members. Therefore, it is best for the IFCSS to say it represents only its members (not all CSS), though the IFCSS can do things for the interests of all CSS and others may consider the IFCSS as the representative of the CSS in the US.
Best wishes.
Yuhe
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