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by Susie Taylor

Delegates to the 86^th Ohio Farm Bureau Federation annual meeting turned down a motion to eliminate the four state regional women’s trustees with a vote of 128 for the motion and 194 against.

The proposal combined two code change suggestions that came from counties for the state Code Committee’s consideration. Code Committee Chairman and state trustee Steve Hess delivered the report from the committee, which recommended passage of the plan to reduce the number of state trustees from 26 to 22 and phase out the regional women’s trustee positions by 2006.

Discussion from delegates ranged from a concern for reducing women’s representation on the state board to a question about the original intent for the regional women’s trustee spots and whether that need still exists.

"Everybody agrees we need more women on the state board," said OFBF President Bob Peterson. "The challenge is what’s the best way to accomplish that."

Code Committee member Tom Koch from Mahoning County reported the committee discussed the proposal for several hours and determined the state women’s trustee spots were formed in a time when county women’s programs were more prevalent. With the transition of county women’s activities to promotion and education programs, the committee felt the state trustee spots were outdated.

The final vote was postponed for several minutes while delegates debated the need to use paper ballots instead of a standing vote. Delegates voted in favor of a standing vote, which cleared the way for the vote on the code change.

Another county-proposed code change involved changing OFBF’s annual meeting dates to avoid holding it during Ohio’s deer gun season. The committee recommended action not be taken as current code allows for the annual meeting can be held anytime during November or December. Several delegates pointed out that to meet advance notice requirements and to schedule code and policy committee meetings around harvest, the current timing of the annual meeting works best. One delegate suggested leaving the code alone and working with the annual meeting committee to look at future meeting dates to potentially avoid the hunting season.

Delegates turned down the motion to change the date of OFBF’s annual meeting.

The final code proposal considered by the code committee was to require paper ballots for all code changes. The committee did not recommend action and a motion died for lack of a second.