Preliminary Planning

Please realize that it is unlikely that any newly proposed NCTE assembly will reach fully recognized assembly status within a single calendar year of the impulse to form it. A constitution has to be drafted and ratified, a minority involvement policy has to be developed and approved, officers have to be elected, at least 25 NCTE members have to be recruited and dues have to be established and collected.

Meeting time for groups that wish to explore forming an NCTE Assembly may be provided during one of the Convention time blocks set aside at the NCTE Annual Convention, provided that organizing groups request meeting space and time by writing the Convention Director by May 1 preceding the next NCTE Convention.

An optimal schedule might look like the following. The organizers agree that a new assembly is needed. For the following Annual Convention they plan an organizational program to "test the waters," to gauge the interest. At a second organizational meeting during the following NCTE convention, the organizers present a draft constitution and policy on involvement of persons of color and seek ratification; present a slate of officers and conduct an election; appoint or elect NCTE Director(s) to represent the assembly and collect dues from at least 25 NCTE members. Prior to the following February meeting of the Executive Committee, they could fill out the appropriate forms and submit the required documentation and dues to complete their application for assembly status with NCTE.

But until all these procedures are carried out, action by the NCTE Executive Committee to approve the application cannot take place. Note that this optimal calendar anticipates a gestation period of about eighteen months. An energetic planning group might find ways to accelerate one or another of these steps, but doing so might diminish the possibility of creating a stable organization as envisioned in the NCTE Constitution, an organization offering continued service to an identifiable constituency.