[H-GEN] Support to change Humbug's constitution.

[Andrae Muys]

[ Humbug *General* list - semi-serious discussions about Humbug and  ]
[ Unix-related topics.  Please observe the list's charter.           ]
[ Worthwhile understanding: http://www.humbug.org.au/netiquette.html ]

Willie Yeo wrote:
> 1) I am asking for a general opinion if they think we can consider having a
> smaller Quorum that is acceptable to represent the total membership of
> Humbug at an SGM.
> 
>          If a Quorum is 20 members, you need 11 to pass motions at SGMs.
> 
>          That does not mean that, at a SGM there are 60 in attendence, you
> need 11 ! In fact you need 31 !
> 

Just in case anyone here dosn't know what a quorum is:

A Quorum is the minimum number of people who have to turn up to an
AGM/SGM for you to be allowed to hold a vote on an motion.  Quorum
dosn't have anything to do with how many votes you need for a motion to
pass.  Or for that matter, who can vote, what things need votes, how to
conduct voting, or anything like that.  Just how many people have to
turn up for any decisions made at the meeting to count.

Now the problem Humbug is facing is that while the club was smaller the
1/3 quorum required at the moment was about 80% of the clubs *active*
membership, and so getting quorum wasn't all that hard.  However as the
club has got bigger, the number of "inactive" members has grown and so
quorum has slowly approched 100% of active members.  If we don't reduce
quorum before the it grows above 100% we will find ourselves unable to
hold the SGM required to fix the problem!

So I most definately agree with Willie, I know that the importance of
reducing quorum requirements was being discussed before the AGM, so it's
not some new unforseen surprise.  In fact when the quorum was originally
set back in 1996 a number of members were concerned at the large quorum
for exactly this reason.  At the time it was considered that a larger
quorum was appropriate for the smaller club, but recognised that as the
club grew it would have to be reconsidered.

So the question that needs to be asked is, what should the new quorum
be?  My preference is to keep it at 1/3 the membership but to add a cap
to the quorum clause in the constitution.

Willie is suggesting 3*exec+1=16 as a cap, I think I would prefer
something a little higher (~21 or so).  I'm curious if anyone else has
any preferences?  If we can settle on a single figure on the list, that
would be good, if we can't then I would suggest we just do a
preferential vote at the SGM.  Either way I would appreciate it if the
President could call the SGM *soon* or we will hit christmas and it will
be Jan/Feb before we can get this settled.

Andrae Muys

--
* This is list (humbug) general handled by majordomo at lists.humbug.org.au .
* Postings to this list are only accepted from subscribed addresses of
* lists 'general' or 'general-post'.