[H-GEN] Changes to Humbug Constitution

Russell Stuart russell-humbug at stuart.id.au
Sun Aug 21 07:52:21 EDT 2011


The changes in Humbug's membership mean some requirements mandated by
our constitution are becoming difficult to meet.  They are staffing the
Executive, and getting a quorum at the AGM quorum.  So I am going to
move some constitutional changes an the next AGM to address these
issues.

Here are my initial ideas.  All suggestions are welcome, as indeed is a
different set of changes.

The first change is to the definition of an quorum at AGM, which is
defined by clause 5.k.  It currently reads:

> 5.k A quorum of three times the number of executive positions, as
> defined in section 2a, of the Financial Membership of the Club is
> required for a Special General Meeting.

My proposal is to change this so the size of the quorum only depends on
the number of eligible votes, and to make it explicit people voting
using a proxy are counted:

> 5.k A quorum of half of all eligible voters plus one is required 
> for a Special General Meeting.  Members voting via a proxy are
> included in the quorum.

My second proposed first change is to the executive.  Having been
president for 2 years, it has become obvious we don't need 5 people to
run the club.  They major cause of this change seems to be they way
Humbug runs it servers.  We used to own them, they were expensive and
required considerable effort to administer.  Now we use a $100 router
and borrow space in a VM.  That has meant there just isn't that much
work to be done.

So my proposal is to eliminate the Vice President and the Librarian,
meaning the Executive will be made up of a President, a Secretary and a
Treasurer.  You can these changes to the existing constitution, which
can be found here: http://www.humbug.org.au/Constitution

2.  The Executive

    a.  The Executive shall be comprised of the following positions:

          President
          Secretary
          Treasurer

    b.  In the absence of the President the position of Acting President
        shall be held by the Secretary, similarly in his absence the
        Treasurer assumes the position.

    c.  The responsibilities of the Executive includes:

        i.  [unchanged] The President is the head of the Executive.

        ii. The Secretary shall be responsible for the day to day
            running of HUMBUG, and in particular arranging regular
            meetings.

        iii.The Treasurer shall be in charge of maintaining the
            financial and membership records of HUMBUG.

    d.  [unchanged]

    e.  Any executive office bearers except the President may appoint
        club members to be assistants for their position.

    f. .. l. [unchanged]

    m.  If the position of President falls vacant the position shall
        devolve upon a member of the executive in the following order:

          Secretary
          Treasurer

        This executive member shall in the process of
        becoming president vacate his or her old executive position. 

4.  Executive Meetings

    a.  In order for an executive meeting to be opened, the following
        two conditions must be met:

        i.  The President must be present.

        ii. At least 2 executive members must be present. 

    [remainder of section 4 unchanged]

5.  General Meetings.

   [the only change here is to clause i]

   i.  An eligible Financial Member may proxy his voting rights for one
       Special General Meeting by providing the a member of the
       Executive with signed written notice of their intent. This may 
       be in physical, or authenticated electronic form. 

9.  Property

   a.  [unchanged] Any property in the possession of the club shall be
       held by it for the purpose of the body and if at any time the
       body ceases to exist shall devolve upon an organisation with
       similar aims and goals. 

   b.  [deleted - there is no librarian]

   c.  [deleted - there is no librarian]

   [remainder of section 9 unchanged]


--
Regards,
Russell Stuart
Humbug President




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