On 11th January we had a very important meeting to consider adopting a ‘New Constitution’ in Working Draft form.
This was important because there has not been a Constitution in place, which had been ratified by the members for some time. A ratified Constitution is necessary under BSAC rules and is also a legal requirement to protect the Officers of the club should anything go wrong.
Click ‘read the rest of this story’ to see the full report.
The meeting began on a humorous note when the chairman asked the members to switch off their mobile phones, but made the mistake of saying he did not need to because nobody ever phoned him anyway!
There followed a mad scramble by the ‘scallywags’ in the meeting to be the first to call him! Congratulations Mr. Hammond…you won!
The chairman then proceeded to run through a PowerPoint presentation of the new Constitution as written and agreed by the committee. Many thanks to Gary for sorting out PowerPoint, it made things a lot simpler to see the various points quite clearly.
But since it looked so professional and just like a genuine BSAC document, the chairman could not resist telling the meeting that there would be an MCQ exam at the end just like other BSAC courses.
The Chairman tried to explain the reasons behind all the areas of contention and also the changes from a Draft supplied by Mr Richard Burdekin.
Richard had worked very hard to collate previous versions of the constitution and also included the results of previous votes taken by the club, and the chairman explained why the committee felt some of these decisions needed to be re-worded.
One change was made to the original draft on the night due to a comment made by Tim Newby before the meeting. The proposal to consider changing quorum from 50% to 20% was changed back to 50%. This change was only ever there for consideration, to combat the prospect of a poor turnout.
But as Tim correctly pointed out, you cannot change an important rule, and then use that change to make further changes! This would indeed have been undemocratic, so the Chairman changed the wording of the Draft document back to 50% to the delight of most of the people present.
Following the presentation, a short break was taken for refreshment and then we had a question and answer session.
This was followed by 2 votes: the first was proposed by Ed Lomas:
I wish to propose a resolution that we take note of decisions made by previous meetings and existing members but to accept that we need to develop a constitution and that this meeting has the right to decide on a new draft constitution.
The second by Gary:
This committee proposes that we accept this working draft as a working document while it is scrutinized by a sub-committee and subject to final ratification by the membership after the working draft has been considered.
The first vote was passed by 38 votes in favour and 3 abstentions, and the second by 37 for, 3 abstentions and one spoilt ballot (Troy decided to vote for all three options!) and none against. The “for” vote included 14 Proxy votes which had been submitted to the chairman.
This now means the Club has a NEW CONSTITUTION in WORKING DRAFT.
Because it has been voted in by more than 50% of the club, it is VALID as our Constitution until such time as the club decides to change it, and as it states on page one, it replaces all previous versions.
However, the Chairman stated both prior to the meeting, and at the meeting, that he would set up a further sub- committee to look at this document again, to suggest any further changes, and once this sub-committee has brought forward their proposals, these will be re-presented to the club at a future SGM for final ratification of the document.
He is also going to send a copy of this document to BSAC to register this as our current constitution and also ask their advice on the legality of the situation relating to Juniors as requested at the meeting, and any other matters they might feel to be important.
Congratulations to all the members who turned up for the meeting or who took the time to read the draft version and submit a proxy vote, and let’s hope that we all have a FANTASTIC new diving season.
SSAC Committee
Advertisement
