New Constitution

Had a quick look through and it all looks ok, assuming I've not missed something glaring that has been left out.

There's a little bit of pedantic tidying up to be done, mostly just typos, in the following sections:

3.6.c.6 I'm sure there should be the word 'undergo' in there or something.

4.7 "In the absence of any of the core officers, the meeting shall be declared inquorate..." I'm assuming this means if none of the core officers are present, in which case changing "any" to "all" would make that clearer

5.4.3 In the block capitals bit about copyright there is a typo, "wner" should presumably be "owner"

As I said, just a few pedantic bits of tidying up.

I see theyve stopped leeds met students from being full members.

Looks like it. Seriously the union can be such dickheads sometimes.

We can change that if we want....

changed to "attend"

done

LeedsMet members were already officially "associate" members anyway, hence why you can't stand for election to the officers

How about this?

2.5 Associate Membership may be granted to other students, subject to the approval of the RockSoc committee and they shall be entitled to privilege 2.9.1, 2.9.5 and 2.9.6 only.
2.5.1Whilst associate members are entitled to privilege 2.9.5, they may not stand for or be elected to “core-officer” roles as defined in 3.6.
2.5.2 Associate members may stand for or be elected to general committee roles as defined in 3.7 where it is deemed that they will bring particular skills to the committee.

Sounds good to me.

That clause should basically allow the situation we have now, whilst mitigating the need to the union.

Joelxxx

*bump*

Discuss biaches...

I know there MUST be more than this and it needs doing before the tread dissapears into the mists of Rockness

1.2.5 made me smile in the face.

2.3: I think maybe "expelled" should be changed to something else (can you be expelled from a privilege?) - maybe excluded temporarily or permanently?
2.4: Should this be 2.9.1 to 2.9.6 inclusive, rather than 2.9.5?
5.1.6.4: There seems to be a word missing here. ("...by all any member")
5.4.3: The copywright template seems to just be for software, but then again I don't speak Lawyer language.

They're the only things I'm wondering about.

Good

Expelled is the correct term as approved by the legal boffs at the societies exec, so we'll leave it...

Thanks, stupid cross references...

removed "all"

Charles Department, so I've left it. I think it's a creative commons lisence, and eneric to all intellectual property...

So... why is it that associate members can't vote or nominate? I know it's going to be the union being it's usual pain in the ass self, but it just seems odd that an associate member can be part of the committee, thus having a direct influence on the way the society is run, but cannot suggest people that may be suited for roles?

does it not mean that associate members cant be part of the committee? not sure could be me been confused

The general idea was that ex students who are associate members could unbalance the voting system so that actual students didnt get a say. Well that was what they said to us in sci fi, so we couldnt vote (grumble grumble)

To be honest, it's to protect the rocksoc. We'd use our heads at the actualy time. Someone like Steve, or Gordon, who are regular members and probably contribute significantly to the funding and operation of the society we'd allow to vote. However, in the circumstance that half the floor was made up of Met students, we'd probably be forced to decline their votes...

"5.1.1 The interpretation of this constitution is the responsibility of the RockSoc committee." is a good line...

Basically we'll use our common sense at the time...

Joelxxx

Thats fairly fucking wishy washy. ENGG 420 Contract Law may have been boring but i did learn some things, don't put something as vague and open ended as that into a legal document.

From what I've learned of legal documents, wishy washy is pretty much what British law is. Everything gets put under 'reasonable' which could mean anything. Besides, I think it's a good call that the committee can take charge of things, surely it's why we vote them in?

The union put it in. I guess it stops members complainging too much,as it's basically up to us to decide how things should be interpreted when anything is unclear...

Failing that... 5.1.2 In case of dispute over a particular interpretation of this constitution, the Activities Executive shall be the final arbiter.

Joelxxx

Given that Tim was worried my head might explode, I'm yet to start sharpening weapons, and my head is functioning about as well as it usually does at this tome of day...

I love the archaic use of webpage. So who's ready to party like it was 1994? Given there are a few thousand pages here should something more appropriate be said?

Didn't we lose the "and beyond" a few years ago, not that I'm complaining. If I'm dead and capable of doing so, I'm gonna go all drama queen on you

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As far as the BSD Licence Template that is section 14 and will be section 5.4, yes it is a license written for software providing simple attribution and (usually) academic compatibility. Whilst rarely used for works other than software there's nothing to say it's cant be used in that way. The intent was to prevent further instances of "i'm taking everything I ever said and did and going home and you can't stop me"

Times have changed slightly and a little massaging may be in order to formalise the Creative Commons stance this website takes. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

The intent of using the Creative Commons Attribution - Share Alike licence is to formalise the rights members think they have to stuff they post here, in they retain ownership and the right to re-publish under any other terms they wish, but the works remain available for RockSoc and it's members to republish provided they acknowledge the source and any derived work is also available under the same terms.

The alternative approach which is taken by many extremely popular social networks (and yes this is a social network) is "Everything you post here belongs to us and we can do whatever we like with it".

We're also missing the requirement to notify those supplying creative works that we are doing this, which is at least fair if not a legal requirement. Note that the website already makes adequate notice of this.

I would suggest (as I can't formally propose this but...) that the following be done (changes in bold):

Note the wording of works for publication by rocksoc. This applies to stuff made for rocksoc (logos, posters, bits of website software, the conetent of the leeds guide, forum posts) and not material that is acquired in a published state, where it already has implicit copyright and possibly further explicit licence terms.

If anyone wants to further tidy up the wording or further clarify the intent then go for it, the original constitution item was Done In A Hurry Because it Needed Doing.

find my proposed constitution attached.

If you have any questions or suggestions don't hesitate to ask.

Do you have your changes as a set of amendments to the new sample constiution?

Charles, there are so many that it would be unreasonable to propose them each as an individual ammendment. I spoke to Sarah Parker in the union about it and she says it'll be fine to submit the whole thing as one block change.

Joelxxx

okay

First, what happened to

1.2.4 To support freedom of expression and beliefs and not the enforcement of ideals on others
1.2.5 To Rock!

Give me a good reason to remove that.

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2.1 The fee is not currently and should not be stated in the byelaws. There are times when it is not appropriate to charge the full fee, for example people signing up at this time of the year. It is really terribly unnecesarry to have to hold a vote in order to charge them less. The fee is decided informally by the committee at the begining of the year. This would merely hinder the everyday operation of the society.

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2.2 - old version was better as it accounts for life members as defined in 2.6. They pay no fee. Your change is unncesarry.

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2.10.1 - old version was better as it makes it clear that it should be awarded for special service.

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2.10.5 needs an "a" added. ie... Any member may make nominations for Life Membership, acceptance is subject to being seconded and a quorate majority vote at a General Meeting.

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Section 3 Why have the terms "core officers" and "General Committee" been changed in 3? Is there a good reason for this? I feel that the term general and core make the meaning clearer.

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3.5.2. "If applicable" should be re-instated to the web site section, to allow for the circumstances in which the website becomes obsolete.

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What happened to the old:
3.6.1 Officers must be full RockSoc members who are also Student Ordinary members of the LUU.
3.6.2 The three Officers shall be the signatories appearing on RockSoc bank mandate.
I can see it's been re-organised to the same format as our old constitution however these have been missed out from the sample. Fair enough 3.6.2 is incorporated in duties, but 3.6.1 is not.

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your 3.7.3.2 The President should chair any meetings of RockSoc. - why does this not say "all committee meetings." In the eyes of LUU coach trips are meetings, yet it is not necesarry for the president to "chair" them.

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3.7.4.3 The Treasurer should submit subsidy applications to Activities Executive if the committee deems sucha subsidy is desired. - A subsidy application is required anyway to show that we've considered it. Remove the "if the committee deems sucha subsidy is desired."

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3.7.5.6 The Secretary should maintain an up-to-date list of Life Members. - Oops, No such list exists. Nor ever has that I am aware... I should probably try to do that.

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3.8.1 The Non-Officer Committee roles shall be stated by the byelaws. - These change every year. To make running the society easier, this should be changed to "3.8.1 The Non-Officer Committee roles shall be decided by the committee prior to the AGM and shall be subject to a quorate vote by the committee." See, less paperwork and un-necesarry rule changing to achieve an aim...

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3.8.2 is very clumsily phrased. I'm not sure what it's meaning. Please re-write.

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4.9.6 has already been defined in 4.8. There is no need to have 2 officers present and indeed there have been occasions where this is not possible. 1 is fine.

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4.11.1 - Why has this been changed to 20? I think my 4.8.4 was a typo :s

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5.1.6.1 "Constitutional amendments may be approved either by an Annual General Meeting or Extraordinary General Meeting of RockSoc." - change to "... approved by a quorate general meeting of RockSoc"

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5.1.6.4 "Constitutional amendments must be submitted to a member accessible location at least ten days priorto the AGM or EGM so that they may be discussed in detail by any member." - change to "...prior to a general meeting..."

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5.3.5 "Committee members may be reimbursed for any expenditure on behalf of RockSoc only after submitting a receipt to the Treasurer." a bit more needs adding. "and subject to the regulations of the LUU cash office" as reciepts are only valid for 28 termtime working days, thought the union may change this rule.

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IP rights.This was voted on by the committee 18 months ago, and we decided to adopt a Creative commons attribution liscence, whereby any work done for RockSoc or placed on the rocksoc website was able to be used in any way so long as the origional author was attributed. As per http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/uk/

Can this please be implemented into the constitution as it was discussed with Charles and then voted upon.

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Joelxxx

I never said vote in each ammendment individually, but given the rate of change imposed on other societies by the union (yup thy they rammed a constituion up the ass SF&F soc, and then reached down their throat and puleld it out again.....) having a clearly defined set of differences is really helpful.

The first thing I did when I saw tim's suggestion was compare it in my head against the current model they're are feeding SF&F.

before I post reasons etc for joels points, a note for charles...

It is infeasible to post a formal amendment detailing every change done is that almost every clause has something changed, be it being moved elsewhere, a few words changed, deleted, or even completely re-written. The best way to treat this is to treat it as a completely different constitution.

Well, if you'd have used commenting and the document reviewing settings in MSWord like I asked you to then it would have been perfectly feasable to highlight changes. But too late now I guess.

Joelxxx

The new membership system is very confusing. It's defining 4 groups of membership. Leeds met members have had the right to vote completely removed, but when they become Alumini, these rights are granted. Why?

Joelxxx

The point of the new sample constitution we were sent was to simplify things, and yet the new membership rules make it FAR more complicated. Why can't we define three membership groups. Full members, NUS members and Life members.

Life members have the right to attend meetings, vote and view constitution/byelaws (as before)

Full members - right to everything

NUS members - attend meetings, vote on elections, stand for non officer roles and view constitition/byelaws.

Can it be summarised as a table or is that not allowed?

Am I right with the attached image?

[img]http://leedsrocksoc.co.uk/files/Members.JPG
Joelxxx

Ok, this post is going to be pretty long, but I suppose it has to be.

Before I deal with the specific points given, I want to give some general points that you may already know either consciously or unconsciously, but need saying to make sure that we are on the same page. (note that these general points are probably a good thing to read for anyone looking at the constitution).
Firstly, the purpose of having a constitution at all is to stop things that we don’t want to happen to the society. The constitution is there to give mechanisms from people doing such things, such as general meetings, etc. When the society is running well, it seems that having a constitution at all is highly pointless. It is when it is going wrong and the bad apples are spoiling it for the rest of us does it need to be used. And if you think that cannot happen, while I have been here there have been several times that it has happened, some you may be aware of, some not. Remember that we are not joking when we say it is a legal document, if you want to know which acts give it legal weight then I can probably find them again. All this means that the document could theoretically end up being read by a judge in the case of a dispute that had spiralled out of control, and in that case the constitution would be the first things read.

Secondly, the way to read clauses is to take it completely out of context with the exception of any parent clauses and any explicit references. When you read a clause those are the only other things that exist, even other clauses from the same parent clause don’t exist. This is because people can and will take it out of context and so it must still say the exact same thing when it is. This is why there the cross-references exist, so that if it is taken out of context, you keep the context of the other clauses listed.

Thirdly, having redundant statements is dangerous. Should a dispute come around, any subtle contradiction between the two statements saying the same thing will be exploited. These contradictions are quite hard to find and so the best way to deal with them is to not have any.

Ok, on with the specific points…

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The first is a statement of belief phrased as an aim/objective. It actually means that the society should actually be politically active with respect to this aim. For a while people have moaned that the union should have a position of neutrality on almost all things. This stops even our society from doing the same. I also recognise that some people may want the society to be active in such a way, so I propose that we leave it out and have a separate amendment for this point so that such a change in the direction of the society can be debated. As the society has never really lived up to this objective, it should be an “add back in” amendment.

The second, while everyone finds it amusing, including myself, I don’t think such a thing should be in a formal document. Having such a statement damages the authority of the document and means it could be less likely to have the weight it needs.

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While this is a reasonable point, I argue that having it stated in the byelaws does not stop the byelaws from stating when discounts are allowed as well, this allows several advantages. It is fair because it stops the following “unfair” problem from occurring: A person signs up with the treasurer (and given a late in year discount) and one person signs up independently at a similar time with the president (who did not know about the first discount, and gives a separate, different discount), the two talk at a pub meet and the overcharged person complains of favouritism. Secondly it allows greater transparency on when lower fees to be charged. I don’t think it will greatly increase the burden of the committee to vote in a full fee structure at the beginning of the year. And as it is then in the byelaws it means that it is published and everyone knows what the deal is.

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Firstly on it’s own the old 2.2 is completely redundant because of the clauses below it that specify which privileges are given. However, there is nowhere in the constitution saying that once you have paid the membership fee that the membership fee actually expires. This is a problem that was not really thought of with all constitutions previous and I thought that the best way to fix this was to re-write the redundant statement.

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Fair enough, changed.

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Finally someone who spotted a grammar error, I knew I would have done at least one. Fixed.

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“core” is redundant as there are no non-core officers. “General Committee” is not used as we have a position on the committee called “General Committee” and this could lead to confusion, so I thought it was best to avoid someone getting confused and explained that the position “General Committee” is not the same as the “General Committee” in the constitution that refers to every position except the officers.

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The primary form of communication of the society (be it the notice board, website) should not be allowed to be ruled non-applicable by the committee (as that allows “bad apples” to decide they don’t need to provide any form of communication – especially if someone thinks that the society should be killed off). If and when the primary form (which used to be the notice board) becomes obsolete, the committee should draft a constitutional amendment to change the primary form of communication, with the same controls.

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3.6.1 is made redundant by 2.11.11, which only Full Members get.

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The constitution only recognises committee and general meetings. But I have changed it to list both of these.

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I added “or if the LUU requires that a subsidy application be submitted.” So that if the union stops requiring one and goes back to the assumption that if one hasn’t been submitted then the society doesn’t need the money, then it is the prerogative of the committee to decide if one needs to be submitted, thus reducing the paperwork of the committee.

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FYI, that point has been in there since life members were put into the constitution (as there was once about 4/5 years ago a situation where someone from 5 years before approached the committee asking for his life membership to be honoured but we had to turn them down as no list had been kept), but I think that it has been the case that it has not ever been done, probably should be.

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It takes the same voting level to change a byelaw as it is to decide which positions are available. Having it in the byelaws allows for a greater organisational memory and greater transparency of process.

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Re-written, I think that that was one of the new things the union put in. It basically means that the people at the general meeting have to agree with the committee on the positions that committee vote for.

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No, one is not fine. There was a time where the other two officers were completely ignored and the society was run by one officer and the people loyal to them. This meant that there was no dissent in opinion and that lead to bad choices being made and an unhealthy democratic process. In addition, with the officers holding the liability for being sued (5.3.3), there needs to be at least two present at any decision of the committee.

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Fair enough, I thought you did a typo where you got the numbers the wrong way round (as it only made sense the other way round), have put both up to 30.

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Thought I changed all the “AGM and EGM“ to “General Meeting”, thanks for spotting them.

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Ok, FYI I hadn’t touched that one, if that is the case then fair enough. and I added it in.

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Actually there is NO legal standing for assuming a licence if one is not given other than assuming “All Rights Reserved”, doing anything else is a breach of law. What I have done is listed the rights that the committee need to be granted to RockSoc for RockSoc to use that copyrighted work effectively (and under the Berne Convention which the UK is a signatory to, any creative work is copyrighted as soon as it is fixed in a tangible form) and said that the committee is not allowed to use a copyrighted work unless those rights are given. The creative commons licence that was chosen is compatible with the required rights, along with any open source licence. However, that section has also been worded so that the committee can still use the cd players at subculture, (as requiring that the copyrights in the cd player be under creative commons is insane and is never going to happen). I think that you are going to have to trust me on this that this is the best (and possibly the only) way that this can be done legally.

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Alumni don’t get any rights that are not given to associate, life or full members and full members have more rights than them. Giving met members the vote has ALWAYS been a struggle to get the union to accept it.

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Non-LUU NUS members = associate members.
There are 2 new types of membership. 1 of these was created to allow ex-members who left university but are still around to continue to join in at some level of the society if they so wish. The other was created to give non-students who members meet (at nightclubs etc) the chance to join in with the activities (and open up the possibility of new revenue streams to the society and so allow the society to do more for it’s members on the whole). Both have restricted rights on how they can say the society is run (ex-members are allowed to give the 2p at meetings (ie committee + general) but cannot vote. Non-student members allow them only to take part in the stuff the society does. I personally do not think that letting people take part (if their
I gave the Life Members the right to vote on all matters of policy (but not to elect people) because of their standing in the society this shows that their opinions are still valued for the society in the long run. This also gives the society a long organisational memory so that past mistakes are not repeated.

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Not in the constitution, but it is perfectly possible to create “non-legalese notes” to explain points of the constitution in clear and simple language where a table could be created to summarise this point.

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Yes.

Okay, well the only worry I have based upon that is that nowhere in the constitution is it recognised that a coach trip or club night is not a Rocksoc meeting. So with regards to 3.7.3.2, what is there to legally stop a member assuming that it is and that we have to abide by the rules of RockSoc meetings...

Joelxxx

Oh and also, if you require two officers at a meeting as per 4.9.6, then 4.2 is incorrect as the role of chair would never be passed to the secratary. Also 4.8 is redundant. I also feel that this rule should be able to be dismissed if a vote of no confidence is called. Two years ago Punksoc had a problem with their committee never doing anything. If this occurs, then it's imporrible to get rid of them without them present, which prevents resolving of the issue.

Joelxxx

Fair point. While it is implied by the split of 2.11.3 and 2.11.4, It should probably be explicitly stated what counts as a meeting as the first point in section 4.

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Ok, good point. I think the best way to get round the two problems discussed to make it explicitly mandatory that committee members be notified of a meeting with a decent minimum amount of notice so that meetings cannot be called at the last moment when certain members are known to be busy (I will add a provision that this can be waved if there is something urgent and every committee member consents).

Actually on the same note, it may be an idea that meetings cannot be at anyone's house (to stop exclusion by not letting them in to the property).

Actually, a proper "no confidence in the committee" mechanism needs to be devised currently the EGM system still means the committee control the meeting and a no-confidence motion in the chair needs to be called as the first point of business, but it is still the burden of the committee to organise the meeting in the first place.

And another thought, there is not currently the right for constitutional amendments to be proposed.

I will work on these asap.

The activities exec officer would be the person to go to in case of a vote of no confidence in the committee as they have overall and final say over the society. I'm fairly sure it's defined...

Joelxxx

Sorry tim, you missed my meaning, I wasn't asking for diff current.txt new.txt but for diff new_model.txt new.txt or somethign analogous to that.

@Joel. It's a really really stupid idea to use MSWord's version control, it's massively incompatible with different versions of itself, and has no working open implementation. Also Word is know to eat carefully crafted numbering schemes for breakfast.

I can make an SVN backed WebDAV repository available, upload text files using an open standard which I believe windows implements and the software backend keeps a log of the changes, which can be displayed elsewhere. However this should probably be discussed elsewhere, as I'm sure Tim has his own ideas as to how to manage document versioning in a way that won't get arse-raped by Microsoft.

I meant the commenting function in word. Also "track changes" can be helpful too. We're both working in windoze.

At the end of the day, however much it has wrong with it technically, it does the job. I've been using it for my design project every year at uni and it works a treat and has saved me hundreds of hours of work.

Joelxxx

next update.

typo fix and I have now (after 3 years of wanting to do it) moved it into LaTeX format.

4.1 Surely in legal speak, "classed" should be "defined"

14 days notice!!!!! WHAT?! That's rediculous. I generally send out a text about 5 days before. 14 days is too much. That means the next meeting has to be desided at the current one, and written in writing the same day, which is stupid. Meetings are held when points brought up at the last one are nearing completion and new issues need raising. This cannot be forseen when they've only just been raised!

Joelxxx

WHy has 4.14.5 changed to plus 1? Is this necesarry?

Joelxxx

4.16.9.2 change to "any complaints made..."

4.16.9.4 change the last line to "due soully" as there may be circumstances where a committee member may be booted out and stripped of their title for gross behavior etc.

3.2 What about siamese twins?

Hehe

Joelxxx

I agree on the 14 days thing, it's massively more than is needed, is that a union requirement? Additionally do they have to be informed in writing, I could see that getting needlessly time consuming, could it be changed to just a formal notification regardless of medium?

Agreed, I will make the needed changes.

The reason I have said 14 is that means that there is unlikely to be any short-term plans made. Take a look at 4.14.8. The way I envisioned it working is that the vast majority of meetings would be called under this but means that if someone feels they are being excluded through malicious scheduling they can say “no, I want the full 14 days notice”. We could change 4.14.8 to give a presumption of permission putting the onus on the committee member to withdraw their permission for a given meeting I guess. As for the “in writing” business… Emails, private messages, wall posts and text messages all count as “in writing”. It only really precludes purely verbal notice as that way means that people can look up the date/time/place if they forget.

It means every committee meeting has a majority of the committee present and I feel that means the committee’s decisions are more morally valid (given what a quorate majority decision of the committee can do). I feel that this gives an equitable compromise between “2 officers” I thought should be there originally and your original stance.

Can you justify this, I cannot see your reasoning for the change against “accusation” as before the EGM decides whether the accusation is true and valid that is all it is, an accusation. But you may have a good reason I cannot see.

The issue is double jeopardy which I think should be an ideal that should be upheld. I did leave a subtle way that they could be thrown out of the society (hold one of the charges back, as long as it can stand up on it’s own as a “good reason” (2.12.1) then the committee can throw them out if it is deemed necessary).

Still counted as 2 natural people, even if they are joined together.

Changes are attached (someone spotted a typo in 5.1.6.1 anyway).

complaint is a more general term for any problem with. Accusation is personal and infers assumption of guilt, wheras complaint infers assumption of a problem which requires investigation.

Joelxxx

Re: double jeopardy. Say, and God forbid this circumstance occured, somone in the committee, (lets say me) raped and violently abused another member (lets for saying sakes say Neil. He wants it really) then I should by all rights be discommunicated from RockSoc. Nay? So, if I were kicked off the committee because of that, they would still not be able to kick me out of RockSoc.

All I'm saying is it leaves grey areas as to what is a seperate charge, and wether you can be kicked out of the society and therfore no longer be elegible to represent the society as an officer. In fact, I'm not sure that that is defined. You would become illegible to stand for election, but if you'd already been elected, there's nothing to say you're illegible to be an officer. I don't think.

Joelxxx

As I said, I thought there would be a good reason. Changed.

Fair enough, I have added the option of a second vote that can happen at an EGM that has the ability to suspend or expel a member. As for the other point you brought up, a successful vote of no confidence removes the person from their position and an immediate election of the position begins. If the deposed person isn't thrown out of the society then yes, they could stand again, but is anyone really going to even nominate or second (never mind vote for) them given that the purpose of the meeting was to the throw that person out of their position? And if you remove rights it also opens an contradiction/loophole nightmare of a member of the society that has a given type of membership but not the entirety of the rights afforded by that membership.

changes attached.