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Dear PLUG,<br>
<br>
It came to PLUG Committee's attention at the end of last year that
the PLUG constitution (available on the PLUG web site, see below)
doesn't quite fit us these days. In particular, last January at our
AGM when we had 22 members, and we required a quorum of 30; this
triggered the clause to hold a follow up meeting the next week (at
the same time and place) to carry the motions of the previous week.<br>
<br>
We've also grown to like having some extra people on the Committee
in the form of Ordinary Committee Members (without specific office
such as the four <i>executive</i> office bearers), but our current
constitution doesn't mention this; these people have effectively
been co-opted in thus far.<br>
<br>
Lastly, we've never had a definition for what a regular Committee
Meeting Quorum is. All of this adds up to show that our current
constitution from the late 1990's no longer really fits us.<br>
<br>
Associations in WA must register their constitution with the
Ministry of Fair trading, who issue a "model" constitution
containing their recommended defaults. Our current constitution
deviates from this significantly, so the Committee had two choices:<br>
<ul>
<li>small amendments to our current constitution (and risk having
it rejected by Fair Trading for differing from current accepted
wordings)</li>
<li>applying our required changes to the current model</li>
</ul>
We've opted for the second choice, and in doing so, we're trying to
produce the <b>minimal </b>number of changes from the model
constitution that permit us to continue to operate in the way we
feel is what PLUG does (or had documented that it does) in
practice.<br>
<br>
Any changes to the constitution need to be given formal notice to
you, the membership (this is not it; it will come from our
Secretary), and needs to be approved by a General Meeting (in this
case, we're aiming for this to happen at the Annual General Meeting
this January). After this, it is submitted to Fair Trading for their
review and acceptance (or rejection).<br>
<br>
In order to increase our chances of Fair Trading accepting our
changes, we're keeping the differences from the model constitution
relatively low in the draft the Committee has devised. While we
would like to one day include Virtual Attendance, we're aware that
other bodies (such as Linux Australia) have tried this in the past
and had to remove it. This does not mean Proxy votes (we have that),
but actually counting virtual attendees as part of a quorum count -
proxy votes do not count in this sense.<br>
<br>
The most important part of changing a Constitution is having the
support of the membership in order to do so, and this is why we are
giving several weeks advance notice of this proposed change for the
PLUG membership to discuss now; the deadline for this is 12 December
2011, as formal notice of the final changes needs to then be given.<br>
<br>
We have published the proposed constitution on the PLUG web site at
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="http://www.plug.org.au/Constitution/Proposed2012">http://www.plug.org.au/Constitution/Proposed2012</a>,
and put some notes at <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="http://www.plug.org.au/Constitution/Proposed2012Notes">http://www.plug.org.au/Constitution/Proposed2012Notes</a>
to help you understand what the changes are from the current model
constitution (<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="http://www.plug.org.au/Constitution/ModelRules2011">http://www.plug.org.au/Constitution/ModelRules2011</a>),
and the main changes imported from the current PLUG constitution (<a
class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="http://www.plug.org.au/Constitution/Current">http://www.plug.org.au/Constitution/Current</a>).
Let me bullet point the issues in the proposed 2012 here:<br>
<br>
<ul>
<li>A General Meeting (including AGM) Quorum was <b>thirty</b>
(30) members; this is now proposed as <b>twenty-five percent</b>
(25%) or five, whichever is greater.<br>
</li>
<li>Committee consisted of 4 (Chairman, Vice-Chairman, Treasurer,
Secretary); this <b>now includes between one and three other
members</b> (<i>Ordinary Committee Members</i>)</li>
<li>Committee meetings required <b>100% attendance for quorum</b>;
it now requires <b>50%</b>.</li>
<li>Membership in the model constitution required being <b>nominated
by a current member</b>; this is is removed. However,
Committee must <b>accept/reject membership applications.<br>
</b></li>
<li>Our <b>financial year was previously not defined</b>; in the
model is was July-June AND the accounts needed to be presented
at a GM within 4 months. As we have our AGM in January we moved
to have our <b>financial year follow the </b>(Western/Gregorian)<b>
calendar year</b> (<i>1 Jan - 31 Dec</i>).</li>
<li>The model constitution has everyone's <b>membership expiring
simultaneously</b> (I know WAIA moved to this last year);
we've opted to keep <b>individual anniversary</b> as we operate
now.</li>
</ul>
<br>
As I mentioned above, there are more changes that would be nice to
do, but the focus is to change the General Meeting Quorum from 30 to
25% and recognise our OCMs. For our current membership of 74, this
means we'd require 19 people to turn up in person; 30 may still be a
little difficult. The other changes can wait until some time next
year for a new Committee to work through. Note that we will still
require 30 people at this coming AGM in January for us to be able to
adopt this proposed Constitution and hold our elections; otherwise
we trigger the same emergency rule again.<br>
<br>
I'd like to thank Alastair Irving and Peter Lyons for their work in
getting this together, and the rest of Committee who have reviewed
these changes. PLUG has had to obtain the current constitution from
Fair Trading to validate that what we have on record is what they
had, and then work through a three way merge of old, model and
proposed changes.<br>
<br>
<b> At this stage we'd like to solicit feedback from the PLUG
membership</b>. Changes that come forward now will go to the
Committee to review, and may be incorporate into a possible future
draft before our deadline of formal notice for the 2012 AGM. If you
have major changes then please understand that these may need to be
postponed until next year; we're looking to have minimal changes to
give us an updated version to work from in future. If you're in
favour of these changes and have no concerns, then an indication of
your support is also most welcome!<br>
<br>
<br>
Many thanks,<br>
<br>
James & Committee 2011<br>
<br>
Set of Links for your convenience (thanks to Nick for tidying up):<br>
<pre wrap=""><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.plug.org.au/Constitution">http://www.plug.org.au/Constitution</a>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.plug.org.au/Constitution/Current">http://www.plug.org.au/Constitution/Current</a>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.plug.org.au/Constitution/ModelRules2011">http://www.plug.org.au/Constitution/ModelRules2011</a>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.plug.org.au/Constitution/Proposed2012">http://www.plug.org.au/Constitution/Proposed2012</a>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.plug.org.au/Constitution/Proposed2012Notes">http://www.plug.org.au/Constitution/Proposed2012Notes</a></pre>
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<div class="moz-signature">-- <br>
<em>Mobile:</em> +61 422 166 708, <em>Email:</em>
james_AT_rcpt.to<br>
PLUG President 2011: <a href="http//www.plug.org.au">http://www.plug.org.au</a></div>
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