Meeting:2013/12/05/EGM

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[[|]] | Current Meeting:

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Meeting (to be) held from 18:45-19:15 on 2013/12/05 in Zepler CLS Lecture Room

 

This EGM was called by the Secretary (Schmendrick). At least 24 hours notification was given by email to the society mailing lists.

Purpose of EGM

Copied verbatim from the official notification:

There are three issues that will be discussed and voted upon:

   Item 1) Amending the society constitution to reflect the updated SUSU structure.

   Item 2) Amending the society constitution to create a formal procedure for the 
           society accepting external sponsorship.

   Item 3) Only to be discussed if Item 2 passes, or a formal process is deemed unnecessary. 
           Discuss and vote on accepting external sponsorship from ConnectUs.

Conduct of the EGM

Unless otherwise specified, these guidelines are the opinion of the Secretary, rather than rules laid out in the constitution, and can be overruled by the Chair.

Copied verbatim from the SUWS Constitution:

Voting: 
   Every full member of the Society present at a general meeting shall be entitled 
   to one vote upon every voting matter. Only full members are entitled to vote and 
   no proxy votes shall be accepted for any purpose.

Quorum: 
   The quorum at all meetings shall be 10% of the full members.
   
Minutes: 
   The Secretary of the Society shall keep minutes of all general meetings, which 
   shall be made available to the Societies Officer and the Societies Department Committee.

and:

At the EGM, no business other than that specified in the written statement shall be discussed.

Chairperson

The Secretary shall serve as Chairperson, unless a full member present feels that a conflict of interest is apparent.

(See Point of order 1).

If this occurs, then replacement candidates shall be nominated by the full members present, and then from the nominees, one shall be elected. Any full member shall be eligible for nomination, including the Secretary.

Quorum

• According to the official list on the SUSU admin site there are 34 members of SUWS, including both full and associate members. Consequently if there are more than 3.4 full members present at the meeting, we would be quorate (the actual number required is smaller, as it should not include the 10% of associate members).
  • Full membership is defined in the constitution as:

Full membership is open to any registered student.

Amendments

Copied verbatim from the SUWS Constitution:

a. The Society committee at a General Meeting shall first approve amendments
to the constitution.

b. The committee shall hold a vote to pass any constitutional changes. This 
shall be done by ballot or a show of hands, at the discretion of the Chairperson.
Should there be a tie, the Chairperson may vote.

Accordingly, the following procedure will be followed for each amendment under consideration:

1. The committee present at the meeting will vote as to whether to approve putting the amendment to a vote.

   If the committee present approves:

2. The proposer (in all of these cases, the Secretary) will describe why he feels the amendment should be passed.
3. An opportunity will be given for a member to present an opposing viewpoint.
4. A vote will be held amongst all the full members present at the meeting.
5. The committee will vote to ratify the vote of the members. (See Point of order 3).

Minutes

This page on the wiki shall be considered the minutes of the meeting after it has been concluded. Consequently it should not be modified after this time, and page protection shall be applied.

Proceedings of the EGM

Attendance

List of committee members present:

• Henry
• Morse
• Tyler Ward
• Graeme
• Darren Richardson
• David Newman
• David Tarrant
• Colin Williams

Number of the following (including members of the committee):

• Full members present: 9
• Associate members present: 2
• Others present: 2
• Total present: 13

Point of order 1

Selection of a Chairperson

• Does any member object to the Secretary acting as Chair?
• No objections.

Point of order 2

Quorum

• How many members are present?
• Is this greater than, or equal to, 3.4?
• We are quorate

Point of order 3

Clarification of the procedure for making constitutional amendments.

• Do we believe that stage 5 is necessary?

Agenda item 1

The purpose of the following amendments is to update our constitution to reflect changes to the structure of SUSU. These are in accordance with [1] and [2].

Amendment 1

The following changes shall be made to the constitution:

   i.  All references to "Societies Officer" shall be
       changed to "Relevant Union Officer".

   ii. All references to "Societies Department Committee" 
       shall be changed to "Relevant Union Committee".

No objections from the committee. Vote of hands: Passed

Amendment 2

The following changes shall be made to the constitution:
 
   i. The section "Zone" and its contents shall be deleted

No objections from the committee. Vote of hand: Passed

Amendment 3

The following changes shall be made to the constitution:

   i.   A new subsection "ii." will be added to the section
        titled "Extraordinary General Meetings (EGM)"

   ii.  Subsections of this section previously numbered "ii." and above shall
        have their subsection number incremented accordingly.

   iii. The newly added subsection "ii." will contain the text:
        "In addition to the circumstances specified in i., an EGM shall be
        called in the event that a part, or parts, of this constitution are no longer accurate or 
        enforceable. This EGM shall be held within 1 month of the committee becoming aware 
        of this matter, or the soonest appropriate date if this
        would be in conflict with subsection iv.."

Referred until after item 2 Then referred until after item 3

Committee approves. Vote by hands: Passed

Amendment 4

The following changes shall be made to the constitution, taking effect at the
conclusion of the meeting in which this amendment is passed:

   i.  In the section "Membership" the clause "Full membership is open to
       any registered student." shall be changed to "Full membership is
       open to any registered student of the University of Southampton and/or full member of the Union."

No committee objections. Show of hands: Passed

Amendment 5

The following changes shall be made to the constitution:

   i.  The section titled "Affiliation" shall have the words "and to
       the Union AGM" removed.

   ii. The same section shall have the words "be reported to" replaced by
       "be approved by".

No objections from the committee. Vote of hands: Passed

Agenda item 2

Item 2 requires us to discuss the constitutionality of accepting corporate sponsorship and making any necessary constitutional amendments.

Amendment 6

The following changes shall be made to the constitution:
 
   i.  In the section titled "Affiliation", the spelling of the word 
       "organization" shall be corrected to "organisation". 

   ii. The same section shall be extended with the following text:
       "In order to affiliate to an external organisation, the matter shall be put
       to a discussion and vote of the membership present at a Society general meeting."

No objections from the Committee. Vote of hands: Passed

Amendment 7

The following changes shall be made to the constitution:

   i. The section titled "Affiliation" shall be extended with the 
      following text:
      "For the purposes of this section, sponsorship 
      from an external source is to be 
      considered a form of external affiliation. Donations 
      shall not in themselves be considered sponsorship."

No objections from the committee. Vote of hands: Passed

Agenda item 3

To discuss the possible sponsorship of the society by ConnectUs, and take appropriate action as determined by Agenda item 2.

Voting on accepting the sponsorship in principle, with further terms to be negotiated by the president and approved by the committee.

Vote by hands: Passed

Close of meeting

• No other business is to be discussed, in accordance with the constitution.