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Talk:Draft rule changes

Summary of proposed changes

Overall, the proposals would make the rules are slighter shorter and simpler. In rough order of signficance:

  1. Two- instead of one-year terms for committee members—rule 20(3).
  2. Direct elections by chapter members of all committee members on an equal basis; in other words, we elect a committee of eight members, who in turn elect the four office bearers from among their ranks and deal with any changes in office bearers that become necessary during the two-year term—rules 20(3), 21, and 23.
  3. Removal of the committee's power to fine members $500 as a disciplinary measure—rule 7(1)(a) [already discussed and proposed by Craig].
  4. Addition of email address where personal information is listed—rules 4(3)(a) and 5(a).
  5. Rationalisation of the request-to-inspect-and-copy-members'-register wording, with inserted reference to the privacy provisions in the act—rule 5.
  6. The name of the Victorian act is corrected and linked to the pfd—rule 2.
  7. The weird definition of secretary is simplified—rule 2. Trivial but annoying. In a few places subsequently, the full version is given after this definition, which I've harmonised to the "abbreviated" form in the definitions.

In practical terms, the expectation is that candidate statements in an election would, where a candidate wished, set out skills specific to one or more of the four office bearer positions. All office-bearer skill-sets are valuable for committee members generally, and the proposal aims to provide more flexibility for the changing circumstances of the elected volunteers and the tasks as they evolve. But it would be up to the committee after each election to allocate the positions as it saw fit. This saves a lot of clunk.

Overleaf, the gory details are set out, which of course look more complicated that they really are. Some trivial but necessary fixes are included. Red for insertions/replacements, and strike-throughs for deletions. Numbering is re-aligned where necessary.

My preference is to move the negative stuff—Discipline, suspension and expulsion of members" and "Disputes and mediation", which take a huge amount of space—down close to the bottom. But it's a minor issue.

Feedback, advice, criticism from all members is very welcome—perhaps below on this page? It would be good to get the draft on the road very soon.

Tony1 (talk) 20:07, 19 August 2013 (EST)

By Gnangarra

reading at the moment, just dropping notes as I go

  • section 9(3)(d) needs to be check it currently links to the 1981 act.. has this changed in the 2012 version?
    I changed the link, too. Tony1 (talk) 21:09, 19 August 2013 (EST)
    I'm pretty shocked that CAV hasn't picked up on that. Section 30 in the new act seems to refer to something entirely different. The link itself is not a part of the rules, but the text is, and it needs to be updated. Lankiveil (talk) 21:42, 19 August 2013 (EST)
  • returning officer is necessary for each venue just to ensure everyone is recognised, accountable for ensuring all votes are recorded and, reduce any confusion.
    If this is going to be too much trouble, I'll get rid of that part of the proposal now. Tony1 (talk) 21:09, 19 August 2013 (EST)
  • 23.6.a needs to be there to define when a vote can occur...
    Well spotted. Fixed. Tony1 (talk) 21:09, 19 August 2013 (EST)
  • 23.6.b is necessary for transparency, other wise a committee could manipulate the voting process
    Fixed. Thx. Tony1 (talk) 21:09, 19 August 2013 (EST)
  • 21.4 should be truncated to In the event of a casual vacancy, as specified in rule 24, in any office referred to in sub-rule (1), the committee must within 14 days appoint an eligible member of the organisation to the vacant office rather then removed all together as its necessary to ensure responsibility in office bearer positions and continuity of records.
    You're right. Fixed. Tony1 (talk) 21:09, 19 August 2013 (EST)
  • 22.2 needs consideration if a member resigns after 6 months does the replacement member need to be endorsed at the next AGM(6 months) current wording or the next election time theoretically in 18 months....
  • where model rules is noted, does this need to specify that these were the ones as per 1981 act.... given we now define the act as the 2012,
  • 22.1 needs to be ammended from ...shall hold office until the annual general meeting next after the date of election.. to something like ....shall hold office until the date of the next election....

By Craig

On the topic of Rule 15 it's this way in the earliest version of the rules and also in LUV's rules which are also based on the model rules, which would indicate to me that it was probably that way in the old model rules. Although it's somewhat obvious from context, I don't see that a change to the title of this rule to make it clear that it refers to general meetings and not other types of meetings would be a huge problem.

Likewise for the odd description of Secretary is also from the model rules. If the intent is simply to simplify the wording without changing the meaning I am happy for this to occur in principle, although we'd need to be very careful of course that there was no subtle change of meaning.

I agree with Tony's comment that if changes are going to be made, it's best to make those changes as minimal as possible while still having the desired effect.

It's not necessary to specify the colour in the proposal, as that is something we add later on. As you've noted, we're running out of colours and it might be good to have a monochrome version of the rules for people to read, and a separate colourful one for anyone that's really interested in when each change was made.

I'm happy we now have some actual changes to discuss and pore over rather than simply talking about what should happen, so full credit to you for that. Lankiveil (talk) 21:40, 19 August 2013 (EST)

for the rule I think we should have the current rules at that page highlighting the most recent changes but create archives for the previous versions such that the current rules would become Association Rules prior to admentment at AGM/SGM 2013 that way we are only maintaining one colour change and retaining the prior rules intact. The top of the page could then be linked to each version, and the resolution that changed it. Gnangarra 21:48, 19 August 2013 (EST)
Yeah, actually that thought flickered through my mind a while ago ... wouldn't take long to create ?three archives (but please, red colouring in each would be helpful to understand the differences made. Or perhaps just start the archive with the earliest version and update three times (including dating at the top) so people can do diffs for those changes? Tony1 (talk) 21:57, 19 August 2013 (EST) PS Craig, I haven't disseminated this draft to anyone but you, Kerry (and Gideon, who offered to comment at the time). Can I leave it to you to decide what next to do? Tony1 (talk) 21:59, 19 August 2013 (EST)
To progress this along if necessary I'm happy to be recognised as seconding Tony's proposal for the changes even though we are still tweeking it Gnangarra 22:04, 19 August 2013 (EST)