NOTICE:
The GLOBAL Bylaws were reviewed and modified at the December 6th meeting. MicheleTobias will circulate a draft of the revisions shortly. Changes made to the information below will not be considered in the draft.
What's the point of this Page
To collaboratively discuss and draft bylaws for the GLOBAL geography club.
How to Contribute to this Page
This is a collaborative effort. If you have suggestions but don't know how you would include them in the text, add a comment (through the box at the bottom of this page). If you do know where you'd add your suggestion, please add it to the text using the "edit" button. There are some blank bullet points along the way, that's a good place to stick your alternative on the text that precedes it.
General Courtesy of this Page
Deletions are not welcome, we would prefer that all option be laid out in their appropriate sections so that members can choose between them. From time to time several officers may work together to try and trim down the absurd ideas but we really want to try and give everyone a voice. Don't forget, you can be in on the voting at the next meeting, GLOBAL
How to Draft Bylaws ![[WWW]](http://wikispot.org/wiki/eggheadbeta/img/sycamore-www.png){kind=small}
SPAC document for guidance
Club Identity
The GLOBAL: geography club is a registered student club at the University of California, Davis
SPAC:Geography Club
One Shields Ave.
University of California, Davis USA
Mission Statement
The GLOBAL: geography club provides a fun space for all lovers of geography to gather for the pursuit of their common interests, including but not limited to enjoying peoples and places, promoting geographic literacy, and building the social networks and interpersonal skills necessary for making the world a better place.
Conduct
We uphold the UC Davis Principles of Community. If, after an attempt at conflict resolution and/or behavior intervention, any member or attender continues to regularly or egregiously violate the Principles, they can be asked to leave. The officers may expel a member by unanimous vote. We don't expect this to have to happen, but we're serious about setting expectations for civil behavior and strive to be anti-racist, anti-sexist, and anti-oppressive, absolutely. We acknowledge that our club holds a position of privilege because it is located in the geo-political space of the USA. We strive to address, challenge, and confront power and privilege in our practices.
Membership
Membership is open to everyone. In compliance with SPAC guidelines, at least 75% of the members must be UC Davis students, at least 66% of the membership must be graduate students, at least two of the officers must be graduate students, and all five of the official "leaders" (as listed on the SPAC form) must be currently enrolled students. Regardless of formal membership, participation is open to the general public.
To be a member, a person must attend 1 meeting, event, or participate in email discussions in the past six months. Signing up to receive club emails, while encourage for everyone, does NOT constitute club membership. Student members are members who are currently enrolled at UCDavis and have full voting ability. Community members are all other members and have the same privileges as student member with the exceptions of holding office or voting in officer elections (per SPAC).
Club Officers
Club officers must be students at UC Davis.
All officers have specific roles and tasks and titles.
Titles are derived from geographers (be they famous, influential, or obscure).
Officers must attend meetings on a regular basis (2/3 of meetings). In the event of low attendance, an officer may be considered for removal.
Only UCD students can have voting rights(electing officers) or be club officers.(SPAC rules)
Officer Titles
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Co-Presidents (ideally representing both human and physical geography) Role: The role of the co-presidents is to ensure that all club related paperwork is correctly filed, to facilitate and organize the club meetings, and ensure the day-to-day operations of the club are implemented.
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Treasurer: The role of the Treasurer is to monitor all club funds, and ensure the proper payment/receipt of all funds.
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Events Coordinator: The role of the Events Coordinator is to plan, coordinate, and execute club ventures.
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Secretary/Archivist:(1-2 people)
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The role of the Secretary is to track the participation of club members. Keep a book of meeting minutes. Keep list of active members.
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The role of the Archivist is to document significant club events through various forms of media.
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Public Relations/Outreach (1-2 people)
Dues
There shall be no mandatory dues. Donations are welcomed.
Meetings
Notice of Meeting
Members will be informed via email at least two days in advance of any official meeting.
Agenda
Agenda items should be communicated to the presidents before the next meeting or may be added at the beginning of the meeting, if it is determined that there will be time to discuss late additions.
Decisions
Things that require decisions.
Voting
In general, we aim to make unanimous decisions upon consideration of input from those who are participating. In the case that unanimity (consensus) cannot be reached after having seriously tried to do so (or in the case of choosing between two equally good options, such as whether we should serve local apple or pomegranate juice, or whether Alex or Michele should have to wipe the table), anyone present may ask the meeting facilitator to call for a vote, in which case we default to the more formal voting procedures.
Anyone who is present may vote and contribute to the decision making process. Participants are asked to keep the interest of the whole group in mind, not just their personal interests.
Participants have an obligation to voice any dissent. Silence will be interpreted as agreement or apathy.
Quorum
Decisions may be made whenever at least three of the five "leaders" are present, or two "leaders" and at least one non-leader member.
Proxy Voting
Yes, in extenuating circumstances.
Consensus
This is the preferred process for making decisions. Consensus is reached through discussion when all members agree to a particular condition or proposal. If any member(s) does not agree, discussion will continue with compromises being made until everyone can agree. In the event a consensus decision will be made via email (or by other means not in person), not voting is considered to be agreement (i.e. if you don't say you're against an idea, everyone will assume you're fine with it). By email, members will have three days to discuss an idea. If consensus can be reached (no dissenting voices) in those three days, then we go forward with the proposed idea. If someone objects, we will have five days of further discussion. If consensus still cannot be reached, we will have a vote (see below for terms and conditions).
Voting
Voting is our second form of decision making. Voting requires each member to voice a yes or no opinion. (In this case, not submitting a vote means you are forfeiting your say on a particular matter.) A proposal is passed if the majority of votes returned (not members) are in favor of the proposal.
Events
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Formal GLOBAL sponsored events must be approved a majority of club officers.
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Recurring events can be blanket-approved.
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All members are allowed to submit events for consideration.
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All club events are open to all members.
Proposals for Funding from GLOBAL
Funding proposals may be made by members only (see Membership section for requirements). The proposal then becomes an agenda item for the next meeting or may be discussed by the club officers. Members in attendance of the meeting or officers in the discussion will then try to come to a consensus either in favor or not in favor of the proposal.
Officer Elections
Elections will always be by ballot (paper, email or web voting) distributed to all student members.
Votes will be tallied by the designated election coordinator (not a person running for office).
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Officers are elected by active student members.
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Voting will be done for a period of seven days.
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Voting will be done in a simple majority rule, with all votes submitted by active members counted.
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If there is a tie, the tie will be broken by a run-off vote by all active members.
Nominations
To become an officer, one must be an active student (This is a SPAC requirement) member, and volunteer for a given position.
Term
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Officers are elected for a period of one year.
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Positions filled midterm will be up for election in Fall as normal.
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There are no term limits.
Removal
To remove an officer, all of the other officers must vote unanimously for the removal, and gather votes from active student members with 2/3 of votes in the affirmative confirming the removal. This uses the yes/no vote method.
Amending the Bylaws
Unanimous vote of the officers, or consensus of the members.
Comments:
Note: You must be logged in to add comments
2007-11-14 13:31:36 Comments / Suggestions / Tomatoes are appreciated. mtreichler
2007-11-14 13:51:12 I would also like to suggest we specifically delineate the role of the AAG in the club. Those who were passionate about that being the inception of club should take the mission statement into consideration as while this is agreement with "learn[ing]," we can't exclude the people who aren't going. There has to be a purpose for the club for those who can't attend the AAG.—mtreichler
I got from the meeting that we support all academic geography endevours, it just happens to be our 1st fund raising effort is for the AAG. Not to say that some of those funds can't become general club funds.—AlexMandel
2007-11-17 08:27:42 My thoughts exactly. I just want to make sure of transparency and the rational allocation of club funds. —mtreichler
2007-11-14 15:16:42 It seems that the president really doesn't have any duties.. I mean usually they are the only ones to do anything, they are kinda executive, so perhaps their role would be to execute something about the club, preside over meetings, I dunno, it sounds like a big time commit. Do you even need such positions? I would suggest making the VP into the press officer, simply in charge of informing the outside world about the club, and perhaps make the 'president' a sort of internal information officer, he needs to keep everyone else informed, and be at most all events, he is essentially the representative of each club member. —DavidPoole
So far we have a co-presidency, you have to pick one person for the paperwork but we decided that 2 was better than one. In more real terms our officers are defined by what they do not by positions they were elected to. Meaning we have a Board of Directors style instead of top down.—AlexMandel
2007-11-14 15:18:37 Also, why are only ucd student's allowed to be members of the club? does this include GSA? what about staff? or just plain folk? define this peripheral membership, is a peripheral member still a member? where and when? etc. —DavidPoole
Point of confusion, anyone can be a member, but only students can be officers and vote for officers. I believe this is a rule from SPAC On that note I encourage anyone interested in the club goals to come to an event.—AlexMandel
2007-12-14 00:54:04 i am wondering what it means to be an international student or participant in global, while the aims seem to be inclusive, the decision-making is really not, since UCDavis students will always form the "controlling body"?...what does this mean for American nationalism??? —Benitamoolman
- I believe for their time here at UCD, international students are considered UCD students(requirement is enrollment at UCD) and are therefore the same as any other member. The decision making process has been discussed to be as inclusive as possible under the SPAC rules. Hence consensus of all people who want to participate is the first resort execpt where SPAC prohibits, we can't change that unless we decide to not be a student club which would mean we forgo GSA funds, non-profit status and the ability to book campus resources for free.
How would you suggest we change the decision-making process to be more inclusive? since you've lodged an issue we have 7 days to work out a solution.
I'm a little unclear on what the problem is too, it's a voluntary group concerned with geography at UCD, if you share the interest you're welcome to participate and enjoy all the same benefits as all the other members. Therefore it makes sense that it would be run by UCD students. "think global act local" —AlexMandel
- GLOBAL is a UCD graduate student organization. Because we are a UCD club and we get funding and some administrative support from the university, UCD students have to be the controlling body. The reason for this is that students' fees go to support these clubs. The university, I believe, wants to avoid having non-students be able to decide how university funds are spent and to have access to university resources that they do not pay for. That being said, the only prividges that student members have that non-students members don't have is the ability to hold office and vote for officers (these are SPAC's rules which we must comply with, not our rules), otherwise, all members can do the same things. If we want to change this aspect of our bylaws, we have to take this up with the university administration. —MicheleTobias
2007-12-19 01:20:59 I think there are a couple of things we might want to amend to the bylaws.
1. Objections in the consensus process must include or be followed by identification of particular issue and an alternative to the option. Null alternative is valid but must be stated.
2. There will be no campaign financing. —AlexMandel
