So, anyone else have any thoughts on the draft constitution?
For those unaware, NZLARPS needs to rewrite its constitution, so we can re-register as an incorporated society under the new Act. The draft was emailed out to members last night, and there’ll be an SGM to discuss it next weekend, and hopefully we will be formally adopting it at the AGM in September (and then re-registering). If you didn’t receive a copy, you should log in and check your membership status.
Anyway, my thoughts:
TL;DR: it basically replicates the existing constitution, without any intentional major changes. There are a few nuts and bolts issues, some changes which seem to be due to using the template, and a few things missing because they don’t obviously fit.
The important stuff:
- The process for constitutional amendments has changed: At present anyone can suggest an amendment, but it needs a 2/3rds majority to pass. The new constitution requires an amendment be supported by 25% of the membership, but needs only a simple majority to pass. Different ways of doing the same thing - preventing amendments without wide support - but problematic IMHO. Historically, almost all amendments have been proposed by the committee (e.g. regionalisation, the code of conduct, fixing regionalisation, raising the financial transaction limit). That would become significantly more difficult, which in turn could leave us unable to fix problems as they arise. IMHO it would be better to retain the current easy to propose / hard to pass safeguard.
- The membership clause allows corporate members (that is, companies and other incorporated societies could join NZLARPS). It’s boilerplate from the MBIE constitution builder, and it is useful (for example) for federated sports bodies or large affiliated organisations (where it is the individual clubs or NGOs which are members rather than actual people). The Aotearoa larp community isn’t that big yet, and lacks other corporate bodies, so I’m not sure if this is necessary, and I’d generally feel more comfortable if membership was restricted to natural persons.
- The code of conduct, and project and affiliate clauses are all missing. This stuff was in the constitution because (I think) we didn’t know where else to put it. It can all be done through bylaws if that’s how we want to do it, and that makes these bits easier to tweak as well.
- a more important absence: there is no power for committees to fill casual vacancies by appointment. We’ve had to use this power regrettebly often in NZLARPS’ history, due to people resigning or not enough people standing. Its important to the functioning of the organisation, so IMHO we need to include it.
Less important stuff
- annual subscriptions are decided by the AGM. Currently this is done from time to time by the national committee, which other than short-term regional specials to promote the formation of a new region, hasn’t really changed them for… 15 years? IMHO its best to leave it with the committee, though of course I’d expect the committee to take direction from any member’s motion at an AGM.
- The threshold for members to call an SGM has increased from 20% to 25% of members: this has never happened, so rather abstract, but its an important safety valve, and a lower threshold is IMHO good.
- AGM procedure allows proxy voting but doesn’t seem to allow for electronic voting: this is boilerplate from the generator, but currently we explicitly disallow proxies, and have an explicit allowance for distance voting. While other parts of the new constitution mention electronic participation, we should IMHO keep the e-voting provision for clarity.
- Elections do not allow a “no confidence” option: But then, neither does the current one. We do it because we’ve always done it, because that was how NZLARPS’ student founders thought elections should be run. But if we’re ditching it or retaining it, it should be a conscious decision (we can probably crib language from a student’s association constitution if we want to keep it).
- There’s a 5-year term limit for committee members: This is new, applies only within the same roles (so you can switch around within a committee). It’s not a bad idea, but it may make it hard to fill spaces in smaller regions. Again, if we do this it should be a conscious decision. (For the curious, who has done what over the years is here).
- Committee members cease to be committee members when their membership expires: New, and ideally, yes. In practice, its been a constant struggle to remind even committee members to remember to pay, so this has potential to cause problems if committees become inquorate.
Nuts and bolts
- The stuff around membership payments and people becoming “non-financial” doesn’t reflect reality and would be a significant change (currently membership lasts a year from renewal, after which you cease to be a member, and that’s it).
- A general meeting needs at lest 10 financial members to be quorate. Great for the AGM, but RGMs are subject to the same rules, and so this will require very high participation rates from smaller regions.
- I think the timelines for election and appointment may be inconsistent.
- Initial regions in the North Island are defined by old colonial boundaries (which leaves out Taranaki). The actual rule we used was “north / south of Taupo”.
- Regional committee size is more flexible (yay!), but its unclear how it is determined. “From time to time by the RGM” is my preferred solution. There’s also no equivalent of the current s21A, which allows large regions to have additional general members to ensure geographic representation.
- The wind-up clause is single-stage (2/3rds) rather than two stage (majority then 2/3rds). So it will be easier to wind up NZLARPS. Do we want this?
- (pet topic) there’s no “access to information” clause. This is in the law, so its absence doesn’t matter, but it would be good to remind members that they can, and a lot of the new constitution is just repeating stuff from the Act.
Cool stuff
- regions are now explicitly recognised as exercising delegated authority to advance NZLARPS’ purposes, which is absolutely the vision. There’s also an explicit constitutional recognition of their financial independence (subject to oversight).
- the wind-up clause now requires surplus assets to be distributed to any non-profit promoting roleplay or creative theatre - rather than the current “charitable body or bodies” which is more difficult. It would be nice if it included larp in the list though.