Difference between revisions of "Constitution"

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;Who we are (and are not), and how we operate
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#Interpretation<br />"Cape Town Wireless User Group" shall mean the members of the Group and any honorary members appointed in terms of this constitution. "Member" shall mean a member of the Group. "Committee Member" indicates a member of the Committee who has been duly elected in terms of this constitution, including any member of the Group who has been co-opted by the Committee in terms of this constitution. Except where otherwise stated, words denoting the masculine shall include the feminine; and words denoting the plural shall include the singular.<br />
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*Cape Town Wireless User Group is not a club or official organisation, but a research network.
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# Constitution, Name, and Membership
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*Most decisions are made by general consensus at group meetings, and by committee members.  
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## This Constitution shall govern the Group and all its members.  
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*Anyone is able to attend these meetings, regardless of whether they are active on the Cape Town Wireless User Group network.  
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## The body shall be constituted as the Cape Town Wireless User Group, hereinafter referred to as the "the Group". The Group shall be an association of members pursuing the same objectives and purposes without financial gain to any of its members. The Group shall be constituted as a separate legal entity with its own assets and liabilities.  
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*The group has a committee of Chairman, vice-Chairman, Secretary and Treasurer that preside over the regular meetings, generally held as indicated via the mailing list and shown on the website.  
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## Membership of the Group is open to all persons interested in furthering the purposes of the Group and more specifically the "Objectives" enumerated below, subject to registration.  
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*Equipment donated to the group 'belongs' to the group (not any individual) except if otherwise stated by the committee members.  
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# Mission Statement
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*Private Node operators who own their equipment are bound to act according to the Code-of-Conduct outlined here.
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## The mission of the Group is to promote the understanding and use of the 802.11a/b/g wireless standards, provide a playground for Members to test new technologies, as well as a free network to the community.
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# Objectives
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## The Group shall serve as a source of information regarding Wireless technologies and networks in the Western Cape region.
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;Network Access
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## The Group shall liaise with the public, press and academic organisations.  
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There is one class of membership to the Cape Town Wireless User Group. All users are equal (==), meaning no user will have traffic priority over another user. This class is called:
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## The Group shall endeavour to be represented at wireless industry events in the Western Cape.  
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## The Group shall provide a forum and/or any other form for the open exchange of information.
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Wugger
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# Committee
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## The Committee shall be the governing body of the Group.  
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*Wuggers will have full access to the network without any bandwidth restrictions except where necessary for the health of the network or network segment.  
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## The Committee shall consist of a Chairman, Vice-Chairman, Treasurer and Secretary elected at the Annual General Meeting. The Committee may co-opt other members as deemed necessary to fulfill the purpose of the Group.  
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*Wuggers can vote at the group's meetings, these include any resolution that affects the organisational or financial aspects of the group in any form.
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## Specific Committee Members may take on one or more responsible roles as Webmaster and additional designated responsibilities as deemed necessary.
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*A Wugger is connected to the network and utilising what the network has to offer.  
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## The Committee shall consist only of natural persons.  
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*Wuggers may donate money to further assist in growing and expanding the wireless network.
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## The Committee and only the Committee shall make public statements on behalf of the Group.
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# Committee Meetings
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Donations may be used to fund new CTWUG equipment, constructing/erecting CTWUG high sites as well as maintenance on current CTWUG owned high sites.
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## A quorum for Committee meetings shall be three members (half + 1).
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## All matters before the committee shall be decided by means of a majority vote. In the event of an equal split in the votes, the Chairman (or acting Chairman) may exercise a casting vote.  
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Donations to further the network are open to all
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## Minutes of meeting must always be taken and any important decisions taken that affect CTWUG will be publicly announced on the CTWUG website, thereby archived and made accessible to everyone.  
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## Committee meetings shall be announced by the Chairman at least one week before the proposed time of the meeting.  
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# Functions of Office Bearers
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;Behaviors and Responsibilities
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## The Chairman shall decide all matters relating to order and execute the other customary duties of a Chairman.  
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Be kind to the backbone: The increased bandwidth (speed) offered by the current wireless technology can quickly be eroded if users aren't considerate of others.  
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## The Vice-Chairman shall assist the Chairman in the governance of the Group and may act in the place of the Chairman at his/her request.  
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## The Secretary shall be responsible for the taking and distribution of minutes of the Committee Meetings and/or any other form of information he deems useful to the Group.  
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## The Treasurer shall:
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;To this end
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### Be authorised to open, administrate and operate the banking account in the name of the Group.  
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*If you are going to download files via Bittorrent/FTP/DC/gnucleus/kazaa or other download applications from someone else on the network, please consider other wuggers if the total transfer is going to take more than a few minutes.  
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### Keep all books of account of the Group and present these, upon reasonable request, to any member.  
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*P2p and any other bandwidth hogging services will be vulnerable to traffic shaping during gaming hours (19:00 – 00:00). In the event of traffic prioritising on high sites, p2p and other bandwidth hogging protocols will be subjected to the lowest priority there is available, and gaming subjected to the highest.
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### Present a financial report at every Quarterly General Meeting.  
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*Where availability and lack of obstacles permit, point your antenna towards a node in your neighborhood in preference to the major high sites. This assists traffic management on the network. The major high sites will quickly become saturated if everyone aims his/her antenna in that direction.  
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### Disburse all moneys authorised by the Committee in accordance with the provisions of this constitution and account for such disbursement to the Committee at the following meeting.
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### Keep the financial affairs of the Group separate at all times to those of any of its members and ensure there is no conflict between the interests of the Group and any members. In the event of such conflict, the Treasurer shall report the matter to the Committee immediately.  
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If you point to a local node, only traffic that needs to be sent to the rest of the network will go through backbone links.  
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# Definition of Responsible Roles
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*No wugger will have the privilege of connecting to a backbone link; backbone links are there to interconnect high sites only.
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## The Webmaster shall maintain the Group's website.
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## Network Administrator shall maintain all routing and High Sites on the network, as well as design and maintain the network and High Sites.
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## High Site Representative shall represent all chosen High Sites deemed necessary by the Network Administrators.  
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;Protect yourself from others
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# Election of Committee Members
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*Make sure your PC and/or network is protected by up-to date anti virus software. This includes Linux users.
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## Committee members shall be elected at the Annual General Meeting by means of a process of nomination. Should more than one person be nominated the members shall determine by majority vote which nominee shall fill the post.  
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*Make sure you protect your internet connection from being accessed from the wireless network. Should you discover that you have inadvertently gained access to the internet via someone-else's internet account without their knowledge, contact one of the administrators (email abuse@ctwug.za.net). Anyone found intentionally leeching from open internet connections without the consent of the owner of that connection may be banned at the discretion of the network administrators.
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## Any Committee member so elected will hold office for a period of one year commencing from the day of the AGM.  
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# Disqualification of Committee Members
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## A Committee member who is absent without apologies from three consecutive Committee meetings may be relieved of his duties at the discretion of the Committee present at the meetings.  
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;Network Administration
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## A Committee member who is guilty of general misconduct shall be disqualified by a majority vote of two-thirds of the whole Committee.
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As with any group such as this there are those who have taken on a monitoring role for the network. This is usually by virtue of their generally accepted knowledge, interest, and participation in the setup of the network or ownership of a node. There are some circumstances where those monitoring the network may be required to make decisions on behalf of the group to protect the group and the network from malicious or unintended problems. Under these circumstances:
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## Any Committee member who uses his position to further his own interest to the exclusion of any other in the Group shall be disqualified.  
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# Meetings
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*Anyone is permitted to participate on the network, but the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the one (or few). If something you are doing causes problems for other users, the network administrators or node owners reserve the right to block your access until the problem is resolved. Administrators or node owners should try to contact those that they have blocked access to as soon as they can (if possible) or broadcast messages to the group in IRC or the forum if they cannot identify the wugger.  
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## Meetings of the Group shall be held quarterly, unless otherwise specified by the Committee.  
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*As the network is a shared medium administrators may use traffic shaping but not bandwidth capping to maintain usability for all users of the network/node. The implementation of this is at the discretion of the administrator(s).
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## There shall be an AGM. Notice and the agenda thereof shall be posted to all members at least twenty one days before the date of such a meeting.  
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*MAC addresses or IP addresses on and off the wireless network may be banned from accessing the network if found to be scanning or hacking with malicious intent, causing Denial of Service, propagating viruses (maliciously or unintentionally) or causing a general nuisance to others on the network. Any donations paid will not be refunded to a banned user. Communication of this will generally be made by the person monitoring the service to the owner and/or the group so that those misunderstandings are avoided and the owner of the MAC or IP can have the right of reply.
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## The quorum for the AGM shall be one third of the Group or twenty members, whichever is the lesser. These numbers include proxy votes.  
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*Planned upgrades, maintenance and outages to the network backbone and nodes will be posted to the mailing list, IRC and forum so as to minimise the inconvenience to wuggers.  
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# Members
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*The administrators see to CTWUG requirements in their own time, have commitments outside the wireless and receive no payment for their services. Please do not spam or flame the administrators if they are unable to process your request in a time of your choosing. Please be patient and possibly re-request, as sometimes real life intervenes in the affairs of the wireless and you might not always receive notification when this happens.  
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## Members are natural persons who subscribe to the Group's Internet mailing list for announcements and have attended at least one meeting of the Group.  
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## Membership may be revoked by the Committee if it can be shown that a member acts in any way detrimental to the interests of the Group.
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## Members are not permitted to make public statements or representations on behalf of the Group without the consent of the Committee.  
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;High sites / Nodes
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# Adoption and Amendment
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A High site is a central location that has an access point that broadcasts wireless signal. Wuggers then point their wireless antennas towards this location and connect as clients to this site.
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## This Constitution may be amended by a majority of two thirds of all members attending an AGM. Such amendment includes the temporary waiver of any provisions, the inclusion or removal of any clauses and the dissolution of the Group.
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A High site is only recognized as a CTWUG high site when it complies to the following minimal specifications:
 
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*CTWUG administrators have admin rights on the high site. At the very least, one network administrator has write access and one or two other network administrators have read access. It must be directly connected to another recognized CTWUG high site.
 
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*There must be hardware on the high site that belongs to the CTWUG group and not only to one person.  
 
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*Nodes are generally smaller high sites that are located at a wugger’s home. The equipment might belong to the owner of the node.  
 
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*The naming convention for CTWUG highsites / nodes: http://site.ctwug.co.za for example http://mars.ctwug.co.za
 
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*We welcome all wuggers to be always on the lookout for new potential highsites. Our only requirement is that all meetings with potential highsite owners should be liased with the CTWUG chairman
 
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;Disclaimer
 
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*Being a public network there is no inherent wireless security enabled (WEP). It is up to individuals to protect themselves and their data with firewalls, VPN’s, anti virus software and other methods where necessary.
 
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*Content provided on this network is the sole responsibility of wuggers of this network. The Cape Town Wireless User Group is not responsible for any content on this network other than the website.  
 
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*There are no guarantees of service on the Cape Town Wireless User Group network. It is run by volunteers in their own time. If something breaks down node owners and administrators will tend to it as time, money, and motivation permits. Please do not spam the administrators or the forums regarding this.  
 
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*802.11a/b/g equipment is designed to operate at a distance deemed by the equipment you own. Cape Town Wireless User Group does not guarantee constant speeds or signal levels. With all the variables in play there can be no guarantee of service at any given point or time. Cape Town Wireless User Group is not responsible for the costs incurred in obtaining any equipment that fails to connect to the network due to environmental, geographic or any other reasons. Cape Town Wireless User Group is not responsible for obtaining equipment for future wuggers. They can, however, buy on the Cape Town Wireless User Group account at Scoop Distribution and obtain hardware cheaper.  
 
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;The CTWUG network is used at own risk.
 

Revision as of 17:19, 15 April 2009

  1. Interpretation
    "Cape Town Wireless User Group" shall mean the members of the Group and any honorary members appointed in terms of this constitution. "Member" shall mean a member of the Group. "Committee Member" indicates a member of the Committee who has been duly elected in terms of this constitution, including any member of the Group who has been co-opted by the Committee in terms of this constitution. Except where otherwise stated, words denoting the masculine shall include the feminine; and words denoting the plural shall include the singular.
  2. Constitution, Name, and Membership
    1. This Constitution shall govern the Group and all its members.
    2. The body shall be constituted as the Cape Town Wireless User Group, hereinafter referred to as the "the Group". The Group shall be an association of members pursuing the same objectives and purposes without financial gain to any of its members. The Group shall be constituted as a separate legal entity with its own assets and liabilities.
    3. Membership of the Group is open to all persons interested in furthering the purposes of the Group and more specifically the "Objectives" enumerated below, subject to registration.
  3. Mission Statement
    1. The mission of the Group is to promote the understanding and use of the 802.11a/b/g wireless standards, provide a playground for Members to test new technologies, as well as a free network to the community.
  4. Objectives
    1. The Group shall serve as a source of information regarding Wireless technologies and networks in the Western Cape region.
    2. The Group shall liaise with the public, press and academic organisations.
    3. The Group shall endeavour to be represented at wireless industry events in the Western Cape.
    4. The Group shall provide a forum and/or any other form for the open exchange of information.
  5. Committee
    1. The Committee shall be the governing body of the Group.
    2. The Committee shall consist of a Chairman, Vice-Chairman, Treasurer and Secretary elected at the Annual General Meeting. The Committee may co-opt other members as deemed necessary to fulfill the purpose of the Group.
    3. Specific Committee Members may take on one or more responsible roles as Webmaster and additional designated responsibilities as deemed necessary.
    4. The Committee shall consist only of natural persons.
    5. The Committee and only the Committee shall make public statements on behalf of the Group.
  6. Committee Meetings
    1. A quorum for Committee meetings shall be three members (half + 1).
    2. All matters before the committee shall be decided by means of a majority vote. In the event of an equal split in the votes, the Chairman (or acting Chairman) may exercise a casting vote.
    3. Minutes of meeting must always be taken and any important decisions taken that affect CTWUG will be publicly announced on the CTWUG website, thereby archived and made accessible to everyone.
    4. Committee meetings shall be announced by the Chairman at least one week before the proposed time of the meeting.
  7. Functions of Office Bearers
    1. The Chairman shall decide all matters relating to order and execute the other customary duties of a Chairman.
    2. The Vice-Chairman shall assist the Chairman in the governance of the Group and may act in the place of the Chairman at his/her request.
    3. The Secretary shall be responsible for the taking and distribution of minutes of the Committee Meetings and/or any other form of information he deems useful to the Group.
    4. The Treasurer shall:
      1. Be authorised to open, administrate and operate the banking account in the name of the Group.
      2. Keep all books of account of the Group and present these, upon reasonable request, to any member.
      3. Present a financial report at every Quarterly General Meeting.
      4. Disburse all moneys authorised by the Committee in accordance with the provisions of this constitution and account for such disbursement to the Committee at the following meeting.
      5. Keep the financial affairs of the Group separate at all times to those of any of its members and ensure there is no conflict between the interests of the Group and any members. In the event of such conflict, the Treasurer shall report the matter to the Committee immediately.
  8. Definition of Responsible Roles
    1. The Webmaster shall maintain the Group's website.
    2. Network Administrator shall maintain all routing and High Sites on the network, as well as design and maintain the network and High Sites.
    3. High Site Representative shall represent all chosen High Sites deemed necessary by the Network Administrators.
  9. Election of Committee Members
    1. Committee members shall be elected at the Annual General Meeting by means of a process of nomination. Should more than one person be nominated the members shall determine by majority vote which nominee shall fill the post.
    2. Any Committee member so elected will hold office for a period of one year commencing from the day of the AGM.
  10. Disqualification of Committee Members
    1. A Committee member who is absent without apologies from three consecutive Committee meetings may be relieved of his duties at the discretion of the Committee present at the meetings.
    2. A Committee member who is guilty of general misconduct shall be disqualified by a majority vote of two-thirds of the whole Committee.
    3. Any Committee member who uses his position to further his own interest to the exclusion of any other in the Group shall be disqualified.
  11. Meetings
    1. Meetings of the Group shall be held quarterly, unless otherwise specified by the Committee.
    2. There shall be an AGM. Notice and the agenda thereof shall be posted to all members at least twenty one days before the date of such a meeting.
    3. The quorum for the AGM shall be one third of the Group or twenty members, whichever is the lesser. These numbers include proxy votes.
  12. Members
    1. Members are natural persons who subscribe to the Group's Internet mailing list for announcements and have attended at least one meeting of the Group.
    2. Membership may be revoked by the Committee if it can be shown that a member acts in any way detrimental to the interests of the Group.
    3. Members are not permitted to make public statements or representations on behalf of the Group without the consent of the Committee.
  13. Adoption and Amendment
    1. This Constitution may be amended by a majority of two thirds of all members attending an AGM. Such amendment includes the temporary waiver of any provisions, the inclusion or removal of any clauses and the dissolution of the Group.
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