Proposed Constitutional Changes
DELETE FROM THE CURRENT CONSTITUTION CLAUSES 3, 4, 5 AND REPLACE WITH THE FOLLOWING WORDING:
3 MEMBERSHIP
3.1 The Society shall have three classes of Members: Individual Members (Clause 3.3), Organisational Members (Clause 3.4), and Fellows (Clause 3.5).
3.1.1 Each Member carries the right of one vote in General Meetings of the Society.
3.1.2 A postal address and a working e-mail address must be supplied on application for membership, the latter of which shall be the Member's formal contact address for communications from the Society, and for electronic voting. (In the case of Organisational Members, the nominee’s email address will be the formal contact point for voting purposes.) It is a Member's obligation to ensure that any change in the contact e-mail address will be notified to the Society immediately. In case of e-mail failure, Council shall have the discretion and authority to use other means of communication so that a Member is not prevented from participation or voting.
3.1.3 Specific direct benefits associated with each class of membership will be made available on the Society's web site.
3.2 Application for Individual or Organisational membership shall be made to the Council in writing or in such electronic form as the Council shall decide. Every application for membership shall be accompanied by payment of the appropriate subscription, and a membership becomes active upon receipt by the Society of the membership subscription.
3.3 Individual Members
3.3.1 Any natural person may apply for Individual membership under their own name.
3.3.2 There will be two categories of Individual membership:
1. “Ordinary”
2. “Professional”. Professional membership shall carry additional direct benefits to those enjoyed by Ordinary members.
3.4 Organisational Members
3.4.1 Any company, incorporated society or other lawful organisation may apply to become an Organisational Member.
3.4.2 There shall be two categories of Organisational Member:
a. Small. Defined as having fewer than 100 employees
b. Large. Defined as having 100 or more employees.
3.4.3 Each Organisational Member shall nominate an Individual member to the Society.
3.4.4 Such nominated Individual members will be full Ordinary members of the Society as specified in sections 3.3 and 3.6 and will be have the same rights and obligations of any other Individual member. No subscription fee will be levied from these nominated Individual members.
3.5 Fellows
From time to time Council shall elect persons, whom it considers have made an outstanding contribution to the development of the Internet in New Zealand or the Society, to Fellowship in the Society. Once elected to Fellowship a member remains a Fellow for life with the rights of a financial Professional Member. No subscription fee will be levied from Fellows.
3.6 Members may hold only one membership in the Society and must agree to abide by the rules of the Society.
4 TERMINATION OF MEMBERSHIP
4.1 In addition to the termination of membership by failure to pay the subscription fee as laid out in clauses 5.4, 5.5, 5.6 a member may resign their membership. A Member wishing to resign from the Society must give notice of resignation to the Secretary in writing or in such electronic form as the Council shall decide. All membership rights will terminate on receipt by the Society of the written resignation.
4.2 Membership of the Society may be terminated by the Society. Should a member's actions be in serious conflict with the rules or objects of the Society, the Council is empowered to terminate the membership of that person.
4.3 Any termination of membership pursuant to section 4.2 must follow the process laid out in Schedule 1.
5 TERM OF MEMBERSHIP
5.1 The membership year for all classes of membership is 1 October until 30 September. Persons joining the Society on dates other than the normal subscription date will be invoiced pro-rata calculated on a quarterly basis, Oct - Dec 100%, Jan - Mar 75%, April - June 50%, Jul - Sep 25%.
5.2 During the period covered by the subscription the Member is a financial Member.
5.3 Members will ordinarily be invoiced for the year, in advance, with a due date of 1 October (the “due date”) which is the start of the membership year.
5.4 Failure to pay a subscription by the due date will cause the Member to become unfinancial and lose all membership rights in the Society (including, but not limited to, standing for elected office, voting, nominating, seconding and petitioning).
5.5 If the overdue subscription is paid within three months following the due date, the Member shall be deemed to have maintained continuous membership but membership rights and benefits are not retroactive covering the unfinancial period.
6. If the subscription remains unpaid three months after the due date, the membership terminates and a new application for membership will have to be made if the Member wishes to rejoin the Society.
ADD TO CLAUSE 6.3 THE FOLLOWING CLAUSE NUMBERED AS 6.3.1
6 THE COUNCIL
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6.3.1 Should any Councillor cease to be a financial member of the Society during their term, for example by ceasing to be the nominee of an Organisational member, the Councillor may take up Individual financial membership within 30 days and retain continuous office. Should the Councillor fail to pay such subscription within 30 days of ceasing to be a financial member, their elected position shall be deemed to be vacated.
