The club’s constitution needs updating and modernising. The committee have approved a new version, which needs to be adopted before the end of March. Accordingly, we have decided to call an Extraordinary General Meeting, to be held at the CompassSport trophy event, when a large proportion of the club membership will be present. But why the rush: can’t it wait for the next AGM in October? Let me explain.
A couple of years ago now, the club decided that we ought to try to gain the Sport England Clubmark award. This is largely designed to ensure that those clubs with a junior membership or with club/school links are aware of the various issues involved, that all their coaches are properly trained, are CRB checked, and that ‘best practice’ is observed in the club’s activities. Some local authorities are beginning to suggest that only clubs who have gained Clubmark should have club/school links. As we run a schools orienteering league, clearly we should be seen to be doing the right thing.
WIM are now in a position where we have reached the point of submitting our application to British Orienteering. This needs to be done before April to keep us within the correct timescales. The previous constitution was devised when the club was first put on an official footing in, I think, 1970. Since then, attitudes have changed, and the constitution needs to reflect modern ideas on topics like equity, grievance procedures etc. In addition, British Orienteering has recently changed its membership structure and our constitution needs to reflect this too.
Accordingly, I have produced a new version of the constitution, which is largely our original model, but incorporating changes suggested by Sport England, who provide a suggested model club constitution template. Where we differered from this model, we’ve stuck to our own version except where changes were needed to bring us up to date. The committee have approved the final draft, which is on the club website.
If any other members have any suggested amendments or additions to this, please let us have them for consideration as soon as possible. We have one further committee meeting before the EGM.
