The Constitution

SBW is an incorporated association and therefore subject to the laws of the NSW Department of Fair Trading (DFT). In 2022 the DFT updated its Model Constitution, and updating our own constitution was discussed by the SBW committee in early 2023.

The March committee meeting minutes - which were written by President Mary Furness and not the club secretary - show in Item 2 of General Business -

"Adapt Present Constitution or Accept New Fair Trading Model Constitution.
It was agreed by the committee that we would adopt the Model Fair Trading Constitution (sic) as it incorporates all necessary legal requirements, and our committee can add individual items to the Model Constitution, as required. Mary Furness, Clare Lord and Brett Davis will oversee the implementation of the Model."

The minutes for that meeting show no record of any motions or voting for this proposal.

The SBW constitution had many clauses specifically for our club, including the name, objectives, definitions, newsletter, life membership, specific office bearers, the responsibilities of those office bearers, quorum percentages for all the different meetings, and the club logo!

At the first sub-committee meeting with Mary and Clare, Brett Davis argued that it was much easier to add any useful additions from the new Model Constitution to the SBW constitution, rather than trying to add all of the specific clauses for the club into the Model Constitution.

In addition, Mary and Clare wanted the term of the President to be restricted - destroying all the hard work of Peter Dalton and the committee in 2011 and turning the clock back to the previous millenium!

Despite Brett's opposition to this change, he was out-voted 2-1 on the sub-committee and the restricted term became a part of the 2023 constitution. Karen and Brett Davis were the only two members who voted against the new constitution at the AGM.

Because of this change, if the club has the best President ever coming to the end of their third year in office, and that President wants to remain President, and every club member wants the President to remain as President as well, that great President would be forced out of the job because of the changed constitution.

How stupid is that?!

For the next chapter in this history, go to the THREE PAGES page ...