We, the members of the Cambridge University
Tiddlywinks Club, with the consent of the Senior Proctor, do hereby
adopt, enact, and give to ourselves this Constitution.
Title and Purpose
Article One
The style and title of the Club shall be The Cambridge University
Tiddlywinks Club, which may be abbreviated to C.U.Tw.C..
Article Two
The purposes of the Club are:
- To promote the sport of Tiddlywinks
- To maintain the honour and good name of Cambridge University.
- To play both serious and social Tiddlywinks, and to develop friendly
relations with other clubs, societies and institutions.
- To play and beat Oxford University Tiddlywinks Society, should it exist,
at least once a year.
- To put the willies up Oxford University Tiddlywinks Society, should it
exist, at least once a year.
Membership
Article Three
Membership shall be open to all members of those
Institutions of Further and Higher Education situated within three statute
miles of Great Saint Mary's Church. Honorary Membership may be
conferred at the discretion of the Committee upon anyone.
Article Four
A person shall sue for the status of member during their first, second or
third meeting, and shall then attain such status after a formal motion. See
Article 14.
Article Five
- The Committee shall have the right to expel any person from membership
of the Club, as they shall deem fit.
- Before the Committee may expel any member, they shall give the member seven
days' notice of the proposed expulsion, and allow the member to make
representation to the Committee regarding the proposed expulsion.
- Any member of the Club shall have the right to have the reason for any
such expulsion announced at a Club meeting.
- A member may resign from the Club.
- If a member is expelled from the Club, that person is obliged to return
all equipment, documents and finances to the Club within seven days.
- An expelled member is not entitled to a full or partial refund of any
fees paid, be it annual subscription or other costs.
- If the expelled member believes that their appeal was not handled fairly,
subject to article 5.2, they may be appealing to the Senior Treasurer in
writing.
The Senior Treasurer may then, considering all the facts, request that
the Committee review the expelled member's case.
The Committee's subsequent decision, either not to review the case or
to reject the appeal, is final.
Article Six
A person shall, having attained membership, remain a member of the
Club for life, subject to Article 5.
Article Seven
There shall be established as the sole administrative organ of the
Club the Committee.
Article Eight
- Six ex-officio members of the Club, being in
order of precedence
the President,
the Secretary,
the Junior Treasurer,
the Publicity Officer,
the Assistant Secretary
and the Senior Treasurer.
- Any past Presidents of the Club who are resident members of
Cambridge University, who shall be honorary Committee members.
- As many honorary Committee members, so long as they are and remain in
statu pupillari, as are elected by a majority of the members of the
club present and voting at an ordinary or general meeting, subject to
Article 9 and
Article 22.2.
Article Nine
- This article is here because we were pissed and
male when we wrote the Constitution.
- If the algebraic sum of the body weights of the individual members
of the whole Committee exceeds the equivalent weight of 1000 pints
of real ale, then the heaviest and lightest member shall each amigos
one standard sized Mars bar sideways at each meeting of the Club
whilst this condition is true.
Article Ten
A quorum for a Committee meeting shall be a majority of the Committee
members, provided that at least three ex-officio members are present.
- The President shall be the titular
head of the Club.
- The selection of teams shall be the responsibility of the four senior
Committee members. If the four senior Committee members are unable to
reach a decision by common consent, the matter shall be decided by a
decision of the full Committee, with the exception of the Senior
Treasurer.
- A member of the Committee may resign from the Committee during an
ordinary meeting provided they announce the date of resignation at an
ordinary meeting at least one week beforehand.
- The Secretary,
or their deputy, shall keep minutes of ordinary and general meetings
of the Club.
The Secretary should, at all times, have at least one boyfriend in
Oxford — and this must be a boyfriend, regardless of whether the
Secretary is male, female or other — who will organise a Varsity Match
for CUTwC. The Committee should do everything in their power to
ensure that this is the case.
- The Publicity Officer shall be
responsible for raising the profile of the Club and the Sport of
Tiddlywinks within the University and the World.
- The Assistant Secretary shall
help the other Committee members in the having of affairs within
the Club.
Meetings
Article Thirteen
All meetings shall be chaired by a Committee member
who shall be:
- The ex-officio Committee member of highest precedence, or, failing this
- The longest serving honorary Committee member present.
Article Fourteen
For the purposes of attaining membership, meetings shall include the Club
Dinner, Club matches, Club parties, and other official Club functions, in
each case provided that at least two ex-officio members of the Committee
are pissed.
Ordinary Meetings
Article Fifteen
- Ordinary meetings of the Club shall be held if possible:
- Once a week during Full Term.
- In licensed premises.
- During licensing hours.
- Meetings may be reconvened, but a new meeting may not be called until
the next day or within the space of 12 hours, whichever is the later.
Article Sixteen
A quorum shall be the number present.
General Meetings
Article Seventeen
- A general meeting of the Club shall be held annually during the Easter
Term, before its division, and shall be held on licensed premises during
licensing hours.
- Refer to Article 9 paragraph 1.
- When arranging the venue for elections of officers to the Club, the
Committee shall make every endeavour to avoid the elections being held
within the bounds of the College of any candidate standing seriously for
a post.
- At a general meeting of the Club, there will be a
vote of no confidence in the
current Prime Minister.
If the vote is successful, the Prime Minister shall be barred from
attaining membership in SEPTIC, unless they already have membership
in which case their membership shall be revoked.
Article Eighteen
An extraordinary general meeting may be called only by:
- A decision of the Committee.
- A written request by one-third of the paid-up members of the Club.
- The Chairperson shall give notice at two successive ordinary meetings of
the Club of the forthcoming general meeting.
- The general meeting shall be held within thirty Full Term days of the
notice having been received by the Committee.
- The general meeting may replace the ordinary meeting for that week.
- If a paid-up CUTwC member, who is a regular attendant at meetings
(attends more than 50% of meetings in a given year), or who is a current
Committee member, fails to turn up to a general meeting and fails to
apologise either before or during said meeting then that person will be
fined three pints of a beverage chosen by the Club which they must
amigos at the next drinking event.
Article Twenty
All ex-officio members of the Committee (excepting the Senior Treasurer)
shall resign at the end of the Annual General Meeting and then they, with
the rest of the Committee members (excepting the Senior Treasurer) shall
each amigos a standard sized Mars bar sideways, and drink a pint of beer
through it.
Article Twenty-one
The Constitution may only be changed at a General Meeting of the Club.
Article Twenty-two
- Formal motions, Committee changes and constitutional changes shall be
proposed, seconded and voted upon by paid-up members only.
-
For the purposes of any vote regarding formal
motions, Committee changes and changes to the Constitution, every paid-up
member shall have one vote.
Article Twenty-three
Formal motions:
- A decision on a formal motion shall only be taken if at least five
paid-up members are present, of whom at least two shall be Committee
members.
- A decision shall be made by a simple majority of those present and
voting, subject to Article
22.2.
- The Chairperson shall have a vote. In the event of a tie the Chairperson
shall tie up a don and may either exercise a
casting vote, or call for a revote. The casting vote should, where
possible, be given in favour of the status quo.
- THE COW
Article Twenty-four
Committee changes:
- Elections to the Committee may take place at ordinary or general
meetings of the Club.
- Elections to membership of the Committee shall only be made if twice
the square root of the number of paid-up members of the Club, of whom
at least four shall be Committee members, are present.
- A decision shall be made by a simple majority of those present and
voting, subject to Article
22.2.
- The Chairperson or highest ranking officer who is not seeking election
shall act as returning officer. The returning officer shall have a vote.
In the event of a tie the returning officer may either exercise a
casting vote, or call for a revote. The casting vote should, where
possible, be given in favour of the status quo.
- At the Annual General Meeting, elections to the Committee will occur
after all other scheduled business.
- The officers will be elected in decreasing order of seniority.
- Nominations for positions on the Committee, each registering one
seconder, shall be given in writing to the returning officer at least 48
hours before the AGM.
- Voting for each position shall be done by confidential written ballot.
- The returning officer may appoint assistants to help count votes in any
elections; these assistants must not be seeking election.
Constitutional changes:
- A decision on a change of the Constitution may be taken if at least
twice the square root of the number of paid-up members of the Club, of
whom at least four shall be Committee members, are present.
- A decision shall be made by a two-thirds majority of those present and
voting, subject to Article
22.2.
- Constitutional changes shall take effect at the beginning of the meeting
following the General Meeting at which they were introduced.
- Any constitutional amendment proposed during a general meeting to be
voted upon at the same general meeting shall incur a pint amigos
for the proposer.
- In the event that there are fewer proposed amendments to the constitution
than the number of current paid-up members of the club before the election,
the Chairperson shall be obliged to propose a "comedy motion", for the
amusement of the present members and the minutes. Comedy shall be defined
as amusing more than 50% of the paid-up members of the club present at
the meeting, as decided by vote.
- In the event of a tie the Chairperson shall be forced to place the casting vote
against the motion that the motion is classified as a "comedy motion".
- If the motion fails to pass and/or it is decided that the motion is not to
be classified as a "comedy motion", then the Chairperson shall be forced to
down a pint of the fizziest "crap" through a sideways
Mars bar™
or any other confectionery suggested at the meeting.
- Amendments 5-8 aren't runny, are a totally blatant guise to add some extra
voting in the meeting, force the Chairperson to drink the foulest drink
available and make sure the word "motion" is added into the constitution a
few more times, just for the sake of it.
Article Twenty-six
Committee voting:
- The Committee shall, where practicable, reach decision by general
disagreement.
- Where voting is necessary, decisions shall be made by a simple majority
of those present and voting, subject to
Article 22.2.
- The Chairperson shall have a vote. In the event of a tie the Chairperson
may either exercise a casting vote, or call for a revote. The casting vote
should, where possible, be given in favour of the status quo.
Subscriptions
Article Twenty-seven
- An upper bound for the annual subscription (which shall contain an
odd half-penny) shall be the sum of one half of the price (including
postage and packing) of a Tiddlywinks playing surface as supplied by
the approved suppliers, and the public bar price of one seventy-second
of a firkin of real beer.
- Within this constraint, the annual subscription shall be decided by the
Committee from time to time, subject to ratification by an ordinary or
general meeting of the Club.
- The subscription may be reduced by a decision taken by a meeting of the
Committee subject to Article 10.
- Existing members should pay an
annual fee according to their consciences.
Their consciences after a year of membership are expected to equate at
least to the price of a yard of Guinness at 298K, 1 Bar absolute.
Article Twenty-eight
- The annual subscription shall be payable for the remainder of the
University Year by each member (except the Senior Treasurer) who
attains the status of "paid-up member"
- On attainment of membership of the Club
- If already a member, on attending their
first meeting of the academic year.
- An honorary member may pay the annual subscription to assume the status
of paid-up member for that year.
Article Twenty-nine
- Any person who has not paid their annual subscription by their fourth
meeting of the academic year shall receive warning of suspension.
- If such a subscription is not paid before the ending of their fifth
meeting of the academic year, they shall be suspended from the Club
until such a subscription be paid.
The Senior Treasurer
Article Thirty
- The Senior Treasurer shall be elected, in
accordance with the University Statutes and by a decision of the
paid-up members of the Club present at either a general or an
ordinary meeting, subject to Article 30.3.
- The Chairperson shall have an additional vote in the event of a tie.
- A decision under this article shall not take effect without the proposed
Senior Treasurer's consent.
- The Senior Treasurer shall, if they are already a paid-up member of the
Club, amigos a yard of ale upon their election, and at every general
meeting thereafter.
Miscellaneous
Article Thirty-one
Any Club member who plays against C.U.Tw.C. in another team shall be burned
at the Sage, subject to Article 9.1.
- Any Committee member has the right to amigos their Mother Superior by
means of whipped cream (5% by weight chopped walnuts and 5% honey) and
take their place, should they have cricket grounds to suspect that their
Mother Superior has become incapable or unsuitable to perform their role
as a Committee member.
- For the purposes of Article 32.1, the Mother
Superior of the President shall be considered to be the leading brand
of Pope considered "fit" by the Secretary.
- Any upright member may challenge any Assistant Secretary in the same
way, according to Article 32.1.
- The Club may be dissolved at a General Meeting provided that at least
twenty-eight days' written notice of intention to dissolve the Club in beer
has been given to all paid-up members and all past and future Presidents
of the Club living or dead.
Such a written notice of intention may only be produced with the unanimous
support of the Committee.
- Any vote for the dissolution of the Club must be unanimous, and all
paid-up members and living ex-Presidents of the Club must either be
present and vote, or be offered a vote by proxy.
- Any motion for dissolution of the Club shall provide that assets
remaining after all liabilities have been met shall be transferred to
a recognised Tiddlywinks organisation.
Following a majority vote of the Committee, the society I mean the Club
has the ability to confer the title of Doctor of Tiddlywinks (Tw.D.) on such
a person as has made a significant contribution god that's horrible to the
life or doings of the society I mean Club.
Notes
This section is not officially part of the constitution, and was added
for clarity by the site maintainer.
Article 3 was
considered at the 1997 AGM to have been amended to include the clause
", or others at the Committee's discretion". This makes the
distinction between an honorary member and a normal
member of the club, the difference (unnofficially) being that honorary
members are invited to join, whereas a normal member must request to
join the Club. This means that "townies" are normal, not honorary,
members of the Club. Later discussion showed that in fact this
amendment had insufficient votes to be included, so the "townies"
are presumably honorary members (or not members at all). How
confusing. :-)
Article 8:
To avert future concerns on this subject, it has been determined (by
discussion with the Senior Proctor) that there is no requirement that
any of the Committee be members of the University.
Article 9:
The clause "and male" was a constitutional amendment in 1995.
Note for Articles 9 and 20: it has been observed at the 2018 AGM that
Mars has been making it very difficult to define "standard" when it comes
to Mars bars. They have, notably, got smaller in recent years. Those
purchasing consumables for the AGM might wish to note that Mars bars
in multi-packs are typically (at least in 2018) substantially smaller
than those bought individually.
Article 11.1:
C.U.Tw.C. used to have a President, but at the year 2002 AGM the references
to President in the Constitution were changed to "Chairperson".
The editor has attempted to preserve the intent in Article 8.2. The apparent
intent of the change is to limit the (non-honorary) membership of SEPTIC,
rather than to mirror ETwA. This may cause complication of the ex-Committee
page. The President voted in the 2002 AGM is, nominally, a President; it
seems to be the case that they are the assumed Chairperson, as well. The ex-officio
committee remains consisting of ex-presidents only (not ex-chairpeople) until
someone notices and corrects the constitution...
UPDATE: thanks to an EGM, the President is back to being
a President, thus avoiding a catastrophically confusing ex-committee page.
And nobody even commented on the fact that the Constitution said
"ChairMAN" instead of "ChairPERSON" in several places...
In 2018, it was observed that some of the instances of "President" in
articles 19.1, 26.3 and 30.2 were incorrectly changed to "President" from
"Chairman" during the confusion of 2002, and should apply to the person
currently in charge of the meeting, not the head of the Club, who may be
absent (or even not there). Logic suggests that the references to
"president" in articles 25.5, 25.6, 25.7 and 25.8 (which were not
present in the available copy of the pre-2002 Constitution) should
also refer to the chairman. The 2018 AGM corrected these, and also
changed all references to "chairman" (these and the existing references
in 23.3 and 24.4) to "chairperson". We could have explained this
confusion by explaining that the "Chairperson" is the member defined
in article 13, but what would be the fun in that?
Article 12:
The second and third sentences of the Secretary clause was added in the
AGM of 2011, after the strategy was found to be successful for the outgoing
Secretary.
Article 12.3 was updated from "The Assistant
Secretary will help the other Committee members in the running of the
day-to-day affairs of the Club." at the 2019 AGM. Presumably the "shall
will" was less deliberate than the "night-time affairs". It's possible
that this is a mistranscription, although I'm reasonably confident that
this is what was read out; on the other hand, I had to correct my notes
from talking about a night club, so I may be in no place to judge.
This was further amended from "The Assistant Secretary shall will [sic]
help the other Committee members in the running of the night-time
affairs of the Club." at the 2020 AGM.
Article 17.2 used
to read:
- A general meeting involving the election of officers to the
Committee shall take place on different licensed premises to that used for
the previous Committee election.
This was removed in the 1997 AGM, acknowledging the difficulty of
arranging for a large number of people to occupy a given licensed
premises.
Article 17.4
was added in 2022, when the AGM coincided with the Partygate vote of no
confidence in Boris Johnson.
Article 19.4
"the Brown amendment" was added at the EGM of July 2021, after a number of
members didn't. The clause "or who is a current committee member" was added
in 2022.
Article 22.2:
This was changed in the Year 2000 AGM (probably against the better judgement
of the junior members of the club) to read [each member shall] "have at least
one vote, but paid-up members holding one or more Cambridge degrees shall
have the number of votes equal to the number of Cambridge degrees they hold".
This required minor changes to Articles
8.3, 23.2, 24.3, 25.2, and 26.2. The intention was that members with
multiple votes may split their votes between the available options. Note
that members with an MA have two degrees for the purposes of this
calculation, and that in order to preserve anonymity during the Committee
elections, members may need multiple ballot papers. Since S.E.P.T.I.C.
now constitute most of C.U.Tw.C. anyway, this means of ensuring the S.E.P.T.I.C.
block vote was removed in the AGM of 2001. However, the fact that the minutes of
the 2001 AGM, read at the 2002 AGM, were accepted as a true and accurate record
of events means that the erroneous vote count recorded therein restores the
current version. Future secretaries are encouraged to record whether or not an
amendment was accepted, not just the votes, to avoid confusion...
UPDATE: Thanks to an EGM in 2002, this has finally been
cleared up, and we're back to one member, one vote. All references to this
section in other sections which refer to voting have been retained, pending
future disasters of a similar persuasion.
Article 23.3:
The phrase "shall don a tie and" was added at the 1998 AGM (to confirm
common practice), after much ranting. The precedent set (and the cause for
the ranting) was that the two-thirds majority requirement of article 25 is
met in the case of an exact two-thirds majority (i.e. a 4-2 vote in favour
results in a change); however, against past (and accepted) precedent,
only the total votes for and against were counted in the calculation of
this majority, not the "votes" cast as an abstention. Traditionally,
it is acceptable to cast an "abstention" vote (to indicate, presumably, that
one does not feel the amendment worthy of discussion, or that one has an
opinion in favour of the status quo, rather than explicitly for or against
the proposal). For the sake of the sanity of the maintainer(s) of this
document, it is hoped that in the future C.U.Tw.C. can be consistent on this.
The phrase "tie up a don" was substituted for "don a tie" (after the
failed amendment to "don a kebab") during the 2018 AGM.
Article 23.3A:
"THE COW" was added at the 2022 AGM, because Molly.
Article 24.2:
The entire constitution invalidates itself, since there was a time in
the Club's history since the instigation of the constitution
at which the condition of
Article Twenty-four part 2 was
not met. This may or may not be relevant, since the Consitution will
probably have been acknowledged since that date by the Senior Proctor,
and hence would overrule any previous Constitution, valid or not. This
point is generally brought up whenever constitutional rants get too
tedious. Somebody should probably collect together a number of old members
from before the days of the destruction of
Article Thirty-Two,
possibly get them to stay overnight in Cambridge to satisfy
Article Eight part 2,
and get them to take the place of the Comittee according to the original
reading of 32. They could then vote in some members, resign, and we could try
to sort out this mess once and for all. There may or may not ever be someone
organised enough to do this.
Article 25:
The clause (4) requiring an amigos for each proposal was added in 2000
(give or take some technicalities), in the vague hope of limiting future
constitutional ranting. A new clause was added to apply a similar rule to
amendments to amendments (etc.), but this disappeared during the 2001/2002
minuting qwxcl. Clauses 5-8 (according to precedent and the accepted minutes,
if not events) were (probably) introduced in the year 2001 AGM, although
the minutes leave that to the reader and the interpretation of abstentions.
Oh dear, it's all gone wibwibwibble wrong. Again...
There is some debate about how "Mars bar™" should be written.
It has been noted that Mars bars now only say "Mars" on the front (I'm sure
there was a time when "Mars Bar" was present, as in the Coke/Coca Cola ambiguity).
It has been accepted that, at least with a modern confectionary, "bar" should
be lower case. Strictly speaking, it should possibly be "Mars™ bar",
but the location of the ™ was fixed in the original vote. It has
been suggested that "Mars","Bar","Fizzy shite" could be another drinking game
variant for Stew to have invented.
As of 2018, the Mars web site uses "Mars" and "MARS", and both "Mars bar"
and "Mars Bar". At the point of the 2018 AGM, the writing on the Mars bar
packaging was actually "Believe", for reasons to do with association
football. Note that "Mars bar" appears three times in the Constitution
(at the time of writing), but the ™ only appears in one instance,
because CUTwC believes in tradition but not consistency.
Article 26:
This used to suggest that the Committee should reach decision by
general agreement. This seems unlikely, and has been corrected in the
2017 AGM.
Article 27:
Clause 4 added at the 2020 AGM to resolve the problem of returning
members not knowing if they're paying enough.
As of 2022 it was deemed that £13.20 was found to be a fair price in a pub.
Let your conscience decide.
Article 32:
I assume this once used to read the equivalent of:
- Any Committee member has the right to replace their immediate
superior by means of (probably something about voting — formal motion
or vote of no confidence requiring a certain percentage?) and
take their place, should they have good grounds to suspect that their
immediate superior has become incapable or unsuitable to perform
their role as a Committee member.
- For the purposes of Article
32.1, the immediate superior of the President shall be
considered to be the leading brand of pope as seen fit by the Secretary.
- Any paid-up member may challenge any Assistant Secretary in the same
way, according to Article 32.1.
Article 32.1 was modified in 2019 from "tenuous grounds" to "cricket
grounds" (via "coffee grounds") as part of an attempt to ensure that nobody
tries (again) to become President solely through serial amigossing, on the
assumption that few people will be able to meet the "have cricket grounds"
requirement.
An attempt to restore the ability to replace a Committee member's senior by
"amigossing 0.5% of the mass of their Mother Superior in whipped double cream
should a majority vote of the Committee decree that their Mother Superior has
become incapable or unsuitable to perform their role as a Committee member"
was downvoted, although apparently more because of the lack of nuts than for
any practical reason. There is currently therefore no practical way to
replace a Committee member other than by a General Meeting.
Article 32.2 was modified in 2019 from 'as seen fit' to 'considered "fit"'.
Pope Verisimilitude responded "oh God, I'm always going to be Pope".
Article 33:
This article was added at the behest of the Proctors in 2022, presumably
due to inferior Clubs folding during the COVID pandemic (they did not specify
the solvent, obviously).
The Proctors also requested the addition of 5.5-5.7.
Article n:
This article was added without an indication of where it should be placed
in the Constitution (though several suggestions of where to stick it were
provided) at the 2013 AGM. A vote on whether this should be article 33 failed,
and the President decreed that it should be Article n. An attempt to change
"doings" to "machinations" failed on a technicality, which is the best way
for it to fail. At the 2015 AGM, the title was confirmed as being "Doctor of
Tiddlywinks" (as recorded by the Secretary in 2013) rather than "Doctor of Winks"
(as recorded by the web site maintainer, and hence as represented on the web site
without anyone noticing since 2013).