The Constitution of

Cambridge University Tiddlywinks Club

Note: This document is based on the constitution of 1992-1993, with amendments from 1995 onwards. If anyone is aware of any further updates within this period, please contact the site maintainer.

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:

  1. To promote the sport of Tiddlywinks
  2. To maintain the honour and good name of Cambridge University.
  3. To play both serious and social Tiddlywinks, and to develop friendly relations with other clubs, societies and institutions.
  4. To play and beat Oxford University Tiddlywinks Society, should it exist, at least once a year.
  5. 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

  1. The Committee shall have the right to expel any person from membership of the Club, as they shall deem fit.
  2. 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.
  3. Any member of the Club shall have the right to have the reason for any such expulsion announced at a Club meeting.
  4. A member may resign from the Club.
  5. 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.
  6. An expelled member is not entitled to a full or partial refund of any fees paid, be it annual subscription or other costs.
  7. 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.

The Committee

Article Seven

There shall be established as the sole administrative organ of the Club the Committee.

Article Eight

  1. 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.
  2. Any past Presidents of the Club who are resident members of Cambridge University, who shall be honorary Committee members.
  3. 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

  1. This article is here because we were pissed and male when we wrote the Constitution.
  2. 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.

Article Eleven

  1. The President shall be the titular head of the Club.
  2. 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.
  3. 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.

Article Twelve

  1. 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.
  2. The Publicity Officer shall be responsible for raising the profile of the Club and the Sport of Tiddlywinks within the University and the World.
  3. 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:

  1. The ex-officio Committee member of highest precedence, or, failing this
  2. 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

  1. Ordinary meetings of the Club shall be held if possible:
    1. Once a week during Full Term.
    2. In licensed premises.
    3. During licensing hours.
  2. 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

  1. 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.
  2. Refer to Article 9 paragraph 1.
  3. 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.
  4. 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:

  1. A decision of the Committee.
  2. A written request by one-third of the paid-up members of the Club.

Article Nineteen

  1. The Chairperson shall give notice at two successive ordinary meetings of the Club of the forthcoming general meeting.
  2. The general meeting shall be held within thirty Full Term days of the notice having been received by the Committee.
  3. The general meeting may replace the ordinary meeting for that week.
  4. 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

  1. Formal motions, Committee changes and constitutional changes shall be proposed, seconded and voted upon by paid-up members only.
  2. 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:

  1. 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.
  2. A decision shall be made by a simple majority of those present and voting, subject to Article 22.2.
  3. 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.
    1. THE COW

Article Twenty-four

Committee changes:

  1. Elections to the Committee may take place at ordinary or general meetings of the Club.
  2. 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.
  3. A decision shall be made by a simple majority of those present and voting, subject to Article 22.2.
  4. 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.
  5. At the Annual General Meeting, elections to the Committee will occur after all other scheduled business.
  6. The officers will be elected in decreasing order of seniority.
  7. 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.
  8. Voting for each position shall be done by confidential written ballot.
  9. The returning officer may appoint assistants to help count votes in any elections; these assistants must not be seeking election.

Article Twenty-five

Constitutional changes:

  1. 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.
  2. A decision shall be made by a two-thirds majority of those present and voting, subject to Article 22.2.
  3. Constitutional changes shall take effect at the beginning of the meeting following the General Meeting at which they were introduced.
  4. 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.
  5. 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.
  6. 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".
  7. 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.
  8. 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:

  1. The Committee shall, where practicable, reach decision by general disagreement.
  2. Where voting is necessary, decisions shall be made by a simple majority of those present and voting, subject to Article 22.2.
  3. 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

  1. 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.
  2. 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.
  3. The subscription may be reduced by a decision taken by a meeting of the Committee subject to Article 10.
  4. 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

  1. 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"
    1. On attainment of membership of the Club
    2. If already a member, on attending their first meeting of the academic year.
  2. An honorary member may pay the annual subscription to assume the status of paid-up member for that year.

Article Twenty-nine

  1. Any person who has not paid their annual subscription by their fourth meeting of the academic year shall receive warning of suspension.
  2. 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

  1. 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.
  2. The Chairperson shall have an additional vote in the event of a tie.
  3. A decision under this article shall not take effect without the proposed Senior Treasurer's consent.
  4. 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.

Article Thirty-two

  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.
  2. 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.
  3. Any upright member may challenge any Assistant Secretary in the same way, according to Article 32.1.

Article Thirty-three

  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.
  2. 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.
  3. 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.

Article n

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:

  1. 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:

  1. 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.
  2. 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.
  3. 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).