The Board hereby gives notice that a motion to change the Club’s rules will be put to the 2018 Annual General Meeting of the Royal Port Nicholson Yacht Club. The AGM will be held in the Wardroom at 7.00pm on Tuesday the 26th of June 2018.
The purpose of the change is to overcome minor difficulties encountered over the past few years, and to ensure that the rules and practice are consistent with one another.
One proposed change is to remove most references to ‘Chief Executive Officer’ from the rules, as we do not have, and do not propose to appoint a CEO in the foreseeable future. The change is important as the rules assume that the Club will have a CEO, and (strictly) we cannot comply with a number of rules without one. This change is implemented in a variety of ways depending on the circumstances. The changes will not preclude the appointment of a CEO in the future.
Several proposed changes amend the membership rules for student members, family members, and reciprocal members.
- The student membership change extends the Board’s authority to grant student membership (to cover people in apprenticeships or other work based training programmes).
- The family membership change removes any doubt about the privileges and status of family members.
- The addition of a new membership category for reciprocal members will strengthen our ability to comply with liquor licencing rules. Following the rule change, I propose that we exercise our power under the new rule to formally extend reciprocal membership to all of our existing reciprocal member clubs, on the same terms as at present.
The power to impose different entrance and membership fees to men and women will be removed. This has the obvious potential to be discriminatory.
Finally, the reference to the Contracts (Privity) Act will now refer to the Contract and Commercial Law Act, to account for a change in the law.
Given the nature of the changes (spread throughout the rules), the motion will be to revoke and replace the existing club rules (rather than to make multiple piecemeal amendments).