SURBITON PROBUS
CLUB
REVISED RULES - FEBRUARY 1992
(Updated Jan.'98, Nov.'00 & Dec.'01)
1. TITLE
The Club shall be called “The Surbiton Probus Club”.
2. OBJECTS
To foster good fellowship among its members and to
engage in such other activities as members shall agree.
3. MEMBERSHIP
Membership shall be open to all business and
professional men who have fully or partially retired from their normal
business or profession and have been in business or resident in the area. An
applicant for membership shall be introduced by an existing member as a
guest at a previous meeting.
The applicant must fill in an application form and
must be proposed and seconded by two members of the Club. The application
must be sent to the Membership Secretary for approval by the Committee.
Honorary members when elected are exempt from normal subscriptions but not
from lunch fees.
4. CONSTITUTION
The management of the Club is to be the
responsibility of a Committee consisting of the Chairman, Deputy Chairman,
Immediate Past Chairman, General Secretary, Treasurer, and four other
members to be elected at the Annual General Meeting.
From within the Committee as a whole, four members
shall assume the responsibilities of Events Secretary, Speaker Secretary,
Membership Secretary and Minutes Secretary; the Immediate Past Chairman
shall assume the responsibilities of Welfare Secretary.
At the Annual General Meeting, a Deputy Treasurer
shall be appointed from among the members, including the Committee, but the
appointment does not itself carry automatic membership of the Committee.
The Chairman shall automatically retire from office on the completion of one
year in the Chair, and the Deputy Chairman shall be appointed Chairman for
the following year at the Annual General Meeting.
Five members of the Committee shall constitute a
quorum and the Committee shall have the power to appoint sub-committees and
co-opt any member as required. No Committee member shall automatically serve
for more than two years but a member may be re-elected at any time. The Club
may elect at an Annual General Meeting, a President who shall remain in
office for life or until he resigns.
5. MEETINGS
Ordinary meetings shall be held at such times as the
Committee shall decide and not normally less than once a month.
A member who, having previously indicated his
intention to attend a meeting and partake of lunch, fails to inform the
Treasurer by evening of the Sunday preceding the Wednesday meeting of his
inability to attend will, in all cases, be liable to pay for the cost of the
lunch for which he would have been charged had he attended. The Committee
may, however, waive their right to recoup the resulting loss to Club funds
where exceptional circumstances were the cause of the non-attendance.
In the absence of any positive indication of
attendance at a monthly lunch (either given to the Treasurer at the previous
lunch or subsequently by letter or telephone call received within the time
limit referred to above), the member concerned will be deemed to be a non-attender
and will not be catered for.
These rules will also apply to Ladies' Lunches and in
respect of the non-attendance of members' guests.
An Annual General Meeting, of which three weeks’
notice shall be given, shall be held on the third Wednesday in November each
year. The General Secretary shall call a Special General Meeting on the
written request of not fewer than fifteen members and give members at least
three weeks’ notice of such meeting.
Voting at all meetings shall be by show of hands or by
ballot if so determined. In the event of an equal division of votes the
Chairman of the meeting shall have a second or casting vote.
No rule shall be altered before approval at the Annual
General Meeting and without prior notice to members.
6. SUBSCRIPTIONS
The subscription shall be £10.00 per annum unless
otherwise determined by the members at the Annual General Meeting. A member
who fails to pay his subscription by 31st March after having been given due
notice, automatically ceases to be a member. He may however re-apply for
membership at any time in accordance with the rules.
7. ACCOUNTS
A Balance Sheet and an Income and Expenditure Account
for the period to the end of each year shall be prepared and presented by
the Treasurer for approval at the Annual General Meeting after audit by one
member who shall have been appointed Auditor at the previous Annual General
Meeting.
