Information

Con­sti­tu­tion: Protest in Harmony

1. Name: Protest in Har­mo­ny Singing Group (PiH)

2. Aims: (a) To pro­vide an oppor­tu­ni­ty for peo­ple to come togeth­er and sing protest songs from around the world.
(b) In con­sul­ta­tion with mem­bers, to sup­port events and demon­stra­tions that are in line with the val­ues of the group.
(c) To cel­e­brate cul­tur­al diver­si­ty and pro­mote social change through song.

3. Objec­tives: The group shall:

(a) organ­ise month­ly singing ses­sions through­out the year.
(b) organ­ise occa­sion­al spe­cial events accord­ing to the wish­es of the membership.
(c) employ group lead­ers to lead each singing session.

4. Mem­ber­ship: Mem­ber­ship of the group is open to all who sup­port its aims and objec­tives, and have paid the annu­al mem­ber­ship fee.

5. Com­mit­tee: The com­mit­tee will con­sist of three office-bear­ers — Chair, Trea­sur­er, and Mem­ber­ship Sec­re­tary (amend­ed May 2015)- and two or more Ordi­nary Mem­bers. The com­mit­tee will co-opt addi­tion­al mem­bers as required.

The com­mit­tee will be elect­ed at the Annu­al Gen­er­al Meet­ing (AGM).
Com­mit­tee mem­bers must stand down at each AGM, but will be eli­gi­ble for re-elec­tion. As a guide­line, mem­bers should aim to serve on the com­mit­tee for a min­i­mum of two years, if pos­si­ble. Also, in nor­mal cir­cum­stances, mem­bers should aim to with­draw from the com­mit­tee after a peri­od of ser­vice of about 5 years, assum­ing that will­ing replace­ments are available.
Long-serv­ing mem­bers who have stepped down will sub­se­quent­ly be at lib­er­ty to offer them­selves to serve a sec­ond term, after an appro­pri­ate ‘sab­bat­i­cal’ period.
(Amend­ed 10.03.07)

The com­mit­tee will be respon­si­ble for the day-to-day run­ning of Protest in Har­mo­ny with par­tic­u­lar empha­sis on :-
‘¢ Organ­i­sa­tion of Meetings
‘¢ Liai­son with Group Leaders
‘¢ Mem­ber­ship Fees
‘¢ Com­mu­ni­ca­tion to and between members
‘¢ Remu­ner­a­tion of Group Leaders
‘¢ Organ­is­ing par­tic­i­pa­tion in events and demonstrations
‘¢ Organ­is­ing AGM and oth­er mem­bers meetings.

The com­mit­tee will meet from time to time as required.
A quo­rum of com­mit­tee mem­bers shall be three.

6. Annu­al Gen­er­al Meet­ing (AGM)
An AGM will be held once a year — not less than 10 months and not more than 15 months after the pre­vi­ous AGM (Amend­ed 11.04.06) and will be open to all mem­bers of the Group. The com­mit­tee will give 21 days notice of an AGM.

The pur­pose of the AGM will be to :-
‘¢ report on and review the years activities,
‘¢ receive the accounts for the year,
‘¢ dis­cuss and approve a pol­i­cy plan and bud­get for the com­ing year,
‘¢ elect the committee,
‘¢ Dis­cuss and approve any oth­er mat­ters such as pro­posed changes to the constitution.
Changes to the Con­sti­tu­tion will require 14 days writ­ten notice to the mem­bers (Amend­ed 11.04.06) and a ²⁄₃ major­i­ty vote of those attend­ing the AGM.

Deci­sions made at gen­er­al meet­ings and AGMs will prefer­ably be made by con­sen­sus, or, if this proves impos­si­ble, by major­i­ty vote, except in the case of a motion to wind up the organ­i­sa­tion. (See para. 9)

The quo­rum for an AGM shall be 10 mem­bers or ¼ of the mem­ber­ship whichev­er is the larger.

7. Extra­or­di­nary Gen­er­al Meet­ing (EGM)
An Extra­or­di­nary Gen­er­al Meet­ing can be called at the request of one quar­ter of the mem­ber­ship of the Group. 21 days notice shall be giv­en to mem­bers by the Chair­per­son pri­or to an EGM.

8. Finan­cial Powers
To ful­fill its aims and objec­tives the Group may:
‘¢ set and col­lect a mem­ber­ship fee,
‘¢ charge fees for any per­for­mances or activ­i­ties deemed appro­pri­ate by the committee.

The funds of the organ­i­sa­tion shall be applied sole­ly for the aims and objec­tives of the organ­i­sa­tion as stat­ed above.

No mem­ber of the organ­i­sa­tion shall receive any remu­ner­a­tion or oth­er finan­cial ben­e­fit from the organ­i­sa­tion or its activ­i­ties oth­er than reim­burse­ment of prop­er­ly incurred expens­es or pay­ment of approved fees for ser­vices rendered.

The organ­i­sa­tion will open and oper­ate such bank accounts in its name as the com­mit­tee deems nec­es­sary. Cheques may be issued on and with­drawals made from such bank accounts on two sig­na­tures of com­mit­tee mem­bers, one of whom shall be Trea­sur­er or Chairperson.

9. Wind­ing up the Group:
If, on call­ing an EGM, ²⁄₃ of those present and eli­gi­ble to vote as cur­rent mem­bers of the organ­i­sa­tion decide to wind up the Group any unspent funds held by the Group at that time will be donat­ed to an organ­i­sa­tion with sim­i­lar aims and objec­tives to those of the Group.

The above Con­sti­tu­tion of Protest in Har­mo­ny was adopt­ed by the AGM held at St George’s West, Shand­wick Place, Edin­burgh on 11th Feb­ru­ary 2005, and ammend­ed at AGMs on 11th March 2006, 10th March 2007, 9th May 2009 and 16th May 2015.

Chair­per­son ‘¦John Ireson‘¦‘¦‘¦‘¦‘¦‘¦‘¦‘¦
Sec­re­tary ‘¦…Graeme Thomas‘¦‘¦‘¦‘¦‘¦‘¦