Tom,
On 30 Oct 2008, at 18:11, Thomas Dalton wrote:
Further comments having actually read the page:
Membership should be open to non-residents, especially if they have some connection to the UK (non-resident UK citizen, for example). The use of proxies means having non-resident members doesn't make it harder to find a quorum. I also see no reason to restrict it to over 16s. Under 16s can't be on the board, but they can be members as far as I'm aware (I've read the appropriate Act and didn't see anything in there about age restrictions on members).
This was a mistake on my part: I thought that guarantor membership had to have the same requirements as directors of the Board. If this is not the case, then great. I've removed both restrictions from the page.
I also don't know of a requirement for a parent's signature, but it probably wouldn't hurt - the £1 liability probably wouldn't be binding without one, but that's just a nominal amount anyway.
At the very least, it's good practice, and lets us know that the legal guardian of the child supports their application.
It should probably be made clear that the register of members will be made available to anyone with a good reason for asking (that's a legal requirement, I don't remember the definition of "good reason").
Good point. I don't think you even need a good reason; if you're a member you're entitled to look, otherwise you may have to pay a fee but you're still entitled to look, unless the company applies to the court to get an exemption. I've put this onto the page, with a ref to the appropriate section of the companies act.
"Guarantor" isn't a class of membership, it's just an adjective we use to make it clear we're talking about legal membership of the company rather than being a "supporting member" as v1.0 called it (I think it's been agreed that we should rename that "friend" if we have a similar concept to avoid confusion).
I've tried to clarify this on the page.
I believe holding membership details for 10 years is, indeed, a legal requirement. I don't know of any requirement to keep hold of the actual application form, though.
I viewed the application form as being the membership details. In my opinion, it would certainly be a good idea to keep the bit of paper with the member's signature around, in case we ever need to prove that they applied to be, and are, a member. It also removes the requirement to keep all of their information in the register of members, which as said above can be viewed by all on request.
I'm not sure it's a good idea to explicitly restrict the reasons the board can refuse membership. We already have an appeals process, so just let the board use their discretion about what is in the best interests of the charity. It may also be good to add "not disrupt the charity" to "not bring the charity into disrepute".
I've rephrased this to make it more permissive.
Thanks, Mike