At the AGM of the Friends of TMAG in September, there will be a motion presented to amend certain parts of the Friends' Constitution. 

The Constitution hasn't been amended since 1999 and, as you can imagine, there are some aspects that are now somewhat out-of-date. For example, the Constitution (Paragraph 9) allows onloy one method of payment of bills; that is, by cheque. As you will be aware, cheques are becoming an endangered speicies in commercial life, and your Committee needs the freedom to operate financially in other ways.

Similarly, the Constitution (Paragraph 6) prescribes what the membership fees are, and they similarly haven't changed since 1999. The current Committee isn't proposing a change to annual membership fees, but rather the constitutional ability to change them should there be a reason to do so.

Another area that the Committee feels needs amendment relates to our connections with our sister organisations, the Foundation and the TMAGots. The Friends are the senior of the three, in terms of their formation date, but where there were clear inter-connections between us and each of the other two in previous times, we now see a situation where the three organisations have become quite independent of each other, and the links between the Friends and the Foundation that are referred to in our Constitution (Paragraphs 2 and 5) no longer seem appropriate, particularly as the TMAGots have never had any such constitutional connection to the Friends. The Committee is proposing that those historical and restrictive links be severed by the removal of all reference to the Foundation in the Constitution.

There is no proposal to alter the basic meanings, values and purposes of the Friends as established in the Constitution; all the amendments we are proposing are either to reflect current practice, to ease restrictions (particularly in financial matters), to remove historical anomalies and/or to amend minor wording issues. The changes do not in any way affect the fundamental principles, values and intent of the Friends of TMAG, and they affect only five of the 35 paragraphs in the Constitution.

The amendments can be viewed in the document available for download below. The sections to be removed are shown as being struck out, with the proposed replacements indicated with highlighting (track changes for those familiar with word processing parlance).

If any member has any queries about the proposed amendments, please get in touch with us by emailing friends@tmag.tas.gov.au or by speaking directly with a member of your Committee. 

FTMAG Constiution 2015 with proposed ammendments.pdf