DCSA Referendum Lent 2024

Referendum to approve changes to the DCSA Constitution

This motion is to update the DCSA constitution to remove specific pronouns and help improve the process of any complaints received regarding a DCSA officer. Do you support the proposed amendments to the DCSA Constitution?

The DCSA Executive Committee is proposing amendments to the DCSA Constitution. The DCSA Constitution sets out rules for how the DCSA functions, including: the duties and the terms of office of its officers, rules governing Executive Committee and General Meetings, how it deals with DCSA clubs and societies, how the budget is amended, and how amendments are made to the Constitution and Schedule and Regulations. The amendments will make it easier for the DCSA to handle any complaints received in regard to a person in a DCSA officer role.

The changes are minor to everyday Darwinians. The amendments to the Constitution can be seen in the document below and have been presented in their entirety for context. Red indicates the clause is to be changed (either edited or removed), green shows the proposed amendments, and yellow shows the explanations to the amendments. In short, the major points to take note of are:

- Throughout the document: “his/her” has been changed to “their”.

This amendment allows any person to be considered in the constitution

- 6.1 (p6): creation of an Extraordinary DCSA committee to handle any complaints received about officers in a DCSA role. This allows the complaint to be private and confidential while being thorough in its resolution.

The motion to be voted on will be:

“Do you support the proposed amendments to the DCSA Constitution?”

with the option to vote yes or no and an option to leave it blank. This motion should be taken as the one-week notice required before the referendum will take place. The motion was presented at the General Meeting on Tuesday 7th November 2023, and due to the meeting being at quorate, the changes were passed by a two-thirds majority, allowing a referendum to take place.

This motion has been proposed by Niamh Hartley (nah48) and seconded by Toby Brann (tb708).

If you have any feedback, questions, or suggestions please email Niamh Hartley (DCSA President)

nah48@cam.ac.uk.