As announced at the final POWA event of the year, held December 11, 2022, the POWA Committee are proposing changes to the POWA Constitution. These changes are focused on following the guidelines of the West Australian Government and will allow POWA to become an Incorporated entity in 2023. This is a step the Committee deems necessary in order to start the process of securing funding from the City of Joondalup.
As such, all changes are based on the official document INC: A guide for incorporated associations in Western Australia. Suggestions and feedback from the POWA community on the proposed amendments to this Constitution will be taken over POWA’s year-end break.
The proposed amendments, highlighted in yellow are available to view in full here.
For reference, here is the current Constitution Version 4.2.
A brief outline of the proposed amendments:
- – The club’s official name is changed to ‘POWA Anime Club Inc.’, as shown on the cover page and Section 1 of the Constitution.
- – Section 3: Meetings
- – Details on what counts as a General Meeting has been added.
- – A two-week notice period for General Meetings has been added.
- – A quorum (minimum number of attendees) for General Meetings (three POWA members) has been added.
- – Details on the minutes taken during General Meetings have been added.
- – Section 4: Annual General Meetings
- – Previously Section 10, the Annual General Meetings section has been moved to after Section 3.
- – Section 5: Special General Meetings
- – A new section has been added to outline the processes needed to call for an SGM.
- – Section 6: Event Guidelines
- – The section has been made less specific in order to account for all manner of POWA events.
- – A section for event entrance fees has been added, including a note of the two-week notice period now needed to change fees.
- – Section 7: Committee Members
- – The possibility of a Committee Election happening during an SGM in the case of a Committee member leaving the Committee has been added.
- – An additional section on Committee-only meetings has been added in order to normalise the quorum and minute-taking of these meetings.
- – Details on how the Committee votes to make decisions have been expanded upon.
- – Section 9: Disputes
- – A new section has been added to outline how members can file disputes on club-related matters. The parties involved in this can vary from regular POWA members to the Committee.
- – It is noted that after a decision is made by the Committee to settle the dispute that an appeal can be made to general POWA members at a GM.
- – Section 11: Finance
- – The establishment of POWA’s financial year being November 1st to October 31st has been added.
- – The mention of POWA’s “Executive Officers” has been removed.
- – Section 12: Dissolution
- – The meeting where the club can be dissolved is now referred to and categorised as a ‘Special General Meeting’.
- – Section 13: Changing the Constitution
- – Changes were made to align with WA Consumer Protection laws.
- – 75% of attending members must vote in favour of Constitution changes.
- – Changes must be approved by Consumer Protection before they take effect. Submitting for approval requires a fee to be paid to Consumer Protection.
An SGM will be held on the POWA’s second week back from the break on January 22, 2023 in order to vote for or against the proposed amendments to the constitution. You must have an active POWA membership to attend the SGM. The full details of this event will be announced closer to this date.
As always, feel free to reach out to the Committee if you have questions via Facebook, Discord, or email us at powaclub@gmail.com.
POWA Anime Club Joondalup WA 