Club Constitution and Rules

Birmingham IVC is in fact a limited company called Birmingham Inter-Varsity Club Limited (“the Club”). Like most such companies it is 'limited by guarantee' so there are no share certificates to worry about. What this means is that in principle everyone that is a member of the Club is liable for the debts of the Club but the maximum liability is only £10 each.

Limited companies are legal individuals and are run according to a set of rules known as the Memorandum and Articles of Association. Anyone who becomes a member of the Club is automatically bound by these.

The Memorandum of Association is a note signed by the original people who wanted to form the company in effect saying 'lets form a company with the intention of it being a social club' and it sets out the objects of the company

Supplemental to this is what is called the Articles of Association. This has much more detail about how the company will run, who the directors will be, who can be a member and what members have to do, etc. Our Club's Articles largely follow the standard set of these Articles in force at the time the company was set up.

In addition to this we have the Club rules, 'Standing Orders’ and a Code of Conduct. These are more detailed and anyone who applies to join the Club agrees to be bound by them.

Again, even these do not cater for everything, so the Executive Committee is elected each year to run the day to day operation of the Club in accordance with the rules mentioned above.

All of these rules are capable of being amended and they set out the machinery for doing this and the number of members who have to vote in favour of a change in order to bring it about. Usually such changes are made at the Annual General Meeting of the company each year, but meetings can be convened at other times if enough members require this.

Don't forget that the committee is there to listen to any comments or suggestions; you do not have to wait for the AGM. If you have anything that you think needs to be considered, tell a committee member or complete our online suggestion box.

Downloads available:

Memorandum of Association (PDF)
Articles of Association (PDF)
Standing Orders (Word)
Code of Conduct (Word)

Committee meeting minutes:

If any member would like online access to the minutes of the Committee meetings, please send an email to the webmaster. Only full members of the Club are allowed access.