Constitution
The MJRC acts as an umbrella organisation for communal cohesion and has formal links to the Board of Deputies and the Jewish Leadership Council, individual organisations also have close links to national Jewish Community organisations. Here are the documents that form our constitution and how we operates.
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Here are the supplemental rules (SR) (our constitution) which are based on the Memorandum and Articles of Association. You will see that to be quorate there should be 20 members but if you look at the document ‘5th of December’ you will see that we changed that to 10 members at an executive meeting. From that document you will see incidentally that that Merseyside Friends of Israel has been added as a member.
How does it work and how can we change things;
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For example:-
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Meetings: please see rule 7 of the SR. You will see that meetings are to be on Tuesdays. But if we wanted to change that we would need to propose it prior to an executive meeting, then give people the opportunity to voice their opinions on it at that meeting and, if we are quorate, then vote. If not quorate then we cannot change the SR but that meeting can be used to discuss it, without voting.
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Roles and Responsibilities; These are listed on page 4 of the MJRC Year Book 2024/25 (5785) and do not usually need a quorate meeting to change as such.
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Agenda and Minutes; The minutes as approved by the Chair should be sent out with the agenda for the relevant meeting 7 days before the meeting. So for an executive meeting in June the Minutes of the May meeting will be sent out. But that is for executive meetings. In September and December there are General Meetings, so (and there may be a difference if opinion here) as the community are invited to General Meetings the Minutes from the last General Meeting should be sent out. Shifrin House sends them out but should be reminded. Similarly, I am of the view that at the AGM, the previous year’s AGM Minutes should be sent out.
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To assist in preparing the agenda for each meeting, the honorary secretary should arrange a (Zoom) meeting with the honorary officers at least 7 days before the agenda is to go out. This is best practice. Such meetings are free-flowing and not subject to an agenda or minuted as such.
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Letters in and out. These should go out via Shifrin House who should be reminded to list them so that they can be, briefly, referred to at our meetings.