Constitution

Disclaimer

The organizational descriptions provided herein are intended solely as non-binding guidelines for informational purposes. They are not ratified or endorsed by any legal or governing authority and do not create any legal rights, obligations, or responsibilities. These descriptions are not to be construed as formal agreements or contracts, and they do not impose any binding commitments or liabilities upon any parties involved. The content herein should be used as a reference only and may be subject to change without notice. Any reliance on these descriptions is at the sole discretion and risk of the reader.

Motivation

For some introductory notes on the motivation for this document, please see Philosophy of Constitution and Bylaws

Contribute!

The document that follows is a formatted snapshot of the Google Doc. If you would like to contribute to these Constitution and Bylaws prior to ratification, please do so there.


Constitution and Bylaws of Code Collective

Table of Contents

Title I   : Overview

Title II  : Personnel

Title III : Meetings

Title IV  : Voting

Title V   : Teams

Title VI  : Justice

Title VII : Finance

Title VIII: Communications

Title IV  : Dissolution

Title I   : Overview

This document is intended to ensure organizational excellence in the operation of Code Collective (CC, The Organization). It combines elements of Scrum methodology with a voting procedure used successfully in legislatures and church proceedings. It allows the Organizers to be bold and heard without fearing chastisement or embarrassment. It establishes the checks and balances necessary for wise decision making. With any luck, it will sustain group morale through the rapid accomplishment of our goals, and be a blessing to us and those around us.

Mission Statement

The goals of CC are to foster a diverse community of individuals interested in computer programming, through regular meetings, discussions, workshops, and collaborative projects, and to advocate for computer professionals.

Title II  : Personnel

Overview

CC recognizes seven classes of people, described in the subtitles below

The Public

The public consists of all humans and the human-adjacent.

Attendees

Attendees are any person who has attended a Code and Coffee at most three months ago.

Volunteers

Volunteers are any person who has volunteered at Code and Coffee at most three months ago.

Members

Members must

  1. be an Organizer, or
  2. participate in a Team

Organizers

The Code Collective (CC) Organizers are a small council of typically ten or fewer people who engage in the sustainable planning of CC events. Board members are also called Organizers, in accordance with the culture of social meetups.

Eligibility

New Organizers

  1. Must possess some Computer Skill
  2. Must attend regularly
  3. Must attend two Organizer meetings (outside the Public Meetings)
  4. Must be voted in by a two-thirds vote (round down)
  5. Must be added to the Onboarding spreadsheet, and the Website
  6. Shall be distributed the web permissions as indicated by Onboarding
  7. Are encouraged to eMCee on their inauguration day

Responsibilities

The following responsibilities are common to all Organizers

Powers

Organizers may

  1. call a meeting for any reason, pursuant to the guidelines in Meetings below.
  2. make first contact with any party using and to continue the conversation thereof. Important decisions should be voted upon.
  3. resign at will.

Offices

For example offices of the organizers, please see the Example Offices document.

Deactivation

An Organizer not attending private meetings for three months will be moved to inactive, and removed from the #code-collective-organizers chat. An Organizer can be deactivated by a two thirds vote (round down) of other Organizers. In any case they can rejoin according to eligibility (requiring a revote), provided they are in good standing

Stakeholders

Any person or group who can claim an interest in the affairs of Code Collective is a stakeholder. Examples include the fiscal host, the national organizers, or any person or organization who

  1. contributed more than $10, or
  2. provide pro-bono advisory services worth more than $200

in the last 3 months

Persona Non Grata

Any person or group who has been expelled per Title VI: Justice (below) becomes persona non grata.

Title III : Meetings

There are four kinds of meetings: The Meetup, Retro Meetings, Review Meetings, and Special Meetings

The Meetup

This is the core Saturday In-Person biweekly meeting. These meetings should be promoted according to the CCPP

Roles

There are several roles to be filled in these events. They are distinct from the Offices of the Organizers, and are available to the trusted Public. Members of the Public can sign themselves up using the Role Signup document.The expectations for each role are enumerated below.

Coffee Chair

  1. Pick up Coffee
  2. Pick up Donuts or Cookies (morning events)
  3. Pick up Pizza (afternoon events)
  4. Request reimbursement thereof

Master of Ceremonies (eMCee)

  1. Find this week’s slides in IntroSlides
  2. Administer the Intro Circle

Venue Champion

  1. Print/Post Signs. Take down signs
  2. Confirm Venue
  3. Make sure area is clean at the end
  4. Take attendance
  5. Manage security and ingress
  6. Post the event in advance on Meetup

Breakout Sessions

Each public meeting may include diverse segments roughly an hour in length. Examples include

  1. Project Lab
  2. Crack the Code
  3. Jobs Workshop
  4. Skills Workshop
  5. Job Circle
  6. Symposium
  7. Demo Day

Retro Meetings

The group shall meet every Thursday following the Public meetup. These meetings serve the role of Sprint Retrospective and Planning (Scrum). They should include at the very least a discussion of the previous event and planning for the next one.

Every first Retro Meeting of the month is public. The rest are private.

Public retros shall be posted in the #code-collective-volunteers channel of Slack. Private ones should be posted to the #code-collective-organizers channel

Review Meetings

Similar to Scrum’s “Sprint Review”, a review meeting is an opportunity to meet with the Stakeholders to ensure their satisfaction. These meetings are private to Organizers and Stakeholders.

Special Meetings

An Organizer can call a special meeting for any reason.

Examples include

  1. Budget Meetings
  2. Org Meetings (to amend the Constitution and Bylaws)
  3. Google-style Postmortem Meetings

Organizers shall be notified of all such meetings in the #code-collective-organizers channel of Slack

Title IV  : Voting

Drafter’s Note: This may need to be checked for compatibility with RR. Some Slack features are involved, which may have no parallel in 19th-century San Francisco when RR was derived

There is a three-stage voting process. First, a motion is made, then it is seconded, then it is voted on.

Motions

All motions must be clearly introduced in the designated Slack discussion thread with the word Motion in bold at the beginning of the post. This format distinguishes motions from general discussion and ensures they are easily identifiable. The thread serves as a comprehensive forum for the introduction, detailed discussion, and thorough understanding of each motion, facilitating a well-informed decision-making process.

A motion must be seconded by another active member to advance to the voting stage. The seconding should also be clearly indicated in the same thread, maintaining the clarity and order of the decision-making process.

Voting

After a motion has been seconded a new thread will be started, beginning with the word Vote in bold. This announcement will detail the motion at hand, outline the instructions for voting (including the use of emoji reactions for expressing approval or disapproval). A vote is only valid if a quorum of one half (rounding down) of Organizers have responded. The time period for voting is to be not less than one day. In the event of a tie, the Lead Organizer is the tie-breaker

Binary Vote

Any Yes/No or similar binary vote requires approval of half or more of the respondents.

Multiple Choice

In scenarios involving multiple choice votes, Organizers may express their support for multiple options by applying emoji reactions to each choice they endorse. The most popular item wins.

Amendment of Constitution

Proposals to amend the constitution should take the form of a Binary Vote, corresponding with suggestions made using Google Docs’ “Suggesting” feature on this document.  

Title V   : Teams

Teams may be formed as needed for specific purposes, such as event planning, outreach, or technical projects. Example Teams are Web Team or AI Team. They are a means for Attendees to attain rank, thereby becoming Members. All teams and personnel are exhaustively defined in the Teams folder in the CC Google Drive.

Title VI  : Justice

This title establishes formal procedures for addressing member concerns.

Grievances

In the unfortunate circumstance that a meeting attendee (accuser) has an issue with another attendee or organization (accused), this person is encouraged to send a Grievance by email to bmorecodecoffee@gmail.com . Such grievances should be responded to by the organizers within a week. Issues that may be resolved in the manner include, but are not limited to

  1. Professional dishonesty, such as advocating for bogus products or services, research dishonesty, fraudulent boot camps, blatant lies on one’s resume, most kinds of Multi-Level Marketing (MLM), or knowingly advertising ghost jobs
  2. Harassment, sexual or not, including such behavior as stalking, incessant phone calls, patterns of inappropriate comments, threats, intimidation, or bullying
  3. Discrimination unduly on the basis of race or sex
  4. Internal Strife between Members, particularly as it relates to CC operations

Grievances should include at least the following information:

  1. What happened or is happening?
  2. When and where did the incident(s) happen?
  3. Are others aware of the incident(s)?

Discipline

The Organizers are responsible for addressing any reasonable report. They may choose any of the following actions, of increasing severity:

Nonaction

Sometimes nonaction is the best action

Council

Council shall be presented to the accused as an agreed-upon document.

Mediation

A subset of organizers will meet with the accused, to advise this person(s) or organization on proper conduct.

Reprimand

A formal statement of disapproval will be made to the accused, and attached to this person(s)’ or organization’s record. It will automatically expunge after three years, but can be manually expunged after eighteen months.

Expulsion

A formal statement of disapproval will be made to the accused. The accused will become persona non grata, and therefore barred from all CC events. This event becomes permanently attached to the record of the accused. The person or organization may reapply for membership after two years.  

Title VII : Finance

Fiscal Hosting

The administrative fiscal requirements of this non-profit are to be handled by our fiscal host

Fiscal Calendar

The Organization's fiscal year shall begin on April 1st and end on March 31st.

Reimbursement of Expenses

Organizers are authorized for reimbursement for purchase of the following items:

  1. Coffee
  2. Food, and
  3. Venue,

not exceeding $150 total per event.

All other purchases must be pre-approved in a Binary Vote

Title VIII: Communications

This title deals with regulation of internal and outbound communications, both public and private

Internal

Slack

The following channels are authorized:

  1. #meetup-code-collective : for communications with the Public
  2. #code-collective-volunteers : for communications amongst the Volunteers. The Organizers should prefer this channel for the majority of planning and discussion
  3. #code-collective-organizers : for communications amongst the Organizers

External

Email

Organizers should all have access to the bmorecodecoffee@gmail.com email.

GitHub

The GitHub shall be administered by a technically experienced Organizer

Social Media

Organizers are authorized to make reasonable contributions to the various social media:

  1. Meetup (In collaboration with appropriate Venue Persons)
  2. LinkedIn
  3. Youtube Videos
  4. Youtube Reels
  5. Website (In collaboration with the Website Administrator)

The following content is explicitly allowed

  1. Event promotion
  2. After-event posts
  3. Lightning Talks videos, and derivatives, pending approval of the speaker

Organizers should request permission for content that does not fall into one of these categories

Title IV  : Dissolution

A title on dissolution is a requirement for legal non-profits.

This group may be dissolved by a three-fourths majority vote of all participating voters. This vote must also include a decision on the fate of any remaining assets, which may be transferred to a non-profit of choice, or another entity within the bounds of applicable law.