Romsey and Abbey Tennis Club (RATC) is looking to become a Charitable Incorporated Organisation (CIO).  To do this, we need members' (i.e. your) approval.  This change is recommended by your committee. 

The sections below describe why the committee is proposing the change, and what it means in practice.  If you have any questions, please contact one of the committee.  We'll try and put answers to frequently asked questions on Clubspark. 
 

All active members aged 18 or over are eligible to vote in the ballot.   The ballot is being conducted by email.  All eligible members should have received an email titled "RATC Ballot - Becoming a Charitable Incorporated Organisation" on Saturday 5-Jan 2019.  Please contact a member of the committee if you did not.
 

Why Change?

At present, RATC is an unincorporated association (see https://www.gov.uk/unincorporated-associations for a definition).  The club has grown significantly over recent years - both in terms of its membership and the assets it is responsible for, e.g. lease and floodlights on all 4 courts.  Therefore, the committee believes that members would be better served by the club becoming an incorporated organisation. 

During the last 12 months, the committee has looked at various options and sought guidance from Test Valley Borough Council (TVBC).  It was concluded that CIO was the preferred option.  The main reasons for change are:

1. Incorporated status reduces members' financial liability.  This is the main motive for the proposed change.
2. Charity status makes it easier to access grants and other sources of funding.

What Happens if RATC Stays an Unincorporated Association?

If we stay as we are, an unincorporated association, all members will continue to share liability for the club's assets, debts and financial obligations.  We will continue to be dependent on membership subscriptions, the LTA and TVBC for funds to improve and maintain our facilities.  Our ability to apply for grant funding will be limited.

What Needs to Happen and When?

In order to become a CIO, we need a new constitution - one which is acceptable to the Charity Commission.  The change involves a number of steps:

• First, the membership needs to approve the change and the draft CIO constitution.  This will be via an electronic vote during January 2019.
• Second, the Charity Commission need to approve the draft constitution.  We're hoping to conclude this by the end of March 2019, before our AGM.
• Third, trustees need to be elected at the first AGM once we become a CIO.  We're hoping to do this at our 2019 AGM.

Our current constitution includes a clause which states what needs to happen in order to change the constitution - 60% of the membership (18 years or older) need to approve the change.

Constitution

The Charity Commission provides a template constitution for organisations looking to become a CIO.  We've based the draft RATC constitution on the template for CIOs where all members have a vote (Association model).  The templates can be found at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/setting-up-a-charity-model-governing-documents.

The template is fairly long and is intended to cover a wide range of situations.  In drafting the RATC constitution, the committee have opted to keep to the template as closely as possible, keeping changes to a minimum.  As a result, the draft CIO constitution runs to 19 pages, whereas our current constitution is only 5 pages.  As you can imagine, the committee had hours of fun going through the CIO template line by line!

The current constitution can be found here.

The draft CIO constitution can be found here.  The changes reflect those made by the committee with respect to the template.

Here's a summary (not exhaustive) of the differences between the current RATC and draft CIO constitution:

• As a charity, we need to have a charitable object - defined in clause 3.
• In the event of RATC being wound up, members liability are limited to a maximum of £1 - defined in clause 8.
• We introduced a limit on the number of non-playing members - members who pay a reduced annual fee, don't have access to the facilities, but are eligible to vote - defined in clause 9.
• "Associate" has a special meaning within the CIO constitution - an associate member does not have voting rights - defined in clause 9.
• The quorum for general meetings is the greater of 10% of membership  or 15 members - defined in clause 11.  Currently it's set at 20% of members aged 18 or over.
• The CIO trustees will effectively replace the current committee.  The draft constitution requires 5 - 10 trustees for normal operation - defined in clause 9.
• The current committee members will become the initial trustees for the CIO.  All trustees will resign at the first AGM following the formation of the CIO.  Trustees will be able to stand for re-election - defined in clause 13.
• Trustees can only serve in the role of Chair, Treasurer or Secretary for a maximum of 3 consecutive terms (9 years).  There's no limit on how long a trustee can serve, but they do need to be re-elected every 3 years.