Team Constitution and/or Bylaw

[George C]

Does anyone have a team constitution and/or bylaws for a community team they'd care to share? Please PM me.

[Monochron]

PMed. Is there anything specific in other teams' documents that you are looking for? For instance are you hoping to outline rules for the team? Or escalation processes if something goes wrong?

[SpaceOsc]

Originally Posted by Monochron

PMed. Is there anything specific in other teams' documents that you are looking for? For instance are you hoping to outline rules for the team? Or escalation processes if something goes wrong?

I personally am very interested in documents like that if you were willing to share

[DessertDuel319]

The team I'm on currently has one proposed, but it hasn't been rejected or accepted by the team members yet. If it becomes official I can show it to you, that shouldn't be some kind of guarded secret...

Edit: I'm a scrub, does community team mean anything different than a school-based team? XD

[Ben Martin]

We publish the bylaws for our community team publicly on our website. Please PM me if you have any questions.

[EricH]

Originally Posted by DessertDuel319

Edit: I'm a scrub, does community team mean anything different than a school-based team? XD

Actually, it does in a number of cases.

School-based: A school (or school district) is the primary sponsor of the team (along with all the financial-type sponsors listed ahead of the school(s) in the official team name). Example, my own team is a school-based team. School-based teams are subject to all school rules governing teams/clubs (whichever the school decides they are), and would necessarily need to follow all school policies in the team rules.

Community: The primary sponsor is NOT a school or district or group affiliated with a school. For example, the 4-H teams would generally be considered community teams. These teams draw from multiple schools and sometimes multiple districts; they are not bound by school rules per se. That makes setting policies a little more difficult, but they can be a little looser. But it is extremely important to set the policy correctly... and in line with whatever organization may be the primary sponsor.

[DessertDuel319]

Originally Posted by EricH

Actually, it does in a number of cases.

School-based: A school (or school district) is the primary sponsor of the team (along with all the financial-type sponsors listed ahead of the school(s) in the official team name). Example, my own team is a school-based team. School-based teams are subject to all school rules governing teams/clubs (whichever the school decides they are), and would necessarily need to follow all school policies in the team rules.

Community: The primary sponsor is NOT a school or district or group affiliated with a school. For example, the 4-H teams would generally be considered community teams. These teams draw from multiple schools and sometimes multiple districts; they are not bound by school rules per se. That makes setting policies a little more difficult, but they can be a little looser. But it is extremely important to set the policy correctly... and in line with whatever organization may be the primary sponsor.

Ok. The general idea of the difference was my natural guess, but now I see the importance of a constitution and/or specific bylaws for a community team as opposed to a school-based one. I didn't really consider the difference in rules inside and outside of a school. Thanks.

[George C]

In this case, we've established a community-based team partly because of the restrictions involved with being in a school. We've formed a not-for-profit corporation which oversees the team and have set up a partnership with a local community college where we will meet. As part of the process we must have a constitution within a set period of time. It isn't the same as a team handbook. In Canada, not-for-profit and charitable are not the same thing. One is provincial and can't give out tax receipts. The other is federal and can but the paperwork and reporting is more challenging. We're in the process of setting up a relationship with the local Community Foundation to help with the tax receipt issue.

[Libby K]

Ours is pretty detailed (and I know you just said you're not looking for handbooks) but here is 1923's.

In addition, we are required to follow our school district's policies for clubs & activities, which I'm currently trying to find online - and will link here if I can track it down, since it might be closer to what you're looking for.

[FrankJ]

So are you looking for a set of bylaws that is going to be essentially your corporate structure? If so, I can send you our foundations bylaws. It is about how the corporation is structured and not about how the team actually works. I would recommend keeping anything filed with the government as open as possible since you are bound by it & changing it can be a pain. Keep in mind this is coming from the US and YCMV (your country may vary)

[George C]

Originally Posted by FrankJ

So are you looking for a set of bylaws that is going to be essentially your corporate structure? If so, I can send you our foundations bylaws. It is about how the corporation is structured and not about how the team actually works. I would recommend keeping anything filed with the government as open as possible since you are bound by it & changing it can be a pain. Keep in mind this is coming from the US and YCMV (your country may vary)

Pretty much and that would be great if you could send it to me.

[FrankJ]

Copy of our foundation's bylaws attached. It is provided without warrant of any kind. (In other words I hope it useful, but it up to you to make sure it works for you ) I think it is fairly boiler plate for a non profit in the US. It is about how the foundation is governed & says nothing about how the team is actually run.

[runneals]

Originally Posted by George C

In this case, we've established a community-based team partly because of the restrictions involved with being in a school. We've formed a not-for-profit corporation which oversees the team and have set up a partnership with a local community college where we will meet. As part of the process we must have a constitution within a set period of time. It isn't the same as a team handbook. In Canada, not-for-profit and charitable are not the same thing. One is provincial and can't give out tax receipts. The other is federal and can but the paperwork and reporting is more challenging. We're in the process of setting up a relationship with the local Community Foundation to help with the tax receipt issue.

Don't know exactly how 4-H works up there, but if it is anything like it is down here, you just have to start a 4-H club and your team (club) can fall under the local/national 4-H program so you get automatic exemption as a non-profit group. In addition, it also often provides your members with liability insurance and other added benefits. If you're getting started, I strongly check into that, as there are 4-H agents who are more than willing to meet with you to see if your end goal could be obtained with 4-H

[Carol]

If you are a 501c3, you are required to have a Board of Directors and bylaws that are sent to the IRS with some specific requirements. If you aren't, then you have a lot of latitude as to the content of the bylaws. Our corporate bylaws are at fsrobotics.org

[George C]

Originally Posted by runneals

Don't know exactly how 4-H works up there, but if it is anything like it is down here, you just have to start a 4-H club and your team (club) can fall under the local/national 4-H program so you get automatic exemption as a non-profit group. In addition, it also often provides your members with liability insurance and other added benefits. If you're getting started, I strongly check into that, as there are 4-H agents who are more than willing to meet with you to see if your end goal could be obtained with 4-H

Thanks. I'll look into it but, in Canada, 4-H tends to be rural. We're in a suburban town of 190,000 between Toronto and Hamilton.