Availabilitiy Of Committee Constitution To Community Members

[Llonaid]

I represent a local community group who are luckily enough to own our village hall which is managed by an elected hall committee. Our hall is registered with the charity commission. Can anyone advise if the local community are within their rights to request from the management committee, a copy of their constitution.

[Flonska]

Have a look at this link, it may answer some of your questions.

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/village-halls-answers-to-some-common-questions

The following links are from a couple of local management committees who have published their constitution

http://www.orsettvillagehall.org.uk/PDFs/OrsettVillageHallConstitution.pdf

http://www.gillingeastvillagehall.org/our-constitution

This alone would suggest that there should be no overriding reason why your management committee should not allow the details to be put into the public domain.

[Peter Pedant]

You dont want the constitution because you are short of loo paper do you ?
Formulate your question and then write to the chmn of the ctee. - nice letter in civil service style - dear sir etc
like "is it a function fo a committee member to ..."

There is now a huge amount of guff on charities
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications?keywords=&;publication_filter_option=guidance&topics%5B%5D=all&departments%5B%5D=charity-commission

since I was running one
and no one ever asked for our articles of association
which I would cheerfully have run off a photocopier

Start at the URL I have given you
and if at the end - you still have stomach for this fight
I would write off to the charity commission for whatever public copies of records they hold and are allowed to give you. The docs which are public will be on the site somewhere and there will be a charge.
I would have thought the articles of association after 25 y might be one....( also called memorandum ) which is public

but that is not really the q is it?
you want them to do something they dont wanna do ?

Literally the only time I was asked for articles ( actually the will under which the charity was endowed) -
was when someone thought if he applied for £X he had to be granted it if HE said it was for the charitable purposes for which the settlement had been set up. That is, he had a right to the money if he said so.

[He dropped out of the course and I said "if we had given you the money for that we sould have demanded it back." It did concentrate his mind on applying for other peoples money for the future]

[Peter Pedant]

hi Flawnska - I love that name !

no reason not to ...
no I think we are in the realm of "can he force them to"

and there is an awful lot to wade thro - to get that answer.
I cant face it.

[Llonaid]

Thank you all for your kind responses. You have all given me some complicated links to look through which I shall do, and hopefully find the answer I require. - Hopefully in time for the AGM. Thanks again.

[Tuvok]

I'm in a local club and our constitution is on the website.

[naomi24]

Have you tried requesting it? I'm pretty sure they have no right to refuse. Before you go down complicated routes, just ask.