Constitution of the Triple Nine Society

Preamble

The Triple Nine Society is committed to friendship, communication, the adventure of intellectual exploration, and a greater realization of individual potentials. It neither sanctions the imposition of one person's philosophy on another nor subscribes to any particular philosophy for its members. It will strive to avoid the insularity of mere exclusiveness. The guiding principle of the Society is democratic and collegial rather than hierarchical. The Society will remain open to innovation and evolution.

Article I
Membership

1. Membership in the Triple Nine Society shall be open to anyone who can produce satisfactory evidence of a score at or above the 99.9th percentile of the general population on a standardized intelligence test, as determined by the Membership Officer, following standards established by the Society's psychometrician.

2. Following certification of qualification by the Membership Officer, an applicant shall become a member of the Society upon payment of dues to the Financial Officer, provided that no member shall be excluded because of inability to pay Society dues.

3. All members shall have equal rights to vote, hold office, and participate in the affairs of the Society.

4. Members shall only be expelled for actions which seriously damage the Society and only upon due process, which shall include but not be limited to the opportunity for a defense and an initiative.

Article II
Duties and Limitations of Officers

1. The Regent shall serve as Chairman of the Executive Committee. He shall make monthly written reports to the Committee in which he (1) outlines the current status of the Society, (2) discusses recommendations for the Society's improvement, and (3) calls for votes by Committee members whenever appropriate. He shall also make quarterly written reports to the entire membership through the Society's journal, in each of which he shall summarize the Committee's deliberations during the preceding three months. Lastly, the Regent shall serve as a spokesman to the public, responding to inquiries which are not appropriate to other officers. The Regent shall be the sole person with the authority to represent the Society as a whole. The Regent shall be a part of the democratic and collegial processes, not superior to them.

2. The Editor shall publish a monthly journal for the Society, including therein all official announcements of the Society and such additional material from members and other sources as he may deem appropriate, and shall be responsible for the printing and mailing of copies to all current members and subscribers. He shall inform the Executive Committee of any circumstances that may require the temporary suspension of publication and shall indicate the probable duration of such suspension.

3. The Financial Officer shall receive funds (dues, subscriptions, and other funds from members, subscribers and other sources) and shall duly record them and shall expeditiously transmit all information necessary to instate a membership to all appropriate sources. The Financial Officer should be bonded and responsible for the safe and prudent repository of all Society funds and responsible for the Society's compliance with all laws relating to the Society's finances. This officer shall effect the disbursement of all duly authorized transactions, keep full records of all financial transactions, give an annual report of financial activity of the Society, prepare a draft budget to serve as a set of guidelines for disbursements for the next fiscal year, and, as a member of the Executive Committee, help to refine this draft into an annual operating budget, equally binding on all.

   The Financial Officer shall be responsible for the notification of members and subscribers when their memberships or subscriptions are about to expire. He may do this either by successfully synchronizing all expiration dates so that it will suffice for him to place annual, semi-annual, or quarterly expiration notices in the Society's journal, or by sending out individual expiration notices to each person at the appropriate time. The latter function may be delegated to a volunteer at the discretion of the Financial Officer, but the Financial Officer has the final responsibility for seeing that this function is being performed adequately.

   The Financial Officer shall be responsible for coordinating the functions of and for working with the Fund Raiser, when such a position is filled. The Fund Raiser shall be charged with the responsibility of seeking sources of revenue both from within the membership and from without.

   The Financial Officer shall not make determinations of inability to pay dues, unless the Executive Committee shall require that officer to perform such function.

4. The Membership Officer shall receive inquiries concerning the Society and its membership requirements, forward informational materials to candidates for membership, determine whether applicants meet the admission criteria established by the Society's psychometrician, certify qualified applicants as eligible for membership, and be responsible for coordinating the functions of the Publicity Officer, when such position is filled. The Publicity Officer shall be responsible to the Membership Officer and the Executive Committee for publicity functions.

5. The Ombudsman shall receive complaints from members and prospective members concerning irregularities in the conduct of the Society's business, investigate such complaints, and publish findings concerning matters that cannot be resolved to the satisfaction of all parties in the pages of the Society's journal; the Ombudsman shall be entitled to submit up to two pages of grievance reports per issue of the journal. All records maintained of the Society's business by elective or appointive officers or committee members shall be available to the Ombudsman for inspection.

Article III
Duties and Limitations of Committees

1. The Executive Committee shall consist of the Regent, the Editor, the Financial Officer, the Membership Officer, the Ombudsman, and four members-at-large. Each officer shall be responsible to the full Executive Committee for all the functions of his office. The Executive Committee shall be responsible to the membership for the functions of the offices.

   No member of the Executive Committee shall hold more than one position on that committee at any one time.

2. All elected officers and members of committees shall serve without compensation. Appointed officers, including the Editor, Financial Officer, and Membership Officer, may be compensated for their services at the discretion of the Executive Committee. Officers and committee members may be reimbursed for expenses incurred on behalf of the Society, within budgetary limits, only on prior approval of the Executive Committee.

3. Members of the Executive Committee will be expected to attend one annual meeting per year.

4. Independent committees or other bodies of members which do not infringe upon the responsibilities of the Executive Committee are not precluded, rather they are encouraged.

5. All officers and members of committees must maintain membership in the Society. Seeking and holding office is contingent upon maintaining membership.

6. The Executive Committee shall be responsible for the construction of a budget no less than annually.

7. All records of Society business maintained by officers and members of committees shall be available for inspection on reasonable notice by any member of the Society, except that all records which contain information of an individual's test scores or the amount of an individual's contributions to the Society or dues shall be kept confidential from the membership at large and the public at large. Further, the identities of members and prospective members who have asked the Ombudsman for confidentiality in the handling of a complaint shall be protected from disclosure.

Article IV
Elections

1. (For the purpose of this Article, members-at-large of the Executive Committee are considered to be officers of the Society.) There shall be biennial elections for the Regent, the Ombudsman, and the four members-at-large. The Editor, the Financial Officer, and the Membership Officer shall be appointed by the Executive Committee and those appointments shall be reviewed by the Executive Committee at least annually with the finding of that review transmitted to the membership (the Editor, the Financial Officer, and the Membership Officer shall not participate in their own evaluations unless the Executive Committee decides that self-evaluation would be a useful tool). All elected officers shall serve no more than three consecutive terms in the same office. (For purpose of determining consecutiveness, the first term shall be considered the first full term the officer serves under this Constitution.)

   The Executive Committee may, upon the vacancy of an office, use its discretion in filling that office by appointment, by special election, or by assuming as a body all the responsibilities of the vacated office or offices for the remainder of the term, but it must exercise one of these options. For each biennial election there shall be an Elections Officer who shall not be a member of the Executive Committee or hold any other elective office in the Society. For the first set of elections, to vote upon the Constitution and the first group of officers, the Editor shall appoint a suitable person to serve in the capacity of Elections Officer. For all subsequent elections, the Executive Committee shall appoint an Elections Officer during the first half of its term for the next biennial election. The Elections Officer may not be a candidate for any office in any election which he or she shall supervise and conduct.

2. There shall be three categories of elections: the election of six officers as members of the nine-member Executive Committee, two with specific responsibilities, as outlined above, and for other officers and committee members as the need shall arise; an open-ended (as to subject) initiative provision; and an amending formula for the Constitution. (All petitions that would alter, augment, or delete any provisions of the Constitution as it exists at the time the petition is formulated shall be considered a Constitutional Amendment.)

   The deadline for statements of candidacy to reach the Editor shall be December 15. The publication date of these statements shall be the first issue of the Society's journal published in the following year. The deadline for publication of ballots shall be for that same first issue of the Society's journal in the new year and the ballots shall be returned to the Elections Officer by March 1. The assumption date for all offices shall be April 1. The effective date for initiatives and Constitutional amendments shall be the first day of the month following approval of an initiative by a majority of those members voting, or approval of a Constitutional amendment by two-thirds of those members voting. Petitions for initiatives and for Constitutional amendments may be sent to the Editor at any time during the year. The Editor will publish such a petition within three months. However, the Editor has the option of not publishing a petition that seems unduly lengthy or frivolous, but he must obtain the approval of a majority of the Executive Committee to exercise this option. The petitioner whose petition has been rejected for publication may distribute it to members at his own expense. Whenever the Elections Officer certifies that a sufficient number of Triple Nine members have signed a petition, the Editor shall call for a final vote, simultaneously publishing any germane comments on the petition that have reached him from members.

3. All petitions seeking signatures from members for validation of proposed initiatives or Constitutional amendments shall be published in the Society's journal if requested, and supporting arguments for these petitions shall be published as space allows.

4. The Elections Officer shall verify all signatures submitted in accordance with the provisions of this Article. This can be accomplished through the use of signature cards contained in the Society's journal and returned to the Elections Officer or by verification by the membership number on the membership card, as each signer shall prefer.

5. Each candidate for elective office shall be entitled to one half page in the Society's journal for a statement of qualifications for and intentions in exercising office. The candidate should take into consideration the current method of reproducing the journal in deciding the format he wishes to employ in using the one-half-page allotment. Space for ballot arguments shall be allocated by the Editor in such a manner as to represent fairly all shades of opinion on matters to be voted upon.

6. Voting for candidates for elective office shall be on a preferential basis, i.e. members will rank their preferences for all or some of the candidates in terms of their first choice, second choice, etc. The Elections Officer shall first tally the votes to determine whether any candidate has a simple majority of the first-choice votes. Those that have shall be considered elected. Those votes which fail to meet this test shall be subject to a second tally in which the information contained in all choices shall be utilized by a weighted vote, the weights being the precise reverse of the rankings. The remaining candidates receiving the majority of all weighted, preference votes shall be deemed elected. In the case of a tie on the second tally, a majority vote by the existing Executive Committee shall break the tie.

7. An initiative may be proposed mandating that the Society take any action or establish any rule of procedure or policy not prohibited by the current Constitution. Actions, policies or procedures established by initiative may not be changed by any officer or committee of the Society except by a subsequent initiative or Constitutional amendment.

8. The Elections Officer shall tally all votes received within the prescribed voting period for each office and proposal voted upon in each election and shall submit the election results to the Editor to be published in the Society's journal without alteration.

Matter Voted Upon	Required to Propose	Required to Pass or Elect
Election of officers and committee members	Each candidate is to file a statement of candidacy	Majority by a preferential system of voting
Initiative	Petition signed by the square root of the membership for the year of tenure in question.	Simple majority
Constitutional amendment	Petition signed by the square root of the membership for the year of tenure in question	Two-thirds vote