This is a brief guide to how the club runs. For our official governing docs, please see http://www.mit.edu/~tech-squares/govdocs/.
Officers
Tech Squares has a number of different officer positions. Some of these are elected (each year in the Spring), and some are appointed.
Elected Officers
The Elected Officers make up the Executive Committee (EC) of Tech Squares. The EC deals with and votes on club business that does not need a club vote. In particular, a couple duties of the EC are to approve the graduates of each class and to appoint appointed officers. The Elected Officers are President, Vice President, Treasurer, Vice Treasurer, Class Coordinator, Publicity Coordinator, and Members-at-Large. There are generally 8 people on the EC.
The President and VP are in change of the EC and the overall running of the club. As the President is required to be an MIT student, the VP sometimes does most of the President's job. They chair EC and club meetings.
The Treasurer and VT (if there is one) manage Tech Squares finances. They make sure that callers get paid, set the fees for dances, and report to the club on the club's finances.
The Class Coordinator runs the class and deal with just about anything involving the class.
The Publicity Coordinator handles publicity for the club - both internal like announcements and external like postering.
Appointed Officers
The EC appoints a number of appointed officers. Appointed officers serve a term of at most 1 year, although they can be reappointed to multiple terms. Appointed officers include
- Rounds Coordinators - organize rounds
- Booking Director - book callers for dances
- Rooming Coordinator - reserves rooms for dances
- Webmaster - maintains the club's website
- Historian - takes photos and maintains the club photo gallery
- Secretary - takes minutes and handles club correspondence
The EC may appoint other officers as it feels necessary. Additionally EC members may appoint assistants for themselves (such as Class Assistants or Publicity Assistants).
Membership
Club members are people who have been granted membership from the club, either from graduating a Tech Squares class or from attending four of fifteen consecutive weekly dances and dancing Plus proficiently.
Voting member is a club member who has attended four 'recent' dances, where 'recent' means since the 15th most recent non-summer month dance. (Note: this may seem like weird language; the idea is that you remain a voting member even if you go away for the summer) One does not have to be a club member while meeting the attendance; new graduates generally become voting members when they become club members.
Club Meetings
Usually club business is left to the officers and interested club members, but sometimes this is business that requires a club vote. This necessitates a club meeting. Club meetings are generally held at Tuesday dances. Discussion and reports may be done without a quorum, but for all other business a quorum of 1/4 of the voting membership and 1/4 of the voting members who are MIT students is required.
Voting
All voting members get to vote. However, in accordance with ASA rules, at least 1/2 the voting power must belong to MIT students. Therefore, if fewer than 50% of voting members present are MIT students. We use vote scaling. The votes of MIT students are scaled to be 50% of the resultant voting power, and the votes of everyone else are scaled to be the other 50%.
Eligibility for Office
To be elected to an office, a candidate must be a voting member. Additionally, the candidate must have been a club member for 3 months (unless this is waived by a 2/3 vote). The President, Treasurer, and at least 4 members of the EC must be MIT students. The President, Vice President, Treasurer, and Vice Treasurer must be distinct people. Members at Large are elected until there are 8 (7 if no VT) distinct people on the EC. Each person gets one vote, regardless of how many offices they hold.
Club Governing Documents
We have a Constitution which is hard to change and thus contains things with we probably won't want to change. We also have Standing Policies which are easier to change and need to be reviewed and renewed every 3 years. They contain policies that we are more likely to want to change in the future.