THE ISDA CONSTITUTION 2005-2006

ISDA CONSTITUTION - NINTH DRAFT:

1) Name:

The name of the organisation shall be the Irish Student Drama Association, (ISDA).

2)         Aims and Objectives of the Organisation:

(a)   The provision of a national platform through which student drama may be promoted and encouraged.

(b)   The provision of a forum through which students from the drama societies of different third level institutions may come together and interact on a creative and social level.

(c)   The hosting of an annual theatre festival and award ceremony in which all member third level institution drama societies may display their shows and compete.

3)         Membership:

(a)    Membership of the organisation shall be open to the drama society in every Third Level Institution on the Island of Ireland subject to the discretion of the Executive Council. A member third level institution drama society will herewith be referred to as; a member college of ISDA.

(b)    Annual membership of the association is achieved through registration and payment of a nominal fee by the last Friday in November, of an academic year.

(c)    The Executive Council can admit late registrations at their discretion; late registration will only be permitted in exceptional circumstances.

(d)    The assumption of membership by a third level institution drama society to ISDA shall automatically result in that society indemnifying ISDA from all legal liability that could otherwise arise, as a consequence of that society misbehaving, defaming others, breaking copyright laws or otherwise breaking the laws of the state.

4.1)      Council:

(a)   ISDA as an organisation will be run by a Council of two parts, the Executive Council and the General Council.

(b)   The Executive Council consists of representatives from eight colleges ? the seven hosting colleges,

• National University Ireland Galway (NUIG)
• University College Dublin (UCD)
• University College Cork (UCC)
• Queens University Belfast (QUB)
• Dublin Institute of Technology (DIT)
• University of Limerick (UL) & Mary Immaculate College Limerick (MI)
• Trinity College Dublin (TCD)
• and NUI Maynooth (NIUM), the holder of the archives.

(c)   The ISDA General Council will be made up from representatives from all other third level institution drama societies who wish to involve themselves.

4.2)      Council Positions:

(a)    The Council must include a Chairperson, Secretary and Treasurer.

(b)    It is mandatory that the Chair, Secretary and Treasurer attend every meeting. In the event that one of the aforementioned can not attend they must provide notice to the rest of the Council. In the event of their absence they must appoint somebody to take their place at the meeting. It is requisite that the substitute is fully briefed on the duties required of them.

4.3)      Chairperson:

(a)   The Chairperson will be elected by the outgoing ISDA Council. It is mandatory that the new Chair sat on a previous ISDA Council.

(b)   The Chair will not represent any member college of ISDA and only holds a vote in the situation of a casting vote.

(c)    The duties of the Chair include:

(i)         Chairing all meetings of the Council.

(ii)        Setting the agenda?s of all meetings in conjunction with the Secretary.

(iii)       Acting as co-signatory with the treasurer on the ISDA account

      

4.4)      Secretary:

(a)    The role of Secretary will be held by the NUI Maynooth representative, as they are the holders of the ISDA archives.

(b)    The Secretary is responsible for

(i)          Liaising with the member college?s of ISDA.

(ii)         Setting dates and ensuring adequate space is provided for meetings.

(iii)        Setting agenda?s of all meetings in conjunction with the chair.

(iv)       Recording and distributing the minutes of each meeting, and all society correspondence.

4.5)      Treasurer:

(a)    The Treasurer will come from the member of ISDA due to host the Festival and Awards the subsequent year.

(b)   The responsibilities of the Treasurer is:

(i)  The management of the ISDA Council Account and funding.

5)         Voting:

(a)   The appointed representative of every member college of ISDA shall be entitled to vote on the Council.

(b)  Each attending member college of ISDA is entitled to a single vote regardless of how many representatives they bring.

(c)   All votes must be passed by a majority. In the case of a tie, the chairperson has the casting vote.

(d)   Voting shall not take place without the presence of a quorum. The quorum should consist of a minimum of four members of the ISDA Executive Council.

(e)   In circumstances where one or more of the quorum cannot attend and an immediate decision is necessary, proxy voting shall take place, within 96 hours of the closing of the meeting, by email or letter to the secretary.

6)         Meetings:

(a)   Meetings of the Council should be held no less than every two months during the academic year.

(b)   Meetings should be held in each of the hosting member college of ISDA according to the order of the festival cycle, refer to article 7.1(a).

(c)   There will be an AGM held within a month of the closing of every festival to facilitate the hand-over from one Council to another. Representatives from both the old and new Councils should attend this meeting.

(d)   Member colleges of the ISDA Executive Council must attend all meetings. Failure to do so will be dealt with in accordance with Article 9(a).

7.1)      The Festival:

(a)   The ISDA Festival shall consist of Shows, an Award Ceremony, and a Fringe Festival.

(b)   The ISDA Festival will be hosted annually by one of the hosting members of ISDA according to the festival cycle: NUIG ? UCD ? UCC ? QUB ? DIT ? UL&MI - TCD.

(c)    If a member college of the ISDA General Council wishes to join the cycle as a hosting member, and consequently become a member of the Executive Council, they must first prove their ability to satisfy the festival requirements, set out each year as Festival Guidelines, by the Executive Council. The member college?s application will then be considered by the Executive Council. Applications for membership of the Executive Council must be received by the Chairperson before or on the day of the last meeting before the Festival. Should the application be accepted, their membership of the Executive Council will commence at the handover meeting that year.

(d)  If for any reason a member college of the ISDA Executive Council is unable to fulfill its role as host in the cycle, the Council will skip them and ask the subsequent member college in the cycle to take on the responsibility of hosting the festival.

(e)    A member college of the ISDA Executive Council may not take their place as host in the cycle, if the Executive Council has reason to believe that they cannot fulfill the requirements of the Festival Guidelines.

(f)     If a hosting member college fails to take their place in the cycle their position as a member of the Executive Council will be reviewed.

(g)     Co-ordination of the Fringe Festival will be at the discretion of the Festival Organisers.

(h)     The ISDA festival will be co-ordinated by a director or directors appointed by the hosting college.

(i)     The Festival Directors are answerable to the ISDA Council.

(j)     As a means of monitoring the standard of proposed venues it is required that the festival director(s) make the venues available to inspection at a fixed date at least four months before the opening date of the festival. At this point if there are three or more complaints regarding the standard of a venue alternative arrangements must be sought. If a number of venues are found to be unsuitable the eligibility of the ISDA member college, as a host may be called into question.

(k)    The dates of the festival must be provided by the end of the year subsequent to the Festival so that they may be approved by the Council.

7.2)      Festival Slots:

(a)    There will be a minimum of 20 shows in the Festival, over a maximum of a ten-day period ? excluding the shows of the Fringe Festival.

(b)       The allocation of Slots must take place in the following format, in this order and according to availability:

(i)          All member colleges of the ISDA Executive Council are guaranteed a minimum of one slot in the festival.

(ii)         Every member college of the ISDA General Council is absolutely entitled to the allocation of one slot in the ISDA Festival by virtue of their membership to the General Council.

(iii)       Member colleges of the ISDA Executive Council are entitled to an extra allocation by virtue of their membership of the Executive Council.

(iv)        The remaining slots are to be distributed in the fashion of a lottery; all Executive Council member college?s third preferences and all General Council member college?s second preferences are to be drawn in full view of the Executive Council. This will follow concurrently until the remaining slots are filled.

(c)   If at any stage of this process there are not enough slots to serve the entitled parties, a lottery of the entitled member colleges applications will be drawn as a lottery, as described in 7.2(b)(iv)

7.3)      Festival Awards:

(a)    The ISDA Awards should be given in the following categories: Best Production, Best Director, Best Actress, Best Actor, Best Supporting Actor, Best Supporting Actress, Best Lighting Design, Best Set, Best Sound, Best Costume and Make-up, Best Original Writing and Discretionary Awards.

(b)   Judges may award a maximum of two discretionary awards but they are not obliged to. No nominations for Discretionary Awards should take place.

7.4)      Festival Adjudicators:

(a)    The Awards should have a minimum of 4 adjudicators, coming from a variety of theatre disciplines, at least 3 of which must attend each production in the Festival.

(b)    All proposed adjudicators must be approved by the Council.

(c)   During the festival, each adjudicator must attend all shows being considered for awards.

7.5)      Festival Rights:

(a)   It is the responsibility of all participating ISDA member colleges to ensure that their shows obey all of the rights stipulations relevant to their show, and provide their venues with adequate copyright.

(b)   ISDA, the Festival Host and Festival Director(s) will not accept any responsibility for shows failing to do so.

(c)    Participating ISDA member colleges who fail to do so may have their shows pulled by the venue or open themselves to lawsuits.

8)         Archives:

(a)       The ISDA archives will be held and maintained by NUI Maynooth.

(b)       All member colleges must be provided with access to the archives by the holder of the archives.

(c)       NUI Maynooth, as holder of the archives, are responsible for the following:

(i)       Archiving the minutes and agenda after each meeting.

(ii)       Liaising with the hosting college in order to keep records of any contacts made for sponsorship, adjudicators and venues.

(iii)      Recording articles, reviews, programmes, publicity information and any other festival related material, before the handover to the next Council.

9.)        Conduct

(a)    Member colleges of ISDA who fail to uphold the ISDA Constitution or behave in a manner contrary to the goals and objectives of the Association will be dealt with by the Executive Council according to circumstances.

(b)   In the case of misconduct the Executive Council retains the right to reproach members in the order of:

(i)         A formal warning.

(ii)        Accumulative fine as deemed fit by a majority vote.

(c)   In cases of serious misconduct the Executive Council retain the right to suspend members for the duration of that year. After which their status will come under review. The procedure shall run as follows:

(i)          A notice detailing the alleged misconduct shall be served on the ISDA member college concerned, no later than 7 days prior to the meeting of the Executive Council to consider the suspension of that member college.

(ii)         At the meeting held to consider the suspension of an ISDA member college the representative of the society at risk of suspension shall have an opportunity to respond to the allegation(s) made and to put questions to those making the allegations and in turn to be questioned by them.

(iii)      It is mandatory that all Executive Council Members attend these meetings. In an extraneous circumstance where one or more members cannot attend, the meeting can be suspended for up to 21 days. If, after 14 days, a member is still unable to attend, a quorum vote may take place. In this circumstance it is necessary that the member college of ISDA under scrutiny will be served 7 days notice, as stipulated in Article 9(b)(i).

(iv)        Proxy voting cannot take place.

10.)      This constitution is hereby adopted as the sole constitution of ISDA and any other constitution previously adopted is hereby revoked and replaced.

FESTIVAL GUIDELINES

Technical Requirements:

(1) Theatre Requirements:

These refer to the minimum and most basic necessities that must be provided by a venue in order for it to be considered acceptable by ISDA.

(a)   There must be a minimum of 12 ways of dimming.

(b)   A control desk must be supplied

(c)   A standard lantern stock must be available appropriate in proportion to the size of the space (a variety including parcans, pc?s or frennels, and profiles is necessary). A stock of replacement bubbles must also be available.

(d)   All equipment must be serviced and in working order.

(e)   Adequate cabling must be available to service all stock.

(f)    There must be suitable and ample hanging positions to service the size and dimensions of the space.

(g)   Safe height access must be provided.

(2) Sound Requirements:

(a)   There must be a minimum of two speakers in a venue

(b)   A suitable and working amp must be supplied to service the speakers.

(c)   A control desk is required.

(d)   A minimum of one Mini Disc and one Compact Disc player must be available.

(e)   Adequate cabling is necessary.

(3) Requirements of the Hosting College:

(a)   Adequate storage space to accommodate the sets and props of all colleges participating in the ISDA competition. (The dimensions of the sets and properties can be requested by the hosts as soon as the plays are selected by the participating colleges.) The storage space must be a reasonable distance from the venues.

(b)   The hosting college is required to provide transport for the movement of setting and props between the ISDA festival theatre venues and storage.

(c)   It is mandatory that in as far as is possible plays should be allocated to theatre spaces that meet their specific requirements.

(4) Fire and Safety in Venues:

(a)   A first aid kit including specific burn treatments must be provided in all venues.

(b)   Suitable fire extinguishers must be present in each venue, abiding by standard theatre fire and safety requirements.

(5) Technical Managers:

(a)     It is necessary that an experienced Technical Manager be employed by the festival.

          (b)    A suitably experienced technical support team adequate in size, must be at hand.