Governance: Technorama Incorporated Rules and Legal Bits

Constitution and Rules

Technorama Incorporated is a limited-liability not-for-profit membership organisation.   It was incorporated on 2015-07-03, and operates under the NSW Associations Incorporation Act 2009 and the subsidiary Associations Incorporation Regulation 2016.

In keeping with Technorama policy to adopt best-practice processes and governance, we have developed and aligned our constitution in a way that is consistent with the specifics  of operating a community broadcasting organisation.  The Technorama Constitution may therefore be suitable as a model for a broadcaster, and we have tried to be transparent about why changes were made and expected impacts.  Further information about NSW Associations law is available here.

The Technorama Incorporated Constitution (at founding) was based on the 2016 model rules set provided by the NSW Department of Fair Trading.  Our first revised constitution was based on a modified version of the default 2016 model rules, and adopted specific committee time-outs, an alternating year election cadence, and improved our ability to operate electronically and remotely.  That revision was adopted by Members of Technorama at a Special General Meeting held on 2018-05-19 and was registered by NSW Fair Trading on 2018-05-31.

At the 2021-22 Annual General Meeting held on 2023-03-22, motions were passed further amending the Constitution.  The changes reduced the size of the Committee, allows the Committee to appoint additional specialist Committee members, and sought to further improve succession and transition.

The revised/updated Constitution is in force following registration by NSW Fair Trading.  Note: Fair Trading registers changes resulting from carried motions at a General Meeting.  The 2023-03-22 only updated (ie: did not fully replace) the previous version, so Fair Trading’s register contains incremental versions of the Constitution.

A fully-merged version of the Constitution and Rules of Technorama Incorporated document is available here for download.

Changes from the 2016 Model Constitution and previous versions of the Technorama Constitution are marked in colour.

As a reference, the 2018 version of the Constitution, as amended from the Model Rules, is available here for download.

 

Legal bits

Technorama Incorporated has an ABN:  26 469 202 335

Technorama Incorporated is not registered for GST.

Technorama Incorporated is registered as a Charity with the Australian Charities and Not-for-profit Commission (ACNC) under the category: “Advancing education”

Technorama Incorporated does not have DGR status, and donations are not tax deductible.

 

Incorporation note:  Associations incorporated in NSW are not covered by registration processes of ASIC, although they may appear in lookups of ASIC corporate identities.