Constitution

For the benefit of members and school administrators, the club constitution is viewable online as follows, or available in a printable (PDF) format here.

Free Thinkers' Club Constitution

Article I - Name
The name of this club is the Ironwood Free Thinkers' Club.

Article II - Statement of purpose
The purpose of this club is to foster a healthy, friendly, productive discussion on philosophy, spirituality, society, politics, and other necessary and proper subjects that would otherwise be unavailable at the school.

Article III - Statement of message
The medium of discussion in the pursuit of truth is the only message.

Article IV - Qualifications for membership
Any student at Ironwood High School may be a member so long as they are interested in basic questions of truth and meaning, willing to employ basic notions of kindness and sense, and abide by the principles laid out below.

Article V - Principles
This group's operation is predicated on several core beliefs:

• Section 1 - On all issues not relating to the club itself, the club as an entity must always take a neutral point of view, allowing for views to be represented fairly, proportionately, and without favor.
• Section 2 - Everyone is expected to act with civility. Incivility, for the club's purposes, is defined as personally targeted behavior that causes an atmosphere of greater conflict and stress. Civility, for this club's purposes, is avoiding that.
• Section 3 - Unless there is strong evidence to the contrary, everyone is expected to assume that people who work with the club are acting in good faith trying to help it, not hurt it. If there is strong evidence to the contrary, the actions of the person rather than their motives will be scrutinized.
• Section 4 - Everyone is expected to act in good faith: to try to help the club, not hurt it.
• Section 5 - If a rule prevents anyone from working with others to improve or maintain the club, it is to be ignored.
• Section 6 - The club is fundamentally dedicated to searching for truth and mutual understanding. Nothing that seriously conflicts with or detracts from this should be allowed.

Article VI - Activities
The Free Thinkers' Club will hold regular, scheduled meetings at least twice a month to discuss topics, hear proposals for new topics, hear from guest speakers on topics, and hold more formal debates on topics. The strict order and frequency of these activities is left to the club.

Article VII - Leadership
The leadership will only hold the powers necessary to ensure order, direction, and the maintenance of the above enumerated principles.

• Section 1 - Club Sponsor- The club sponsor oversees the club and provides a place for meetings.
• Section 2 - Benevolent Dictator for Life- The Benevolent Dictator for Life organizes, represents, directs and watches over the club. He is the author of the constitution, or a person appointed by the author of the constitution, or in his absence, a person appointed by the Executive Council. The Benevolent Dictator for Life will appoint the four general officers, one of whom will fill in for the Benevolent Dictator in their absence and be called the Supreme Chancellor. Should it become necessary, the Benevolent Dictator for Life may also be called the President.
• Section 3 - General Officers- The Benevolent Dictator for Life appoints four other officers, who help the Dictator and administer the club.
• Section 4 - Executive Council- The four officers and Dictator together constitute an executive council, which will manage any monies, maintain any records, and otherwise manipulate paper as is necessary. The council may convene so long as at least three of its five positions are filled, but all sitting members of the council must be present for a meeting.

Article VIII - Self-reference
This constitution is the last word on the ground rules of the club. A few things should be made clear about it, though:

• Section 1 - Terms of Use- Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts. Modifications of this document outside of the formal amendment process enumerated below will not, however, have any force in the operation of the club.
• Section 2 - Inspiration- Wikipedia's inspiration of the neutral point of view, good faith, civility, and ignore-all-rules sections of Article V is acknowledged. For further clarification of those ideas, the following web pages are recommended:
• -http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Assume_Good_Faith
• -http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Civility
• -http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view
• -http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Ignore_all_rules
• Section 3 - Amendment- The Executive Council may, by unanimous consent, amend this constitution.