THE YOUNG DEMOCRATS OF GEORGIA

WOMEN'S CAUCUS BYLAWS

(Last updated by Elena Weiss, April 10, 2009)

ARTICLE I: NAME, POLICY, AND PURPOSE

Section 1: The name of this organization shall be Young Democrats of Georgia Women's Caucus.

Section 2: The caucus shall follow the Charter and Rules of the Young Democrats of Georgia (herein referred to YDG).

Section 3:The caucus shall not make any endorsement of any candidate in a contested Democratic race.  Individual members may make personal endorsements, but may not attach the Caucus name to them. 

Section 4: The caucus shall not work on any federal campaign.  Individuals may work as individuals on federal campaigns, but may not work on a federal campaign in the name of the caucus. 

Section 2: The purpose of the Women's Caucus is to bring women into the political process by educating, engaging, mobilizing, and empowering women voters.

ARTICLE II: MEMBERSHIP

Section 1: To become a member of the Women’s Caucus, the individual simply has to attend a meeting, event, subscribe to the e-mail list, join the Facebook group, or help out with an activity. Their membership will continue as long as they are involved in one of the five ways listed above.

ARTICLE III: OFFICERS

Section 1: The Women’s Caucus shall have the following officers:

a)      Chair: This officer shall preside over meetings and events, plan caucus programming and business meetings, develop caucus leadership and membership, keeps official records via computer file and passes along all documents to next chair works with Vice Chair to plan out years events, assists Finance Director with fundraising, cultivating donors, and budget, works with Communications Director on caucus correspondence, advertising of events, and caucus newsletters.  Attend all caucus events and fulfill the duties required of being on YDG Exec.  The Chair will also build relationships with other Women’s organizations to help grow the membership. 

b)      Vice Chair: This officer shall assist the chair in whatever capacity the Chair needs.  This officer will be present at the events that the Chair cannot attend and preside over caucus meetings when the Chair cannot be present. .  The Vice Chair will help with caucus programming and build relationships with outside organizations to help grow the membership and help with visibility of the caucus.

c)      Finance Director: This officer shall identifies donors, create a fundraising plan, and yearly budget for caucus, and work with the YDG Finance Director to help raise money for not only the Women’s Caucus, but YDG as an organization.

d)     Communications Director: This officer shall manage a list serve, handle official caucus correspondence, write caucus newsletters, send out invitations to events, create Facebook invites, advertise all events and handle a PR for caucus, manage the Women’s Caucus website, help with the branding of the caucus, write all Press Releases and be responsible for creating and editing a DVD that highlights caucus activities which can be sent out to potential donors. 

Section 2: The term of all officer positions within the Women’s Caucus shall start when the Chair is elected at state convention and shall end when new Chair is elected at state convention. The positions of Vice Chair, Finance Director and Communications Director will be appointed by the Chair of the Caucus.  If an officer leaves for any reason, another member will be appointed by the Chair  to take their position.  In the event that the Chair resigns, the Vice Chair will assume the role of Chair until the next Convention where a new Chair will be elected. 

Section 3: Officers of the Caucus will be geographically diverse.  This means that the full Women’s Caucus cannot be from one part of the state.  There might be minimally one person from South Georgia and North Georgia on the Caucus Exec.  The Chair and the Vice Chair may not be from the same chapter. 

Section 4: An officer who fails to meet the expectations of the group can be removed from their office by a vote of members present at a meeting after the issue has been proposed at the previous meeting or proposed via email correspondence to the Caucus.  In the event that there is not an official meeting, email and Facebook vote for removal of office will suffice. 

ARTICLE IV: OPERATING PROCEDURES

Section 1: The Chair will be in charge of moderating all meetings or preparing another facilitator, with no defined rule of order to be followed, except that members are to respect the rights of all speakers.

Section 2: If the group desires to form a committee for any function, such as the coordination of a campaign or event, then anyone who volunteers may be part of that committee. 

ARTICLE V: AMENDMENTS

Section 1: Any member of the Women’s Caucus present at a meeting shall be able to propose an amendment to the group constitution.

Section 2: Amendments are to be approved by a simple majority of the group at the meeting following the amendment’s proposal.