By-Laws

Table of Con­tents

By-laws of the Catalysis Club of Philadelphia

 

Amendments History

  1. Revised — March, 1957
  2. Amend­ed — Octo­ber, 1966
  3. Amend­ed — Octo­ber, 1967
  4. Amend­ed — April, 1975
  5. Amend­ed — Decem­ber, 1978
  6. Amend­ed — Jan­u­ary, 1981
  7. Amend­ed — Jan­u­ary, 1983
  8. Amend­ed — Octo­ber, 1984
  9. Revised & Amend­ed — Novem­ber, 1994
  10. Amend­ed — Octo­ber, 2000
  11. Amend­ed — Feb­ru­ary 22, 2007
  12. Amend­ed — April 18, 2013
  13. Amend­ed — Octo­ber 15, 2015

BY–LAW I — Name

The name of the orga­ni­za­tion shall be “Catal­y­sis Club of Philadel­phia”.

BY–LAW II — Objectives

The prin­ci­pal objec­tives of the Club shall be:

  1. To fos­ter dis­cus­sion of wor­thy advances in the fields of catal­y­sis and reac­tion mech­a­nisms in chem­istry.
  2. To pro­vide oppor­tu­ni­ties for mem­bers to present, for dis­cus­sion, their own work in the above fields.
  3. Gen­er­al­ly to advance knowl­edge in the fields of catal­y­sis and reac­tion mech­a­nisms.
  4. To engen­der a feel­ing of fel­low­ship and uni­ty among the chemists, chem­i­cal engi­neers, mate­r­i­al sci­en­tists and oth­er sci­en­tists in the Philadel­phia area who are inter­est­ed in catal­y­sis and relat­ed sub­jects (as amend­ed – Novem­ber, 1994).

BY–LAW III — Membership

Mem­ber­ship in this Club shall be open to all per­sons who are gen­uine­ly inter­est­ed in achiev­ing the objec­tives described in By–Law II and who indi­cate their desire to join and pay the annu­al dues. Club mem­bers who have retired shall be enti­tled to hon­orary mem­ber­ship and shall be exempt from dues (as amend­ed – Octo­ber, 1967).

BY–LAW IV — Officers

  1. The offi­cers of the club shall be a Chair­man, a Chairman–elect, and Trea­sur­er. The Chairman–elect shall serve as Vice–Chairman (as amend­ed – Novem­ber 1994).
  2. The duties of the Chair­man shall be to call and pre­side at meet­ings of the Club, and to under­take or to del­e­gate – such as to com­mit­tees – those actions which are deemed nec­es­sary to achieve the objec­tives of the Club or to car­ry out the poli­cies of the Exec­u­tive Com­mit­tee. The Chair­man shall also dis­trib­ute the By–Laws to each new­ly elect­ed offi­cer and each appoint­ed offi­cer to the Exec­u­tive
    Com­mit­tee at the first busi­ness meet­ing after the elec­tion (as amend­ed – Novem­ber 1994).
  3. The Chairman–elect shall auto­mat­i­cal­ly suc­ceed to the Chair­man­ship. The chairman–elect shall be respon­si­ble for arrang­ing and run­ning the spring sym­po­sium (as amend­ed – Novem­ber 1994).
  4. The duties of the Trea­sur­er shall be to send notices for dues, col­lect dues, and keep a list of mem­bers. He also shall han­dle all finan­cial mat­ters per­tain­ing to the busi­ness of the Club, sub­ject to approval by the Exec­u­tive Com­mit­tee (as amend­ed – Novem­ber 1994).
  5. The Exec­u­tive Com­mit­tee shall con­sist of the offi­cers of the Club, the imme­di­ate Past–Chairman, three elect­ed Direc­tors, a Rep­re­sen­ta­tive to the Catal­y­sis Soci­ety, and four offi­cers appoint­ed by the Chair­man: Arrange­ments Chair, Sec­re­tary (as amend­ed – Octo­ber 2000), Pro­gram Chair and Web­mas­ter (as amend­ed – April 2013). Sec­re­tary (as amend­ed – Octo­ber 2000) shall include send­ing to mem­bers such notices as the busi­ness of the Club may require, noti­fy­ing mem­bers of the time and place of meet­ings, keep­ing min­utes of the busi­ness meet­ings, and tak­ing care of such cor­re­spon­dence as the busi­ness of the Club requires (as amend­ed –Novem­ber 1994). They shall adopt and rec­om­mend to the Chair­man for exe­cu­tion those poli­cies and plan which will best fur­ther the achieve­ment of the objec­tives of the Club. The Rep­re­sen­ta­tive to The Catal­y­sis Soci­ety shall serve on the Board of Direc­tors of the Catal­y­sis Soci­ety and shall be respon­si­ble to the Exec­u­tive Com­mit­tee of the Club (as amend­ed – Octo­ber, 1984). The Web­mas­ter (as amend­ed – April 2013) shall main­tain the inter­net pres­ence of the Club.
  6. In the event of the inabil­i­ty of the Rep­re­sen­ta­tive to the Catal­y­sis Soci­ety to attend any spe­cif­ic meet­ing of the Catal­y­sis Soci­ety, The Exec­u­tive Com­mit­tee shall appoint a tem­po­rary rep­re­sen­ta­tive to act in his place. The elect­ed Rep­re­sen­ta­tive shall exe­cute any prox­ies required by the appoint­ed tem­po­rary rep­re­sen­ta­tive (as amend­ed – Octo­ber, 1966).
  7. The duties of the Direc­tors shall include man­age­ment of the grad­u­ate stu­dent poster con­test, solic­i­ta­tion of the month­ly meet­ing hour spon­sors, pub­lic­i­ty or oth­er duties rec­om­mend­ed by con­sen­sus of the Exec­u­tive Com­mit­tee (revised — Novem­ber 1994).

BY–LAW V — Elections

  1. Meet­ings of the Club shall be held dur­ing the usu­al aca­d­e­m­ic year. Reg­u­lar elec­tions shall be held at the last meet­ing of such a year. Spe­cial elec­tions to fill any vacan­cy can be called by a major­i­ty vote of the Exec­u­tive Com­mit­tee and held at any meet­ing of the Club. Nom­i­na­tions shall be made from the floor at the Feb­ru­ary meet­ing or March if no Feb­ru­ary meet­ing is held. Two or more nom­i­na­tions must be made for each office. A bio­graph­i­cal sketch for each can­di­date will be print­ed in the suc­ceed­ing meet­ing announce­ments. The elec­tions shall be con­duct­ed by the Chair­man with two assis­tants appoint­ed by him (as amend­ed – Octo­ber, 1984).
  2. All offi­cers and mem­bers of the Exec­u­tive Com­mit­tee, with the excep­tion of the Rep­re­sen­ta­tive to the Catal­y­sis Soci­ety, shall serve (as amend­ed – Octo­ber 2000) for a term of one year, com­menc­ing on the first day of June fol­low­ing elec­tion. The Rep­re­sen­ta­tive to the Catal­y­sis Soci­ety shall be elect­ed to serve for a term of four years, com­menc­ing on the first day of June fol­low­ing elec­tion. Offi­cers and mem­bers of the Exec­u­tive Com­mit­tee elect­ed to fill a vacan­cy shall serve for the unex­pired term of office (as amend­ed – Octo­ber, 1967).

BY–LAW VI — Dues

Mem­bers of the Club shall pay reg­u­lar dues not to exceed $8.00 (as amend­ed – Novem­ber 1994). Dues of mem­bers are payable in advance (as amend­ed Decem­ber, 1980). In addi­tion to the reg­u­lar dues of the Catal­y­sis Club of Philadel­phia, addi­tion­al dues may be col­lect­ed for the Nation­al Catal­y­sis Soci­ety. The col­lec­tion of these dues is at the dis­cre­tion of the Exec­u­tive Com­mit­tee (as amend­ed – Jan­u­ary, 1983).

BY–LAW VII — Meetings

The fre­quen­cy of the meet­ings of the Club shall be at the dis­cre­tion of the Exec­u­tive Com­mit­tee with a min­i­mum of three meet­ings per year and a one–day sym­po­sium. The one–day sym­po­sium may be omit­ted, if nec­es­sary, by a two–thirds vote of the Exec­u­tive Com­mit­tee.

BY–LAW VIII — Parliamentary Authority

The rules obtained in Roberts’ Rules (Revised) shall gov­ern all meet­ings of the Exec­u­tive Com­mit­tee and busi­ness meet­ings of the Club.

BY–LAW IX — Amendments

These By–Laws may be amend­ed by two–thirds vote of the mem­bers present and in good stand­ing at a reg­u­lar meet­ing of the Club, pro­vid­ed the pro­posed changes have been read at the pre­ced­ing meet­ing.

BY–LAW X — Award

  1. An Award is here­by estab­lished and is to be known as The Catal­y­sis Club of Philadel­phia Award. This award is to be a per­son, prefer­ably from the Philadel­phia area, who has made an out­stand­ing con­tri­bu­tion to the advance­ment ofcatal­y­sis. Such advance­ment can be sci­en­tif­ic, tech­no­log­i­cal or in orga­ni­za­tion lead­er­ship. No split Award to two or more per­sons shall be give.
  2. The Award con­sists of a scroll suit­ably inscribed and is to be pre­sent­ed at a sched­uled Club meet­ing. A small memen­to also suit­ably inscribed may also be pre­sent­ed (as amend­ed – Novem­ber 1994).
  3. The Award may also include a cash prize. The deci­sion on whether to award a cash prize and the amount of the prize will be deter­mined each year and must be approved by two-thirds of the mem­bers of the exec­u­tive com­mit­tee. The Club will per­mit spon­sors to con­tribute specif­i­cal­ly to the year­ly Award and the spon­sor will be appro­pri­ate­ly acknowl­edged (as amend­ed – Feb­ru­ary 22, 2007).
  4. The Award is to be giv­en not more than once each Club year and it is not nec­es­sary to be giv­en every year. The Award win­ner shall be select­ed by sim­ple major­i­ty vote of the Exec­u­tive Com­mit­tee from a slate pro­posed by a five (5) mem­ber Nom­i­nat­ing Com­mit­tee. The Exec­u­tive Com­mit­tee at any time before the final Awardee elec­tion, and by two–thirds (2/3) major­i­ty vote of its mem­bers, may reject the entire slate of can­di­dates. Rejec­tion of the slate by the Exec­u­tive Com­mit­tee con­sti­tutes the estab­lish­ment of a Club year in which no Award shall be giv­en. The slate of can­di­dates offered by the Nom­i­nat­ing Com­mit­tee may con­tain no greater than two can­di­dates. If only one can­di­date is offered and that can­di­date does not receive a sim­ple major­i­ty endorse­ment by the Exec­u­tive Com­mit­tee, the Nom­i­nat­ing Com­mit­tee may be called by the Club Chair­man to recon­vene to estab­lish a new slate. If a zero can­di­date slate is offered by the Nom­i­nat­ing Com­mit­tee, a sim­ple major­i­ty vote endorse­ment by the mem­bers of the Exec­u­tive Com­mit­tee will estab­lish a Club year in which no Award is giv­en.
  5. The Nom­i­nat­ing Com­mit­tee of five (5) Club mem­bers shall con­sist of Club Chair­man, the Imme­di­ate Past Chair­man, who will act as Nom­i­nat­ing Com­mit­tee Chair­man, and three addi­tion­al mem­bers cho­sen by the Club Chair­man. Prefer­ably no more than one of these addi­tion­al three shall also be a mem­ber of the Exec­u­tive Com­mit­tee. The Club Chair­man shall also attempt to achieve the widest pos­si­ble rep­re­sen­ta­tion on the Nom­i­nat­ing Com­mit­tee by the gen­er­al Club mem­ber­ship. If the Imme­di­ate Past–Chairman is unable to serve, the Club Chair­man may replace him with any Past Chair­man of the Club. The replace­ment will chair the Nom­i­nat­ing Com­mit­tee. The Chair­man of the Nom­i­nat­ing Com­mit­tee shall orga­nize, call and con­duct the meeting(s) nec­es­sary to estab­lish the can­di­date slate. It is the Nom­i­nat­ing Com­mit­tee Chairman’s respon­si­bil­i­ty to report the slate to the Club Chair­man. The Nom­i­nat­ing Com­mit­tee Chair­man shall report the can­di­date slate to the Club Chair­man prompt­ly.
  6. The Club Chair­man shall con­duct all polls of the Exec­u­tive Com­mit­tee for this Award. At the time the Club Chair­man achieves a sim­ple major­i­ty for a can­di­date through his polling of the Exec­u­tive Com­mit­tee, an Awardee for that Club year shall be con­sid­ered select­ed. The Club Chair­man shall inform all mem­bers of the Exec­u­tive and Nom­i­nat­ing Com­mit­tees when an Awardee has been select­ed. The Club Trea­sur­er shall be respon­si­ble (as amend­ed – Novem­ber 1994) for obtain­ing the scroll and memen­to, if any (added April 24, 1975).

BY–LAW XI

No impli­ca­tion of gen­der is to be inter­pret­ed by any ter­mi­nol­o­gy used in these By–Laws or any amend­ments there­to.”

BY–LAW XII — Theodore A. Koch Graduate Student Travel Award

(added – Octo­ber 2015)

  1. The Catal­y­sis Club of Philadel­phia will man­age and admin­is­ter a Grad­u­ate Stu­dent Trav­el Award Fund in mem­o­ry of Theodore A. Koch.
  2. The Trea­sur­er will receive and accept dona­tions for the fund, and pro­vide the amount of the award to the awardee. Once a dona­tion is received he/she will send receipts to the donors and make a good-faith attempt to noti­fy the T.A. Koch fam­i­ly.
  3. The max­i­mum amount of the award is set to $1000 and will be giv­en once per year to a grad­u­ate stu­dent from the greater Philadel­phia area, prefer­ably a CCP mem­ber. The intent of the award is to assist the awardee to attend a nation­al or inter­na­tion­al con­fer­ence of his/her choice. The award will be giv­en pro­vid­ed that suf­fi­cient monies exist in the T.A. Koch fund.
  4. Appli­ca­tions will be received each year with dead­line set by the CCP chair after con­sult­ing with the exec­u­tive com­mit­tee. The con­fer­ences sug­gest­ed by each appli­cant can take place any time of that aca­d­e­m­ic year (Sept. –Aug.)
  5. The CCP chair will appoint a three mem­ber selec­tion com­mit­tee com­prised of mem­bers of the Club.
  6. The com­mit­tee will eval­u­ate the appli­cant based on poten­tial impact of the award to the candidate’s stat­ed career goal , finan­cial need and over­all mer­it , and will announce the awardee in one of the month­ly meet­ings.
  7. The stu­dent should pro­vide proof of reg­is­tra­tion and atten­dance to the Club Trea­sur­er.