Men’s Club By-Laws – PVCC Men's Club

Palm Valley Men’s Club

BY-LAWS

This document sets forth the policies and procedures under which the Palm Valley Men’s Club is operated. These policies and procedures are effective June 1,2024 and are subject to change from time to time at the sole discretion of the Men’s Club Board of Directors.

ARTICLE 1

NAME

The name of the organization (formerly known as Palm Valley Men’s Golf Committee), as of December 1, 2016 shall be Palm Valley Men’s Club, (hereafter referred to as the “Men’s Club”).

ARTICLE 2

MANDATE

2.1 To ensure members derive maximum enjoyment from their membership by creating and producing a variety of golf tournaments and golf events throughout the season that allows members with a wide range of handicaps to choose from casual participation to tournament competition. Further, to represent members’ interests in all matters that affect their playing pleasure with the ownership and management of Palm Valley Country Club (hereafter referred to as PVCC).

ARTICLE 3

MEMBERS

3.1 Classification:

The Men’s Club shall have three (3) classes of members.

3.1.a. Active Member. An Active Member is a PVCC golf member who has completed an application to join the Men’s Club and has paid annual dues to the Men’s Club.

Of the three classifications of golf membership offered by PVCC (Platinum, Associate and Sports), only Platinum members will be eligible to play in tournaments on weekends in accordance with the PVCC rules for compliance with play on certain courses and on certain days of the week.

3.1.b. Honorary Member:
An Honorary Member is an Active Member or former Active Member chosen by the Board of Directors to be recognized as an Honorary Member. Honorary Member status may be bestowed on an Active Member or former Active Member whom the Board of Directors, in its sole discretion, determines to have served the Men’s Club in meaningful and consequential ways over several years. The Board of Directors, at its May meeting, may choose to consider Active Member(s) or former Active Member(s) for this status. Alternatively, a member can submit his request for Honorary Membership status to the Membership Chairman in writing by letter or email prior to a May meeting of the Board of Directors. An Honorary Member shall be invited to attend all Men’s Club events (at their own expense) but shall be exempt from paying Men’s Club dues. The names of Honorary Members shall be enshrined on plaques hanging in the Palm Valley Country Club clubhouse. The Board reserves the right to rescind Honorary Membership status for due cause at any time.

3.1c. Senior Member:
A Senior Member is a former Active Member who has retired from playing golf and who has completed an application for Senior Member status.
A Senior Member shall be invited to attend all Men’s Club events and shall be exempt from paying Men’s Club dues.

3.2 Eligibility.

Any male age 21 years or older with a golfing membership and in good standing with PVCC is eligible for membership in the Men’s Club.
No person shall be allowed to join if they are less than 5 years from participating in an organized golf program, e.g., High School, College or Professional.

3.3 Admission.

3.3.a Any person eligible for membership under Section 3.2 that completes an application and pays the annual membership dues in full shall be admitted to membership.

3.3.b There will be no discrimination based on race, color, religion, disability, ancestry or national origin.

3.4 Annual Member Dues

The annual membership dues shall be reviewed and established annually by the Board and are payable annually by each member during the month of June.

3.5 Membership Roster

An electronic roster of all members is contained on the Men’s Club website (www.pvccmensclub.com). This roster contains photographs of each member together with other identifying information including members’ name, local address, spouse name, phone number and email address. A search function enables quick “look-up” of a specific member in the roster.

A membership directory is no longer published.

The website also identifies Honorary Members and the Board of Directors.

The database of member information is maintained and updated by the Membership Standing Committee Chairman.

3.6 Fiscal Year – The fiscal year shall be from June 1 to May 31.

ARTICLE 4

BOARD

4.1 Composition – The Board shall be composed of Active Men’s Club Members.

4.2 Purpose – The purposes of The Men’s Club Board in keeping with its Mandate (Article 2) shall be to:

4.2.a Promote golf opportunities, appropriate golf etiquette, golf rule understanding, and social opportunities for members of the Men’s Club, in accordance with and in support of the rules, regulations and ethics of the game of golf as administered in the State of California by the Southern California Golf Association (SCGA).

4.2.b Facilitate coordination, communication and good relationships between the members of the Men’s Club, owners and managers of Palm Valley Country Club, the Palm Valley Women’s Golf Association and Lady Niners.

4.2.c In cooperation with the Pro-Shop, arrange for tournaments and other golf and social events for the Men’s Club.

4.2.d Establish relationships with men’s organizations of other golf clubs.

4.2.e Promote and assist in the sponsoring and fundraising of noteworthy charitable organizations and endeavors in the local community.

4.2.f Represent members in respect of the play of golf by application for membership in the SCGA and related golf associations.

4.2. Take any and all additional actions deemed appropriate by the Board to enhance the Men’s Club.

ARTICLE 5

DIRECTORS

5.1 The Men’s Club shall be governed by a Board of Directors (“the Board”).

5.2 The number of Directors serving on the Board shall not exceed nine (9).

5.3 To be a Director, a person must be a dues paying member of the Men’s Club and a golfing member of PVCC in good standing; provided, however, that in the event a Director relinquishes his golfing membership in PVCC during his term due to an unforeseen circumstance such as ill health, he shall, at his discretion, remain a Director throughout the then current Fiscal Year of the Board.

5.4 The term of office for a Director shall be three fiscal years.

5.5 No Director can serve more than two (2) full consecutive terms of office except by the unanimous consent of The Board. Such consent to be determined by secret ballot at its March meeting. Provided, however, that a Director elected to be President in the final year of his second term shall continue on the Board for one additional year.

5.6 There shall be three (3) classes of expiring terms. The intent is to have Board members elected such that three Board positions expire each year to provide continuity. If for some reason, this is not possible, the Board may realign the term of the current Director(s) to maintain the intent of the three (3) class structure.

5.7 In the event of a Director’s mid-term vacancy, the Board, at its discretion, may select a qualified Active Member to fill the vacancy to complete the vacated term. Such selection, requiring a majority vote by a quorum of the Board, shall constitute a partial term of office and not prevent that Member from serving two (2) consecutive full terms thereafter.

5.8 Election to the Board shall be by secret ballot. To be elected, an Active Member must receive a majority vote by a quorum of the Board at its March meeting.

5.9 In the event of a tie vote among candidates, after the vote described in 5.8, successive votes by secret ballot will take place until such a tie is broken.

5.10 Candidates for election to the Board shall be openly solicited commencing in the first week of January and for a period of four (4) weeks. Notices shall be posted on the Men’s Club website, bulletin boards, as well as any other means available, such as e-mail notice to the Membership.

5.11 At the conclusion of 5.10, if an insufficient number of candidates have been solicited or volunteered for election to the Board, the President will appoint a Chairman of a Nominating Committee who will then select two (2) additional Directors to sit with him on the Nominating Committee to solicit appropriate candidates. The Nominating Committee will recruit and recommend appropriate candidate(s) who will be voted on at the March Board Meeting. Subsequent to this, should a Board position(s) still remain vacant, the Board will function with duly elected Director(s) until such time as the Nominating Committee presents qualified candidate(s) to the Board for ratification per Section 5.8.

5.12 If a Director is deemed not to be contributing to the Board in a positive manner (i.e., through such things as, repeated failures to attend Board meetings, failure to perform his assigned duties, behavior not in keeping with the rules and regulations of PVCC), the President has the authority and responsibility to meet with the member in question to seek a resolution to the satisfaction of both parties. This meeting can occur in person or indirectly via virtual meeting online, telephone or email. If a suitable solution is not possible, the President can specifically request the Director to resign or bring the issue to the Board for a majority vote of the quorum at a regularly scheduled or Special Board meeting (Section 8.2). For such a meeting, the background and context of the issue will be distributed to Directors at least two weeks in advance. The Director in question will have the option to address the Board at such meeting.

5.13 Candidates for Board positions shall be interviewed by the Board approximately two weeks prior to the March meeting.

5.14 Current Board members opting for reelection are ineligible to vote on prospective Board candidates.

ARTICLE 6

OFFICERS

6.1 The officers of The Board shall be the President, Vice President, Secretary and Treasurer, all of whom will constitute the Executive Committee.

6.2 The Executive Committee shall meet at times as determined by the President.

6.3 Candidates for President shall make themselves known at the February Board meeting. Candidates for President must be sitting Board members.

6.4 Election of the President by the Board shall be held at the March Board meeting.

6.5 The President Elect shall appoint the Vice President, Treasurer and Secretary and shall announce them at the April Board meeting.

6.6 The President Elect will assign Standing Committee Chairmen at the April Board Meeting.
A person must be a Director in order to be a Standing Committee Chairman unless otherwise approved by the Board by majority vote of a quorum.

6.7 The term of office for the President shall be for a period of two fiscal years. All other Officer appointments are for a period of one fiscal year.

6.8 The outgoing President shall become Past-President for a period of one (1) year, either as a Director if his term has not expired, or otherwise as an ex-officio Board member.

ARTICLE 7

EXECUTIVE AND STANDING COMMITTEE

7.1 Executive Committee.

The Executive Committee (Section 6.1) will meet at the discretion of the President to facilitate decision-making and to take actions between Board meetings or in urgent and crisis circumstances. The President will report and communicate on the outcome of these meetings to the Board as appropriate.

7.2 Standing Committees.

The standing committees are Tournament, Membership, Communications, “The 45”, Handicap and Food & Beverage. Committee Chairmen will annually review and revise the duties and responsibilities of their respective committees and present recommended revisions to the Board for approval at the April Board meeting.

ARTICLE 8

MEETINGS

8.1 Regular meetings of The Board shall be held monthly “in-season” (October-May) at the call of the President (or Vice President in the President’s absence).

8.2 Special meetings of the Board may be called at any time by the President (or Vice President in the President’s absence), or by a majority of the Board with a one week notice to the Directors.

8.3 All Board and Special Meetings shall follow the procedures of Roberts Rules of Order with speaking recognition upon the direction of the President or other person chairing the meeting.

8.4 The PVCC General Manager, the Director of Golf and the Director of Agronomy (collectively referred to as Special Guests) will be invited to all regularly scheduled Board meetings.

8.5 At all regularly scheduled Board meetings, reports will be prepared and presented by each of the Standing Committee Chairman (Article 7.2) and invited Special Guests (Article 8.4). All such reports will hi-light the activities of the past month, the events planned for the following month, notable achievements and matters of concern requiring the Boards’ attention, assistance and approval. All such reports will be included in the monthly Board meeting minutes.

In the event a Chairman or Special Guest is unable to attend a regularly scheduled Board meeting, he shall submit his written report to the President in advance of the meeting and the President will advise the Board of the contents of such report.

8.6 Special Guests may be excused at any stage of the Board meeting at the President’s discretion.

8.7 Any Board member may seek to resolve an issue between monthly meetings by emailing a motion to the President, or Vice President in the President’s absence. If the President determines the issue requires Board approval, he will forward the motion to all Board members for a second to the motion. If there is no second, the matter will not be considered further. If there is a second, there will be a discussion period of three (3) days for Director comments via e-mail after which the President shall call the question. All discussion comments must be distributed to all Board members. After the vote, the President shall announce the results to all Directors.

Alternatively, the President may determine the matter requires consideration by the Executive Committee only in accordance with Section 7.1.

8.8 Five Directors shall constitute a quorum for the transaction of business at Board or Special meetings.

8.9 The Annual General Meeting of the Men’s Club membership shall be held in November of each year. All members of the Men’s Club are invited to attend. Notice of this meeting shall be posted on the bulletin board and website during the first week of October.

8.10 Any member of the Men’s Club is welcome to attend regularly scheduled Board meetings with notice given to the Secretary no later than one week in advance of a scheduled Board meeting.

8.11 A “look-up” table summarizing key business items and decisions to be addressed by the Board at specific monthly meetings is appended to these By-Laws.

ARTICLE 9

SUB-COMMITTEES

9.1 The President or the Board has the authority to establish sub-committees as needed.

ARTICLE 10

AMENDMENTS

10.1 These By-Laws may be amended at any regular meeting of the Board by a two-thirds majority quorum vote of the Directors, provided the proposed amendment(s) has been submitted in writing to all Directors at least ten (10) days before the meeting; provided, however, that Article 2 (Mandate) and Article 10 (Amendments) of the By-Laws can only be amended by a majority vote of members of The Men’s Club attending the Annual General Meeting.

ARTICLE 11

PARLIAMENTARY AUTHORITY

11.1 The parliamentary authority shall be the latest revision of Robert’s “Rules of Order”.

ARTICLE 12

RULES AND REGULATIONS

12.1 Rules and regulations for the use of the golf courses, clubhouse and other facilities are issued and enforced by the owners and management of PVCC. In addition, the Men’s Club has its own Rules and Regulations. Members of The Men’s Club are expected to respect and adhere to the Rules and Regulations of PVCC, the Men’s Club and the SCGA. Violations of those rules by a member may result in a warning from the Board and/or suspension of the member from participation in Men’s Club events.