For the upcoming General Assembly of the Nederlandse Debatbond, the Board proposes to introduce a new article 20 of the policy manual. During the General Assembly, the article will be voted on in Dutch, but for the sake of discussion, we have translated the article to English.
Proposal on Central Equity Officer
Realising that there are several issues within the Dutch debating community that could use a central equity officer.
Proposes a new article 20:
20.1 A national Equity team exists.
20.2 The members of the equity team are appointed by the General Assembly after being nominated by the board. The members of the equity team are proposed for a period of one year. A member can not be appointed more than three times. Board members can not be part of the equity team. There are no more than three members of the equity team.
20.3 During the nomination a diversity in gender and debating society will be sought. There will also be sought for people with previous experience as an equity officer at their society or on debating tournaments.
20.4. The Equity team has four tasks:
- They write a (national) equity document specifying what equity is and in which ways they can help.
- They advise the board, the General Assembly, equity officers of debating societies and tournaments and the members of the Dutch debating community on matters regarding equity.
- They handle complaints from individual members of the Dutch debating community, when these members can not go to a different equity officer. For example because no equity officer was appointed for the occasion when the matter regarding the complaint happened, or because it is impossible to go to the appointed equity officer.
- They keep a so called ‘black list’ of people who, because of extremely serious transgression to that what is accepted within society, are no longer welcome on Dutch debating tournaments. This black list can be shared, when necessary, with Equity Teams of tournaments so these equity teams can make a decision as to whether these people should be banned from their tournaments. When a tournament does not have an equity officer, it can be shared with other parts of the organisation.
De Nederlandse Debatbond (NDB) stelt zich als doel het wedstrijddebat te bevorderen en ondersteunen in Nederland. Als nationaal overkoepelend orgaan vertegenwoordigt de NDB ongeveer 1.000 leden waarvan de meesten lid zijn van één van de debatverenigingen die Nederland rijk is.
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