Sheila And Her Dog
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Sheila's Constitution:

  1. The activities of the Sheila and her Dog Society are its roughly weekly meetings of two hours or so, and the organization thereof. The meeting itself shall be bracketed by Dropping a Penguin or a suitable surrogate.

  2. During these defined activities, all participants shall be civilized and well disposed to all others. This includes abstaining from bad language and from talking about bad, insensitive or inappropriate things. Sheila shall behave inclusively* toward whoever wishes to join Sheila.
  3. The nature of the defined activities.
      3a) The meeting will contain a reading of a children's book in silly voices; accompanied by the enactment of any suitable pictures therein, unless all people present wish the Meeting to proceed without.
      3b) The meeting shall have an interlude for the consumption of cocoa, soft drinks and other suitable beverages for four year olds and the sharing of such things as cake, sweets or chocolate.
      3c) The meeting shall then contain one of a wide variety of extra strange and wonderful activities. All Sheila people are welcome to dreamily or humorously suggest what these should be. Suitable examples are Penguin Sacrifice, Summoning the Grey Dragon, Combustion of Tyrannical `Eat Your Greens' Vegetable Types, After-Dark Kite Flying, Caricature Versions of Sport, Fluffy Toy Fights, Vegetable Art, Construction of Party Toys, and Hide And Seek In or Exploration Of the Strangest Corners in Cambridge.
      3d) Moreover all activities 3c) will be realized in such a way that they abide the law and the rules of the University and any relevant College, shall be safe and in good taste to all the participants, and not be a disturbance or an obstruction to onlookers, passers-by or neighbours. e.g. we will not be noisy after 10 pm, or ever be noisy near places of study, or completely block the pavement. It is the duty of the people running the society to always be receptive of opinions about how proposed activities can be made to comply with 3d).

  4. Sheila can only work if all participants are open to compromise, to voicing and listening to all manner of opinions, with three exceptions. These being the opinion that it is fine to disregard others' opinions, the opinion that participants should be uncivilized or unkind to one another, or an opinion which contravenes these rules.

  5. Sheila will be pluralistic. Sheila's activities will be intended to appeal to a wide range of different people. Sheila will be friendly as default toward other societies, both in a `live and let live' way and in sometimes holding joint activities with other societies. In these Sheila people will behave in accord with the Sheila rules. If we find people from the other society behaving in a manner violating the Sheila rules during a joint activity, we will politely refuse further joint activities with that society.

  6. Sheila has its own character, morally in accord with 2), 3d), 4) and 5), and occupationally in accord with 1), 3) and 5). Sheila will not be hijacked by groups of people with something other than Sheila in common [e.g. from past experience People from a Particular College, Goths, Assassins, Harry Potter Fans]. While such people are welcome and welcome to suggest Sheila carries out some activities in tune with their external tastes, Sheila should never risk being transformed or absorbed by external cultures. Whoever is in the majority at a given time, the society should sufficiently cater for the minorities and find alternative members so as to redress any imbalance.

* Footnotes

Most societies say "this society is open to all Members of the University". Certain societies then use this in practice to mean that their society is closed to ex-members and non-members. We in Sheila think that this is a disgusting way to behave, on two counts :

    1. It ostracizes good people on grounds of age and occupation.
    2. It is spineless toward the problem that there are a few bad apples within the University itself.

In Sheila, we welcome all who sincerely try to abide by the above rules.



To contact Sheila, e-mail: sheila (at) srcf.ucam.org.

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