The Constitution

(.pdf format)

University Underwater Society

1. According to the 1967 and 1968 newsletters, elections were held in December and the officers would be installed in February. This constitution says elections shall be in February. I remember being at a meeting when the elections were switched to Feburary. I believe the first four pages of this constitution is the way the constitution looked for years earlier than 1969.

2. The "Revised Constitution By-Laws" were added late 1968 or early 1969. In the fall of 1968 the Equipment Officer, Ray Jones, drowned with his buddy diver at Hamilton Pool. I was the Assistant Equipment Officer at that time and then became Equipment Officer along with another member in late 1968. The By-Law provision that all divers wear "life vests" was added as a results of this drowning. Neither diver was wearing an air vest. At that time, buoyancy compensators or the "B.C." did not exist as we know them today. The air vest was just coming into being at this time. Air vests were thought of as life preservers versus buoyancy compensators.

The club by-law that no decompression diving be done and no diving below 100 feet were provisions  that were added when one of the club members suffered decompression sickness after winter diving in Lake Travis and had to be treated at Brooks Air Force Base in San Antonio. I believe this decompression accident took place late 1968 or early 1969.

This second constitution shown was printed in the March 1989 newsletter.