See the
Historical Review
The
common myth of hashdom is “there are no rules.” Some of you may
be familiar with the objectives outlined in paragraph 3, but
here is the rest of the story. Way back in 1950 the Hon.
Secretary of the KLH3 drafted the following, as part of the KL
city club registration process:
(from
the INTERHASH ’98 INFOMAG)
EARLIEST RECORDED RULES OF THE HASH HOUSE
HARRIERS
(Devised late one night circa 1950 by an Irish accountant,
T.D. Kennedy, who was then On-sec for KLH3)
Basics
1.
This Association shall be known as the Hash House Harriers.
2.
Its place of meeting shall be at any club or premises in Kuala
Lumpur at which permission to meet has been obtained, and its
address for correspondence shall be at 633 Circular Road, Kuala
Lumpur, until further notice.
3.
Its objectives are:
(a) to promote physical fitness amongst its members
(b) to get rid of weekend hangovers
(c) to acquire a good thirst and to satisfy it with beer
(d) to persuade the older members that they are not as old
as they feel
Membership
4.
Membership is open to all male persons who are interested in
taking part in a weekly cross country paper chase.
5. A
person wishing to join the Association submits his name and
address to the Hon. Secretary and is thereafter considered to be
a member until such time as he notifies his intention to resign
or ceases to pay his subscriptions as they become due.
Entrance Fees, Subscriptions and Other Dues
6. No
entrance fee is payable by new members.
7.
Subscriptions are payable quarterly in advance at the rate of
$12.00 per quarter or at such other rate as the committee may
from time to time decide. New members joining during a quarter
will pay proportionately for the period between the date of
joining and the end of the quarter.
8.
The Hon. Treasurer will notify all members as and when
subscriptions become due. If a member falls in arrears with his
subscriptions for more than three months, he shall be deemed to
have resigned and will not be entitled to take part in any
future activities of the Association. No legal action may be
taken by the Association against a former member for non-payment
of his debts, and any loss occasioned by failure of a member to
pay his dues will be borne by the remaining members.
Management, General Meetings
9.
The management of the society is vested in a General Meeting of
the members presided over by the President. At least one
quarter of the total membership of the Society must be present
at a General meeting for its proceedings to be valid.
10.
An Annual General Meeting will be held in February. At other
times a general meeting must be called by the President on the
request in writing of 10 or more members and may be called at
any time by order of the committee.
11.
At least two weeks notice will be given of an annual general
meeting and of any other general meeting. The following points
will be considered at the Annual General Meeting:
(a) The previous year’s accounts and the Report of the
Committee.
(b) The election of office-bearers for the following year.
12. A
Committee consisting of the following shall be elected at each
annual general meeting:
A
President )
A Vice President ) (To be called the Jointmasters)
An Honorary Secretary and Treasurer
The members of the Committee shall have power to co-opt
additional committee members or to elect a new President, Vice
President or Hon. Secretary and Treasurer, in the event of the
holder of these offices being unwilling or unable to serve.
13.
Committee meetings shall be held at such times as may be
considered desirable. At least seven days notice of such
meetings will be given to committee members. At least one Joint
Master and the Hon. Secretary and Treasurer must be present at a
committee meeting for its proceeding to be valid.
14.
The duty of the Committee is to organize and supervise the daily
activities of the society and to make decisions on matters
affecting its running when the general meeting is not sitting.
It may not act contrary to the express wishes of the general
meeting without prior reference to it, and always remains
subordinate to the general meeting.
Office Bearers
15.
The duties of the office bearers are as follows:
(a) The President shall act as Chairman at all general and
committee meetings. He shall also represent the Society in its
dealings with outside persons.
(b) The Vice President shall deputize for the President in
the latter’s absence. It shall be the duty of the President and
Vice President as Joint Masters to count the numbers of runners
at the start of each meet and to ensure that all have returned
to the starting point before the remainder have gone home. On
the occasion of the “meet”, they will appoint two harriers to
act as “hares” for the ensuing meet.
(c) The Hon. Secretary and Treasurer shall keep all books
and records of the Association and shall be responsible for
their correctness. He shall collect all monies due to the
Association and shall disburse all monies payable by it. He
will not keep more than $10.00 in the form of cash and any money
collected by him on behalf of the Association shall be paid into
the Association’s bank account. Cheques for withdrawal from the
bank will be signed by the Hon. Treasurer. Full details of all
receipts and payments will be recorded by him in a Cash Book,
the entries being supported where possible by document and
vouchers. It shall be the duty of the Hon. Secretary and
Treasurer to notify members in advance of the date and starting
place of each run.
Weekly Runs
16.
Members who are appointed as “hares” for a meet will arrange to
supply the necessary liquid refreshment and shall be entitled to
recover from the Hon. Treasurer the cost of all liquid
refreshment, and shall be entitled to recover from the Hon.
Treasurer the cost of all drinks, cigarettes and ice consumed.
“Hares” will be held responsible for bringing mugs, bottle
openers, ice, cigarettes, beer, ginger beer, paper and
haversacks to the starting place and will hand over the
non-consumable stores to the “hares” for the following week’s
run at the conclusion of the meet.
17.
Reasonable gaps in the trail may be left by the “hares” and
false trails may be laid at their discretion. Gaps and false
trails must not exceed 50 yards in length and should be
considerably less in belukar or difficult country. Scent should
be sufficiently strong to enable hounds to spend most of the
time in following it and not in wandering round in circles
looking for odd scraps of paper.
18.
“Hares’ are permitted to start 10 minutes before the time
scheduled for the hounds to move off.
Audit
19.
Two persons not members of the Committee will be elected as Hon.
Auditors at each annual general meeting. They will be required
to audit each year’s accounts and to present a report on them to
the annual general meeting. They may be required by the
President to audit the Society’s accounts for any period within
their tenure of office at any date and to make a report to the
committee.
Prohibitions
20.
(a) Gaming and opium smoking at the meets and the introduction
of females and bad characters on runs are prohibited.
(b) The funds of the society shall not be used to
pay the fines of members who have been convicted in court.
(c) Neither the Society nor its members shall
attempt to restrict or in any other manner interfere with trade
or prices or engage in any Trade Union activities as defined in
the Trade Union Enactment, 1940.
(d) The Society shall not hold any lottery,
whether confined to it members or not, in the name of the
Society or its office bearers, committees or members.
Amendments to Rules
21.
No alterations or additions to the rules shall be made except at
a general meeting, and they shall not come into force without
the prior sanction of the Registrar of Societies.
Interpretations
22.
In the event of any question or matter arising out of any point
which is not expressly provided for in the rules, the committee
shall have the power to use their own discretion.
Dissolution
23.
In this Rule, a “member” shall mean anyone who is, in accordance
with the Rules of Society, entitled to vote:
(a) The Society shall not be dissolved, except with the consent
of not less than 3/5ths of the members of the Society expressed,
either in person or by proxy at a general meeting convened for
the purpose, or by postal vote.
(b) In the event of the Society being dissolved as provided
above, all debts and liabilities legally incurred on behalf of
the Society shall be fully discharged and the remaining funds
will be distributed in such a manner as may be decided by the
majority of the members at the general meeting convened for the
purpose of dissolution.
(c) Notice of dissolution will be given within 14 days of
the dissolution to the Registrar of Societies on Form A, signed
by the Committee.
THE
END
This letter was
addressed to the Kuala Lumpur HHH in 1958 by Cecil Lee, one of
the co-founders of the Hash House Harriers. He was a regular
harrier 1938-40, and after the war, 1946-51, then in Borneo for
three years before returning to KL to finish his hashing
1954-57.
"The Hash
House Harriers were founded in a moment of post-prandial
inspiration at the Selangor Club Chambers, about 1937/38, by the
inmates, who included myself, E.J. Galvin, H.M. Doig, and AS
Gispert. Gispert was the real founder – a man of great wit and
charm, who was killed on Singapore Island in February 1942
whilst serving with the Argylls, having only just returned from
leave in Australia to rejoin the volunteers. I am glad of this
opportunity to salute his memory. He was a splendid fellow, and
would be happy to know the Harriers are still going strong, and
are as merry and bright as ever - or more so. Gispert was not an
athlete, and stress was laid as much on the subsequent
refreshment etc. as on the pure and austere running. It was
non-competitive, and abounded in slow packs. Life was then
conservative rather than competitive.
The name was a mock allusion to the institution that housed and
fed us. Later "Torch" Bennett returned from leave, and produced
order out of chaos - a bank account, balance sheet and some
system. But we pride ourselves on being rather disorganised - or
the minimum organization sufficed. The original joint masters
were myself and "Horse" Thompson, still running somewhere – a
past-master at short-cuts and the conservation of energy.
Celebrations
were held in various places, and the first was in what is now
the Legislative Council, then the Volunteer Mess. The oratory, I
recall, was much the same as now.
Llew Davidson
is an old member. Morris Edgar was one, but apart from Llew and
John Wyatt-Smith, I do not think there are any more
antediluvians still running. Philip Wickens was also one who
kept us going post-war.
We started up
again after the war due to Torch Bennett who discovered a Bank
Balance and put in a claim for War Damage on one tin bath, and
two dozen mugs, and possibly two old bags (not members). We
started by a small run in reduced circumstances around the
race-course then the horses were not much better.
The Emergency cramped our style but did not diminish our
activities, and we were called in for information on various
by-ways in Selangor, but our period of usefulness to MI5 was
brief, and our information probably otiose. But the hares ran
into two Bandits at Cheras, who were later copped.
An Irish accountant, Kennedy, drew up the Rules we had to
register as a club, and he seems to have preserved the old
traditions just as you do now."
Selemat
tinggal HHH
Cecil Lee
KUALA LUMPUR
October 24, 1958
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