The proposed four get added to by free nomination. We could also take several nominations from austechwriter who aren't ASTC. We decide on the number of masters we want, I suggest 5 minimum, and vote. Anyone can apply to be an apprentice, waiting sign off from a master for fellowship. That can occur through the presentation of appropriate credentials, or submission of an example of work, history with the industry and so on. Totally up to the Master how they want to establish it. After a year, we have the Masters vote a journey man from amongst them, and start to establish some standards. It may be time to increase the number of masters at that time - they come from senior fellows.
All members must provide a current contact point and their areas of expertise for a publicly listed charter in order to retain their good standing. They may only apply for an upgrade in status every 3 years, or longer if deemed so by a Master.
Once a branch has a journey man, it can allow the creation of other branches from its charter. For example, 12 Canadians have joined our registrar and two are senior fellows. They say they have another half dozen who will join when they have a branch, and the masters decide that they satisfy the requirements of maintaining a registrar and having self-voted two masters. The masters must work with the journmey man for the first x cases to establish standards. The journey man then keeps tabs on them until they have their own journey man.
The journeyman should always have the final say on whether a new branch can be formed. This way we prevent pointless sub-groups of every smaller numbers. All registrars must point to their parent's registrar and any children registrars. Registrars can only be unavailable for three days at a time.
A branch shall be said to be active when the registration of its members has moved from the parent to the sub-branch.
Standings can be challenged by senior fellows or by a group of 5 fellows or more. Another Master must perform an assessment, using different criteria to the first Master. Should the standing be disallowed, on the third such occasion the Master must be demoted to senior fellow for at least 5 years.
After achieving full fellowship, I suggest probationary fellowships of 3 years for anyone without 3 years experience as a professional technical writer, a fellow can apply for rating in a specialisation. Journeymen may appoint the first known specialist of Senior Fellow or higher. These people can list the specialisation against themselves and perform the assessment for the Master, reporting to the Master with results and conclusions. This way, if there is enough member pressure, new specialist categories can be formed, with an agreeable specialist for signoff. This can only occur once the person is a techncial writer with the core skills. Idle branch specialists may volunteer to assess members in other branches. Should such member be a senior fellow or higher, the branch is now capable of self-assessment in the specialisation. Three specialisation challenge failures remove the specialisation from the member for a period not less than 3 years.
Any failure gets wiped from the record after 5 years. This way long serving and hard working Masters and specialists don't neccesarily suffer for their workload.
Whatever charter exists, members must vote on any proposed changes to the charter with a simple majority required and over 60% of the members vote.