Homenetmen’s Charter and Bylaw
Soon after its creation, Homenetmen developed a charter and bylaw to regulate the organization’s operations and activities across its ever-increasing chapters, reinforce the relationship between chapters and the Central Committee, and establish an order for the admittance of new. For that reason, Homenetmen created a committee of three leaders (H. J. Sirouni, Krikor Hagopian and Dikran Khoyian) to manage the task of drafting the organization’s Charter and Bylaw.
H. J. Sirouni (Hagop Jololian), an prominent and experienced figure of the Armenian community in Constantinople and the editor-in-chief of “Azadamard” Daily, drafted Homenetmen’s first Charter and Bylaw composed of 66 articles. Following to discussions and revisions, it was adopted by the 4th Homenetmen General Assembly, held on June 19, 1921 in Constantinople.
Together with the organization’s first Charter and Bylaw, the first Homenetmen Scouting Charter was also developed. It was comprised of 33 articles.
Later on, the Homenetmen Charter and Bylaw and the Homenetmen Scouting Charter were revised during the first Homenetmen General Assembly, held in Paris in 1931.
In modern times, the Homenetmen Charter and Bylaw was subjected to an overall revision. It was approved and adopted by the General Assembly in 1974, in Beirut. This Assembly was the first one with representatives from the organization’s worldwide structure. Since then, the Charter and Bylaw have been revised and improved on nine further occasions.
The introductory paragraph of the Charter and Bylaw declares: “Homenetmen’s General Charter and Bylaw is inspired by the organization’s unwritten character and demographic principles that are the pillars of our youth-focused and idealistic organization”.
Homenetmen’s current Charter and Bylaw is comprised of 143 articles that were last revised and approved by the organization’s 11th General Assembly in Armenia in 2015.