14-05-2016, 06:06 PM
I have a number of comments - one major and several minor.
Section 5 Voting
5.2 should read: Each Member, Club, and Affiliate may nominate a single representative to the Executive Director at least 7 days before the general meeting. Would this revision be correct? If not, and the real intention is to restrict this limitation to Clubs and Affiliates - excluding individual members - then it has implications bearing on how Proxy Votes are to be cast in the case of individual members? See Clauses 5.5 (iii) and 5.6
5.5 (iii) and 5.6 - as they stand - are (unintentionally) controversial. For years, the abuse of Proxy Votes has been a major bugbear. The suggestion that 5.6 prevents such abuse appears innocent. Members need to be informed why the President places such faith in 5.6. On what model does he rely? Not electoral law where the use of proxy vote is very strictly controlled. As drafted, 5.5 (iii) and 5.6 will perpetuate the abuse to which Andy Muir and Steve Hilton refer for the proxy vote will deteriorate into a bloc vote, something that electoral law is designed to prevent. No representative should be allowed to attend an AGM or SGM armed with multiple proxy votes. Indeed, if the intention of 5.2 is to restrict member Clubs and Affiliates to a single representative, then a question is immediately flagged up as to why a nominee should be allowed to represent multiple ordinary members.
How is 5.5 (iii) to be implemented? Does the individual member notify the Executive Director whom he has nominated as his representative, or does the latter notify the Executive Director of all the members’ particulars whose proxies he holds? Whose responsibility is it to declare in advance to the Executive Director what the proxies relate to? How will members communicate/authorise proxy votes to a representative? What will proxy votes comprise? Oral or written, vague or detailed, communication? Just how much work is the Executive Director expected to carry out before it is considered that he is overburdened?
8. EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE/MANAGEMENT BOARD
Does 8.2.6 need to be reconciled with 9.3? (See 9. COUNCIL)
Does 8.2.6.1 need to explain what “a majority of all COUNCIL members …” means? Of those in attendance only? Or the full complement, including absentees?
12. Annual General Meeting (AGM)
12.2 Do proxy votes count towards making up a quorum - whether 10 … or 50% …?
Does 12.4 need to be amended in light of possible revisions elsewhere? See 5. Voting, for example.
12.5 Here it is declared “… sufficient to publish these details on the Chess Scotland internet site.” Elsewhere, in other contexts, it is sometimes stated that email communication could also serve as well as internet. Is there a need to standardise - or not? See, for example, 13.7.
12.9 Here is a very important issue that could be susceptible to abuse of proxy voting - amending the Constitution!
13. Special General Meeting (SGM)
Italicisation of this Section certifies it to have been adopted already, but it is a (slight) pity that (a) SGM is not defined and (b) that 13.4 and 13.5 have already been cast in stone so-to-speak. (But not seriously defective, if at all?)
Comment: The above are to be regarded as observations, NOT criticisms. Very often, when drafting, it is so easy to overlook a detail that may or may not be significant. The Team that has carried out this Constitutional spadework has earned members’ gratitude.
NOTE: I drafted this earlier today before I saw the posts by Mr Watkins and our President and subsequently. I do not regard Transparency as a pressing issue, but I do consider good governance to be in the general interests of Chess Scotland. and the responsibility of our Administrators whether they be called Management Board or Council. The downside of bloc voting is that it will lead to intensified politicking and infighting to promote factions’, cliques’ and cabals’ interests and positions. That need not coincide with Chess Scotland’s interests in general, and in my humble opinion it should not be tolerated. It makes a mockery of an AGM to see representatives turn up in control of more proxies than there are attendants. Given such a scenario, why bother to turn up at all?
George
Section 5 Voting
5.2 should read: Each Member, Club, and Affiliate may nominate a single representative to the Executive Director at least 7 days before the general meeting. Would this revision be correct? If not, and the real intention is to restrict this limitation to Clubs and Affiliates - excluding individual members - then it has implications bearing on how Proxy Votes are to be cast in the case of individual members? See Clauses 5.5 (iii) and 5.6
5.5 (iii) and 5.6 - as they stand - are (unintentionally) controversial. For years, the abuse of Proxy Votes has been a major bugbear. The suggestion that 5.6 prevents such abuse appears innocent. Members need to be informed why the President places such faith in 5.6. On what model does he rely? Not electoral law where the use of proxy vote is very strictly controlled. As drafted, 5.5 (iii) and 5.6 will perpetuate the abuse to which Andy Muir and Steve Hilton refer for the proxy vote will deteriorate into a bloc vote, something that electoral law is designed to prevent. No representative should be allowed to attend an AGM or SGM armed with multiple proxy votes. Indeed, if the intention of 5.2 is to restrict member Clubs and Affiliates to a single representative, then a question is immediately flagged up as to why a nominee should be allowed to represent multiple ordinary members.
How is 5.5 (iii) to be implemented? Does the individual member notify the Executive Director whom he has nominated as his representative, or does the latter notify the Executive Director of all the members’ particulars whose proxies he holds? Whose responsibility is it to declare in advance to the Executive Director what the proxies relate to? How will members communicate/authorise proxy votes to a representative? What will proxy votes comprise? Oral or written, vague or detailed, communication? Just how much work is the Executive Director expected to carry out before it is considered that he is overburdened?
8. EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE/MANAGEMENT BOARD
Does 8.2.6 need to be reconciled with 9.3? (See 9. COUNCIL)
Does 8.2.6.1 need to explain what “a majority of all COUNCIL members …” means? Of those in attendance only? Or the full complement, including absentees?
12. Annual General Meeting (AGM)
12.2 Do proxy votes count towards making up a quorum - whether 10 … or 50% …?
Does 12.4 need to be amended in light of possible revisions elsewhere? See 5. Voting, for example.
12.5 Here it is declared “… sufficient to publish these details on the Chess Scotland internet site.” Elsewhere, in other contexts, it is sometimes stated that email communication could also serve as well as internet. Is there a need to standardise - or not? See, for example, 13.7.
12.9 Here is a very important issue that could be susceptible to abuse of proxy voting - amending the Constitution!
13. Special General Meeting (SGM)
Italicisation of this Section certifies it to have been adopted already, but it is a (slight) pity that (a) SGM is not defined and (b) that 13.4 and 13.5 have already been cast in stone so-to-speak. (But not seriously defective, if at all?)
Comment: The above are to be regarded as observations, NOT criticisms. Very often, when drafting, it is so easy to overlook a detail that may or may not be significant. The Team that has carried out this Constitutional spadework has earned members’ gratitude.
NOTE: I drafted this earlier today before I saw the posts by Mr Watkins and our President and subsequently. I do not regard Transparency as a pressing issue, but I do consider good governance to be in the general interests of Chess Scotland. and the responsibility of our Administrators whether they be called Management Board or Council. The downside of bloc voting is that it will lead to intensified politicking and infighting to promote factions’, cliques’ and cabals’ interests and positions. That need not coincide with Chess Scotland’s interests in general, and in my humble opinion it should not be tolerated. It makes a mockery of an AGM to see representatives turn up in control of more proxies than there are attendants. Given such a scenario, why bother to turn up at all?
George