On Wed, Dec 3, 2008 at 2:35 PM, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
I don't see anything particularly hard to manage with a 1000 members company. Most people won't attend the AGMs and will vote by proxy. If a significant number do attend the AGM then it would need to be run a little more formally, a show of hands isn't likely to work for anything but the most uncontroversial resolutions, but that's not too difficult. I don't see how you can disenfranchise 90% of the membership just for convenience, it goes completely against the democratic ideals of the chapter.
Absolutely. Amnesty International (Swiss section) for example switched recently back to a system with AGMs where every single member can, in theory, attend. It's not like more than a tiny fraction of the members would ever consider doing so -- if they are anyway just in to support the association (and not because they want to take a very active part in it), then they won't bother to spend an afternoon at an assembly-meeting.
If it gets really really unmaneuvrable and if you once experience an AGM where 750 people want to join, *then* you can start thinking in terms of local branches and delegates (i.e. you have county-level or so branches, which each elect 1-2 delegates who then go to the national AGM which is then no longer a general meeting but a delegates' meeting).
But this, really, would be a loss in democracy and as long as the AGMs work smoothly, you've got good and easy procedures on proxy voting etc. I really don't see any reason for such a disenfranchisement either.
Michael