Cycling UK Forum

bikepacker wrote:Was there anything resolved at the Council Meeting with regard to AGM voting or this topic?

Sorry - I meant to do this yesterday.

Greg Price, ably supported by Kevin Mayne and John Catt won the day - the voting papers will be handled by the Electoral Reform Society.

I thought that the £4000 was a big wodge of cash, but Peter Jackson and John Catt pointed to the National Office costs that could be stripped out, and also pointed out that the ballot papers were pretty complicate, and if the ERS designed them they could then use their scanners to read them.

So, postals and proxies have to be in by 48 hours before the AGM

You can vote by post
You can vote by proxy and specify your vote - so, for example, I could mandate you to vote in a certain way.
You can simply hand your vote over to the person of your choice and ask them to vote as they see fit

The tricky one, is, in theory, amendments. To be honest I don't think that anybody is going to amend the contentious resolutions - amending the Special Resolution would be a disaster, opening up the entire process to judicial review. But, unless you give your vote over to somebody else and tell them to get on with it, you will not vote for amendments. To repeat - I simply don't think that will happen.

Sorry if I'm being a bit thick but how can proxies have to be in 48 hours before the AGM yet you can still hand your vote to someone to vote as they see fit?

Simon L6 wrote:

bikepacker wrote:Was there anything resolved at the Council Meeting with regard to AGM voting or this topic?

Sorry - I meant to do this yesterday.

Greg Price, ably supported by Kevin Mayne and John Catt won the day - the voting papers will be handled by the Electoral Reform Society.

I thought that the £4000 was a big wodge of cash, but Peter Jackson and John Catt pointed to the National Office costs that could be stripped out, and also pointed out that the ballot papers were pretty complicate, and if the ERS designed them they could then use their scanners to read them.

So, postals and proxies have to be in by 48 hours before the AGM

You can vote by post
You can vote by proxy and specify your vote - so, for example, I could mandate you to vote in a certain way.
You can simply hand your vote over to the person of your choice and ask them to vote as they see fit

The tricky one, is, in theory, amendments. To be honest I don't think that anybody is going to amend the contentious resolutions - amending the Special Resolution would be a disaster, opening up the entire process to judicial review. But, unless you give your vote over to somebody else and tell them to get on with it, you will not vote for amendments. To repeat - I simply don't think that will happen.

(I've put the words in bold). If you vote one way by post and the resolution you have voted on is amended will your vote then be void?

JT wrote:Sorry if I'm being a bit thick but how can proxies have to be in 48 hours before the AGM yet you can still hand your vote to someone to vote as they see fit?

the Electoral Reform Society distributes the proxies - quite how this is done I don't know.

What I do know is that if the person casting the proxy vote on your behalf doesn't turn up, then you lose the vote.

JT wrote:Sorry if I'm being a bit thick but how can proxies have to be in 48 hours before the AGM yet you can still hand your vote to someone to vote as they see fit?

The proxy form has to be 'registered' with National Office (or in this case the ERS). They will then note who has how many proxies - the member can also provide a copy of the proxy form to their proxy.

If the proxy form isn't registered, or the proxy fails to attend the meeting, then the vote will not be counted.

If a motion is amended at the meeting, then proxy votes may not be counted. It depends on the level of the amendment. If the amendment is minor and doesn't change the substance of the motion, then votes can be counted. If the substance of the motion is changed, then it would not be proper to count proxy votes. However, as I've said before, I would expect CTC Council to present the membership with a properly drafted and clear motion on which to vote. There should be no reason for it to be amended at the meeting. If they can't organise something as simple as a motion, then CTC is really in trouble.

I think I should note that CTC Council has only agreed in pronciple that it will go with using the Electoral Reform Society to oversee the charity vote this year. A final decision will be made on 27 February, when the costs have been clarified.

Thanks Greg, that's clear now.

If I've got hold of this correctly, there are administratively two types of proxy. There is what might be called a personal proxy, where somebody who's not going entrusts their vote to a friend or similar who is. The person attending then has, in layman's terms, two votes. Then, there is what we might call the postal proxy, where people who will not be attending submit their vote in advance by post but for procedural reasons they are giving their proxy, normally to the Chair to vote according to their expressed preference. The Chair might normally have a wodge of nays and a wodge of ayes.

Depending on the standing orders of the relevant organisation, there can be various rules about amendments and as others have noted, skilled proceduralists will sometimes try to use this to have the opposing proxies discounted.

A couple of things occur to me. First, if somebody is intending campaigning for "no" proxies, they need to give pretty clear instructions to their potential supporters. There will normally be a couple of boxes to tick to give a proxy to the Chair. (One giving the proxy and the other indicating which way he should vote.) I'm not sure that the ERS postal voting forms I've seen (usually building society votes) even have the facility for naming an alternative proxy - it's just assumed you'll give them the form to take along, IIRC.

If I'm right and if a "No" figurehead proxy arrived at the meeting with a substantial number of proxies it would create an immediate administrative problem of verification and counting.

On top of that, as I suggested in an earlier post, this might put the Chair in a difficult personal position because it would imply that that number of members felt unable to trust the Chair with their proxy - IMO.

What a situation the CTC seems to have stumbled into.

If the proxies have to be notified in advance, how could it create an administrative problem?

drossall wrote:If the proxies have to be notified in advance, how could it create an administrative problem?

It wouldn't - or at least not at the meeting. I'm saying that I'm not certain that they have to be.

thirdcrank wrote:If I've got hold of this correctly, there are administratively two types of proxy. There is what might be called a personal proxy, where somebody who's not going entrusts their vote to a friend or similar who is. The person attending then has, in layman's terms, two votes. Then, there is what we might call the postal proxy, where people who will not be attending submit their vote in advance by post but for procedural reasons they are giving their proxy, normally to the Chair to vote according to their expressed preference. The Chair might normally have a wodge of nays and a wodge of ayes.

Depending on the standing orders of the relevant organisation, there can be various rules about amendments and as others have noted, skilled proceduralists will sometimes try to use this to have the opposing proxies discounted.

A couple of things occur to me. First, if somebody is intending campaigning for "no" proxies, they need to give pretty clear instructions to their potential supporters. There will normally be a couple of boxes to tick to give a proxy to the Chair. (One giving the proxy and the other indicating which way he should vote.) I'm not sure that the ERS postal voting forms I've seen (usually building society votes) even have the facility for naming an alternative proxy - it's just assumed you'll give them the form to take along, IIRC.

If I'm right and if a "No" figurehead proxy arrived at the meeting with a substantial number of proxies it would create an immediate administrative problem of verification and counting.

On top of that, as I suggested in an earlier post, this might put the Chair in a difficult personal position because it would imply that that number of members felt unable to trust the Chair with their proxy - IMO.

What a situation the CTC seems to have stumbled into.

I'm entirely cheerful about the voting procedure

1. I cannot foresee any circumstances in which an amendment to the Special Resolution will be proposed, let alone passed. To do so would be completely irresponsible, and open the decision up to judicial review. The CTC might get a bit daft at times, but we're not that daft

2. The Chair might be in an embarrassing position, but not a difficult one. He'll have the votes tallied by the ERS, and he'll cast them accordingly.

I have to say that I am appalled by the way the pro merger Councillors have been given the email addresses of their regional members for the purposes of sending messages refuting the contents of Simon's article in 'Cycle'. The two articles were printed side by side to give both sides of the debate. The messages sent out by the Councillors have undermined the seemingly fair way the matter was treated in 'Cycle'.

John and Greg will be attempting to lay hands on the e-mail addresses for the Southeast and London. In the mean time - we have at least one supporter in high places..

Family and household members - individual votes or just the one?

glueman wrote:Family and household members - individual votes or just the one?

I believe it's individual votes, and that second, third and fourth members have to request a ballot paper - but I'm sure there will be full details in the next mag.

I had to snigger at this one...