Notice of 2014 Annual General Meeting
Woodstock Runners Inc.
Tuesday 20 May 2014
From 7.30pm for 8.00pm
Woodstock Community Centre, Burwood
22 Church St, Burwood
(Car park accessed via Fitzroy St)
Agenda
1) To confirm the minutes of the 2013 Annual General Meeting;
2) To receive from the committee reports upon the activities of the club during the preceding financial year;
3) To elect office-bearers of the club; (2014 Committee Nomination Form)
4) To receive and consider the annual statement of income and expenditure and assets and liabilities of the club;
5) To consider the following special resolutions:
i. That Sub-section 27.2 of Section 27. Alteration of Objects and Rules of Part 4 – General Meetings have the following words deleted:
“The amendment does not become effective until the approval of Athletics NSW Ltd has been advised to the Club.”
ii. That the existing Section 28. Club Newsletter of Part 5 – Miscellaneous of the Constitution of Woodstock Runners Inc. be replaced with the following words:
“The Club shall use contemporary, efficient and cost effective methods to convey information to members. The Club shall publish a newsletter “The Woodstock Rundown”, which shall be available in email format to each member, or in hardcopy format upon request by any members who prefer this method. The newsletter shall be published at least six times per calendar year.”
6) Other Business
About the special resolutions
- The Constitution is available on web site at: https://www.woodstockrunners.org.au/links/constitution/
- These special resolutions require approval of 75% of members in attendance at the AGM.
- invite questions prior to AGM about the change via email (secretary@woodstockrunners.org.au)invite questions prior to AGM about the change via email (If you have any questions, please email secretary@woodstockrunners.org.au)
- Resolution i. is operational and required in order for Resolution ii, and any future changes to the Constitution to become effective. Presently our Constitution requires that Athletics NSW Limited (ANSW) approve any constitutional changes and advise the Club of their approval, in order for the changes to become effective. However, there is no approval mechanism within ANSW as their applicable by-laws (Section 3. Specialist Member Organisations) do not require the Club to seek ANSW approval before making such changes; the Club is only required to notify ANSW once the changes are effective.
- Resolution ii. is to afford the Club more flexibility in regards to distribution of the Rundown. Rather than a requirement to make it available to all members in hard copy, the committee prefers to make email the primary method of distribution with hard copy being available on request. We set out on the following page, more information about this proposed change.
Special Resolution ii.
PART 5 – MISCELLANEOUS
28. CLUB NEWSLETTER
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Existing:
The Club’s primary method of conveying information to members shall be via “The Woodstock Rundown”. This is the monthly newsletter of the Club, and is to be distributed on the first Tuesday of each month. “The Woodstock Rundown” shall be available in hard copy to each member, or in an email format upon request by any members who prefer this method.
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Proposed:
The Club shall use contemporary, efficient, cost-effective methods to convey information to members. The Club shall publish a newsletter “The Woodstock Rundown”, which shall be available in email format to each member, or in hardcopy format upon request by any members who prefer this method. The newsletter shall be published at least six times per calendar year.
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Argument for the proposed change:
There are three components:
a) The proposed change recognises that there are now many ways the Club can use to provide information to members – e.g. Facebook, email, webs site, Twitter, YouTube as well as the Rundown itself. The Club’s Constitution does not need to specify that the Rundown is the primary method of conveying information. The proposed change instead focusses on ensuring that the conveying of information to members uses “contemporary, efficient, cost-effective methods”.
b) Changing the minimum number of Rundown publications to six per year recognises that the effort in producing it comes from volunteers. It is very likely that the Rundown will continue to be published monthly. Setting the minimum number of publications is attempting to strike a balance between specifying the need for the Club to publish a regular newsletter, and the availability of resources to meet that need.
c) The proposed change makes email the preferred means of sending the Rundown, and relegates using hard copy to being the non-preferred means – i.e. this reflects current practice. Email is more timely and much less expensive than distributing printed material.
Argument against the proposed change:
a) There is no absolute guarantee that the Woodstock Runners web site, Facebook page etc. will always be available to convey information to Woodstock members. A monthly hard copy of the Rundown provides a simple and reliable means of communicating with members. When all else fails, using printed materials has minimal reliance on the availability of internet-based technology and social media.
b) Specifying that a monthly newsletter is produced ensures that there is a regular flow of information to members. It acts as a mechanism to ensure that the Club focusses regularly on keeping members informed of items that are of interest them, or could affect them in some way. It provides for a minimum level of transparency in terms of mandating how often the Club must communicate with members.
