Eligibility Votes - March 2022

[Jim Webster]

Motion 1 is a constitutional proposal. Doesn't this vote require to be tabled at an AGM or SGM?

The constitution only refers to constitutional votes that are taken at Annual General Meetings or Special General Meetings.
https://www.chessscotland.com/information/constitution/

In actual fact the Constitution does not define when/now a Constitution Motion is tabled but it does require to require formal notice of call on the website and that has been done.

An AGM was supposed to have been the aim a few months back - pandemic restrictions scuppered the idea.
The last management board meeting in October said the plan was to call the AGM in March.
I realize the restrictions were extended in March but these are expected to be lifted in April.

So why no AGM, and what's the rush? Chess clubs are just stuttering back to life.

These two particular issues have been delayed now for 3 years since the working party of the 2019 AGM – and with the increase in activity for domestically and Internationally these seems an appropriate time to deal with this.

 
Additionally, and taking advice from the ICO (GDPR), we are creating an email to all members. This will then allow members, as part of a possible vote, for these motions to be posted and asking them to vote. This is perfectly admissible for the Membership List to be used to notify, and Vote (Proxy vote) and is in fact a legitimate use of the membership. The address will use the BCC option when sending these emails.
 
It is interesting to note that in the past few AGM’s the Proxy Votes out voted the attendance votes. This justifies case whereby members are more than willing to vote by email/vote than actually in person.
 
Holding AGM’s remotely have become much more commonplace and providing we notify all members (email/letter/Noticeboard) the mechanism does not contravene the terms of the Constitution.
 
The Constitution requests: the date be announced in advance, the Directors reports, Motions and all other aspects of AGM business – what it does not say is what/where the locations will be, nor does it prohibit remote meeting.  

As this is an important issue, it's surely desirable to have as representative a membership vote as possible?

A "representative vote" is one that encompasses ALL members, not just those in attendance and the approach we have taking satisfies these requirements.