Chess Scotland Constitution

[Andy Howie]

Thread for discussion around the new proposed constitution

[amuir]

My concerns:

5.6. Proxy votes - these have been abused in the past - I would add : "A member attending the meeting will have a maximum of 2 proxy votes ( 3 if travelling more than 100 miles to meeting)"

12.3.2. Election of President, Executive Directors, Directors and other positions from the Individual members willing to serve - Some people have performed poorly in the past - I would put " All posts will be elected for a 1-year term"

I see no mention of selection oversight post which I am happy with

Although not a constitutional issue - the issue of " all adult Scottish Champions must be SCO affiliated " should be voted on.

I probably can't make meeting on 21st May so please cast my vote for the above points in my absence.

[George Neave]

My concerns:

5.6. Proxy votes - these have been abused in the past - I would add : "A member attending the meeting will have a maximum of 2 proxy votes ( 3 if travelling more than 100 miles to meeting)"

12.3.2. Election of President, Executive Directors, Directors and other positions from the Individual members willing to serve - Some people have performed poorly in the past - I would put " All posts will be elected for a 1-year term"

I see no mention of selection oversight post which I am happy with

Although not a constitutional issue - the issue of " all adult Scottish Champions must be SCO affiliated " should be voted on.

I probably can't make meeting on 21st May so please cast my vote for the above points in my absence.

For the recrod, I disagree on both these points.

1) Of course there is no reason to limit number of proxys that 1 member may represent - just follow normal corporate governance here.

2) 1 year is not long enough. I'd say limit the top job to 3 or 5 years but beyond that, in an small organisation run by volunteers, it is not helpful to add further restrictions to terms of office.

[amuir]

George - when I stood for ID - I got proxy votes against me from one person of 11 last year and 87 a previous year - this is not democratic.
3 years is too long to wait being stuck with the wrong person.

[mclarke]

Surely the votes are in favour of someone else, rather than against someone? (no knowledge of the situation!)

I think online voting solves a lot of the proxy issues - but you've got issues with items that just come from the floor on the day. It'd be good if you could online vote on the issues and then designate a proxy for any items that come up on the day.

How do you envisage the online voting working? Will votes be public or private?

[Andy Howie]

The idea currently being floated will be to have online voting to stop a mass of proxy votes. I have already worked out the mechanism to do it but can't implement until we have the new constitution. It will not be in place for this years AGM but will be going forward

Not sure what you mean by private or public.

The person has to be recognizable as a member (or they don't have a vote), they cannot be anonymous. The method I am going to use for this should if we can get it working properly, stamp the vote with the persons Pno.

I am intending to use the member login on the Chess Scotland Website for this in a similar manner to the grading login.

Will each persons vote be published, no. Some people like to use a proxy so their voting intentions are not known (and I [u]never[/u] divulge how someone has voted to anyone else. The list of people who have voted this way would be listed in the minutes.

[Andy Howie]

Although not a constitutional issue - the issue of " all adult Scottish Champions must be SCO affiliated " should be voted on.

There was a quite robust discussion on this at the Council meeting. Fair to say there was not consensus either way. It was decided to pass this to the AGM to decide (it won't form part of the SGM / Constitution debate as it falls under standing orders)

[Andy Howie]

George - when I stood for ID - I got proxy votes against me from one person of 11 last year and 87 a previous year - this is not democratic.
3 years is too long to wait being stuck with the wrong person.

Except there are mechanisms there to remove someone from post.

[mclarke]

Will each persons vote be published, no.

Yeah, that's what I was meaning by public vs private.

[andyburnett]

Although not a constitutional issue - the issue of " all adult Scottish Champions must be SCO affiliated " should be voted on.

There was a quite robust discussion on this at the Council meeting. Fair to say there was not consensus either way. It was decided to pass this to the AGM to decide (it won't form part of the SGM / Constitution debate as it falls under standing orders)

Having unfortunately missed the meeting, can someone post some 'Cliff notes' on the pro/anti arguments?