Talk:General meetings

Help text from Constitution Builder

Procedures for all general meetings (mandatory section)

The Act requires a society's constitution to set out the procedures for calling and holding general meetings. This includes:

• the intervals between annual general meetings,
• the information that must be presented at general meetings,
• when minutes are required to be kept,
• the manner of calling general meetings,
• how much notice will be given to members,
• the information to be given to members at a general meeting, and
• the quorum and procedures (including voting procedures).

Some other points of note:

• A meeting without a quorum (the minimum number of members required to be present during a meeting) cannot legally make decisions, so you should specify the minimum number of members required to form a quorum in the constitution. If it is not spelt out, the quorum will be deemed to be a majority (more than half) of the society's members.
• A member represented by a proxy is not included when counting the number required to form a quorum, unless the constitution specifically states that proxies are included when calculating whether a quorum is present.

You can choose to include under this rule —

• a provision intended to make it easier for societies with members in remote locations to involve themselves in general meetings,
• a provision stating who should chair a general meeting in different circumstances, and
• a provision setting out useful powers for the chairperson of a general meeting to have.

The last 2 options distinguish between a 'committee motion' and a 'member's motion', with potentially different notice periods for each.