Notice of AGM
Notice is given that the 21st Annual General Meeting of the Society will be held at The King's Fund, Cavendish Square, London W1G 0AN at 11.15am on Saturday 4th October 2008 at which the following business will be transacted:
- Apologies for Absence
- Minutes of the last AGM
- To Elect a Chair, Vice-Chair and Treasurer
- To Elect the Executive Committee
- To Consider the Annual Report and Accounts
- To Appoint Auditors
- To consider and, if thought fit, pass the following Resolution:
"THAT the Constitution of The Ménière's Society be altered as follows: by the insertion in Clause 4(c), after the words "Honorary Officers shall", of the words "ex officio";
by the deletion of Clauses 4(d) and 5(c) and the consequent renumbering of the later sub-clauses in each of those clauses;
by the insertion, after Clause 8, of the following new Clause to be numbered 9, with the consequent renumbering of each of the following Clauses and the cross-references to those Clauses:
"The Society in General Meeting may from time to time elect from full members of the Society a President and/or one or more Vice-Presidents of the Society and may determine the period for which they shall hold office. Such President or Vice-President shall not be deemed to be an Honorary Officer and need not be a member of the Committee but shall, if not a member of the Committee, be entitled to receive notice of and attend and speak, but not to vote, at all meetings of the Committee."
- Any Other Business
By Order of the Executive Committee
Natasha Harrington-Benton, Director
Notes
Items 3 & 4: Nomination of Executive Committee
Only full members of the Society, whether individual or representative, are eligible to serve as Honorary Officers or members of the Executive Committee. Members can nominate any eligible person as a Trustee or Officer.
Nominations for Honorary Officers or additional members of the Committee must be made by full members of the Society in writing and with the consent of the nominee. Nomination papers will be sent on request and must be received by the Society's Head Office at least 28 days before the Annual General Meeting; signed by both the nominee and proposer.
Item 7: Proposed Alterations to Constitution
The Society's Constitution (Clause 5(c)) at present requires a Trustee to retire after six years and he or she is not then eligible for re-election for a further two years. While in principle some time limit is unobjectionable, the fact is that if this provision remains in place, should a number of Trustees retire at the same time this could result in the loss of a quorum, (a quorum being four). The Trustee body noted this as a current possibility. Under the present Constitution, of the nine current Trustees, seven will retire in 2011 and the remaining two in 2012; during 2008/9 a possible four may be added, insufficient to fill the Trustee requirement.
Furthermore, understandably and perhaps desirably, the office of Chairman has in recent years been filled by a Trustee who has been on the Committee for four or five years, so that his time in office, however successful, has in practice been limited to one or two years, following which he has had to retire from the Committee. The proposed amendments to the constitution would remove the six year time limit on Trustees, while still limiting Honorary Officers to six years' service as such.
At present, on retirement from office the Chairman automatically remains a member of the Committee for one year (whether he wants to or not!). In view of the ability of the Committee to co-opt members anyway, it seems better to dispense with this provision (Clause 4(d)).
It should be noted that, regardless of what is said above, members will continue to have the right to appoint (and remove) Trustees and Honorary Officers each year at the AGM.
For years the Society has had a President, Marie Nobbs. Strangely, the Constitution does not provide for a President, so that it is not clear what the role is, nor for how long they serve, nor is it clear whether the Society could appoint Vice-Presidents. It is proposed to include a new clause in the constitution which would regularise this, to allow the Committee to decide the term of office of such persons and to make clear that such a person could attend Committee Meetings. There is, at the moment, no suggestion of making any changes to the present arrangements.
The final change is to make clear that Honorary Officers are, ex officio, members of the Executive Committee.
Any member wishing to see a copy of the present Constitution should contact the office on 0845 120 2975.
Under the Constitution any alteration to it requires the assent of two thirds of members voting at the Meeting.