Meeting procedures
The purpose of your incorporated association and the nature and amount of business it conducts will determine how often you should hold meetings and who should attend.
Your incorporated association must meet at least once a year and the management committee must meet at least once every 4 months. Other meetings might include special general meetings and sub-committee meetings.
A range of procedures may happen at your meetings. Many of them will be specific to the purpose of your association.
However, you should be familiar with these formal procedures that may come up:
- Voting
- Model rules
- Minutes
- Motions
- Special resolutions
Voting
Voting for office-bearers usually takes place at the annual general meeting (AGM).
The meeting chair is responsible for:
- supervising the vote
- administering the process.
Set out the process for your voting in your association’s rules. Depending on your association, the process might be:
- a show of hands
- ballot papers.
Absentee voting
If a member can’t attend a meeting and still wants to vote, they may be able to do so. You will need to outline the ways they can do this in your association rules. They might include:
- appointing a proxy
- using technology to remotely participate
- appointing a lawyer to represent them
- sending a postal vote.
Think carefully about whether to allow postal voting. If you allow it, you will need to set out in the rules:
- what form it takes
- how the process will work.
Model rules
The model rules allow voting to be done:
- in person
- by proxy
- by attorney
- by using any technology that allows a member to take part in discussions in real time.
If you use technology to hold your general meetings, you do not need to state this in your association rules.
Minutes
Your incorporated association must record minutes of all meetings including:
- the AGM
- committee meetings
- general meetings.
Recording the minutes
The minutes should record information at the start of the meeting, such as:
- details of the day, date and place of the meeting
- starting time of the meeting
- names of those present
- apologies received from non-attendees
- a statement from the meeting chair that
- a quorum is present
- the meeting has been duly constituted
- a statement that the minutes of the previous meeting are correct (signed by the meeting chair).
The minutes should also record the ongoing procedures of the meeting. These include details of:
- every resolution or decision, including an overview of the discussions
- if a resolution passed with the required majority
- which members voted against a motion or abstained from voting (only if those members ask for this)
- any appointments made
- any members elected to office
- any member taking a leave of absence.
At the end of the meeting, the minutes should record:
- the date and time of the next meeting (if decided)
- the time that the meeting closed.
Inspecting the minutes
The minutes are an official, permanent record of what happens in a meeting. They should be a clear and concise summary. The secretary must keep the minutes safe, secure and accurate.
If a member asks to see the minute book for a specific general meeting, the secretary must:
- make it available to inspect within 28 days
- negotiate with the member about when and where this takes place
- give a copy of the minutes to the member.
The secretary may ask the member to pay the reasonable costs of this (such as photocopying costs).
Motions
Your association’s rules may set out the process for giving notice of a motion.
The member may need to give notice of the motion to the management committee in order for a matter to be raised as business at the next general meeting. The notice of the motion is usually given to the secretary, who puts it on the agenda for the meeting.
The member must do this before:
- the meeting agenda fills up
- it’s too late to circulate the motion among the members.
Special resolutions
You need a special resolution to change to your association’s legal status. This might be:
- changing the name
- adding, removing or changing rules
- bringing the association to an end.
A special resolution must:
- be presented at a general meeting (including the AGM)
- get 75% of the vote (from members who are present and entitled to vote).