13. To receive and vote upon a proposal from Jerry Hone seconded by Mark Jackson, that rule 19 which currently reads as follows:

The committee shall consist of flag officers ex-officio and not more than 9 members of the club with voting rights, making a total of 14 members, elected by the club in general meeting to hold office until the conclusion of the next annual general meeting, at least six of whom shall be boat owners. Seven members including at least one flag officer shall constitute a quorum.

Be replaced with:

The committee shall consist of flag officers ex-officio and not more than 9 members of the club aged 16 or over, making a total of 14 members, elected by the club in general meeting to hold office until the conclusion of the next annual general meeting, at least six of whom shall be boat owners. Non-voting members of the committee must not exceed 22% of the total number. Seven members including at least one flag officer shall constitute a quorum.M

14. To receive and vote upon a proposal from Mark Jackson seconded by Trevor Barling, that rule 36(a) which currently read as follows:

At a general meeting of the club members in categories B, E and I shall have one vote. Each adult member in category A shall have one vote.

Be replaced with:

At a general meeting of the club the following members are entitled to vote

• A - Family members. Each adult member
• B - Full members. Each adult member
• C - Junior members. No vote
• D - Senior Citizens. No vote
• E - Student members. Each adult member
• F - Associate members. No vote
• G - Honorary members. No vote
• H - Temporary members. No vote
• I - Young adult members. Each adult member

That rule 8 (c) which currently reads as follows be removed if the change to rule 36(a) is approved:

It will be noted that categories C,D,F,G and H have no voting rights.

Approve the following modifications if the above is approved. It is proposed that each of these will be voted on in turn:

• Mod 1 - Family members. All members over 16 years of age on the date of the general meeting
• Mod 2 - Junior Members. All members over 16 years of age on the date of the general meeting
• Mod 3 - Senior Citizens. Each adult member
• Mod 4 - Associate members. Each adult member. (Rule 5 will be amended if approved by removing “and shall not have voting rights” )
• Mod 5 - Honorary members. Each adult member

Rule Changes - The Background

As you can see from the AGM notice, we have a couple of rule changes proposed.
Prior to the AGM, here’s the background behind the proposals for everyone to think about before the day.

First, Rule 19 refers to the composition of the General Committee. As it stands at the moment, only members eligible to vote at AGM may be members of the General Committee. While this seems very reasonable at first glance, it needs to be highlighted that we are a small club and are struggling to get enough members to join the committee –one meeting this year did not have a quorum.

Although the rule change doesn’t in itself give us the extra committee members, it opens up the number of people we can choose from. There are also a few other things to note here...I’ve been told by various members over the last 2-3 years that they may consider joining the committee after they retire and have more time.
This is fine unless they also decide to give up sailing and join as a Senior... In this situation, they could not be committee members with the rule as it stands.

We also have Associate members with skills that may be useful to the Committee, but again they’re not eligible at present.

And finally, we already have a club Junior sitting on the Sailing Committee, so it seems reasonable to extend that to allow responsible Juniors onto the main committee. This rule change on its own does not in any way change any member’s voting rights at AGM. The committee understand that there’s historically been reluctance to give what could be considered extra power to Associates, for example, and for this reason, there’s been an upper limit placed on the number of “non-voting” members. The 22% percentage equates to a maximum of 3 on a full 14 man committee.

The second rule change proposal for 36(a) regards voting rights for the membership at AGM.
The wording proposed is simply a rewrite of the existing rule and doesn’t impact the status quo in any way. However, the committee are proposing this rule change to allow the associated modifications shown in the AGM notice to be subsequently voted on.

While the committee were discussing the committee rule change above, there was a view put forward that it didn’t seem right that a member could have full voting rights at committee but not at the AGM.

It was also pointed out that it doesn’t seem right that a member who’s been able to vote at AGM for 30 years as a full member suddenly loses that right if he gives up sailing as a Senior. We have Associates, Seniors etc. who put into the club, but have no vote at AGM.
The discussion always seems to head back to several years ago when some social members wanted to virtually take over the club – before my time, I must add. We now have processes in place where new members can’t join directly as Associates without a previous connection to the club, as well as an upper limit on total Associate membership, so in my view, we are now protected from the “social takeover”, and this argument no longer holds water.

Should this proposal be passed, we will then take each membership category in turn and decide as a club whether we would like to extend AGM voting rights to them.

Finally, it should be noted that if both 19 and 36(a) are passed with all of its modifications, the 22% committee limit would still be valid, but would hardly apply.

I’m sure that these rule change proposals will promote some healthy debate, as they did at the last Committee meeting.

Jerry Hone

Commodore