Talk:2025-12-02 AGM Agenda/Constitutional Changes/Special Resolution, An upper limit on meeting quorum

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Is there actually a problem?

The current requirement is already quite slim in my view. I find it slightly disappointing that so much encouragement is required. Currently, only 360 members are voting members, which is only slightly more than half of our membership, and only 20% of those are currently needed to make the meeting quorate. With a bit of effort last year, we had 94 members checked-in (attending or proxied), which was 32 more than we strictly needed. Even with a more relaxed quorum, as proposed by your change, I suspect we'd still need to do the same amount of "nudging" to get people to attend. -- Aaron (asj) 20:02, 6 November 2025 (UTC)

I agree that 20% is slim. Part of the challenge may be the capacity of the AGM venue, or that attendance must be in person. Have or should other options for encouraging and facilitating attendance be explore first?

-- Tryst (Tryst) 17:32, 9 November 2025 (UTC)

Attendance doesn't need to be in person - attendance includes proxies, which only takes a couple of minutes for people to sort out. Do you have any suggestions for encouraging people to attend?

-- Aaron (asj) 20:21, 9 November 2025 (UTC)

Venue size is not a issue, we used to use Antenna before COVID and that can easily handled our needs before we introduced the reduced needs via Non/Voting rules, Carousel fits where we are at currently but we could always go back to a bigger space.

--'RepRap' Matt 22:33, 9 November 2025 (UTC)

Would not meeting quorum be a bad thing?

The space doesn't run itself, it requires contribution from a large number of members (and not only people on teams, lots of people help in lots of different ways). Getting the opinions of as many members as possible is important to ensure we are heading in a direction membership are comfortable. If we are not quorate, we cannot get those views, and if we make ourself quorate by lowing the requirement, we are more likely to miss things. Is it wise to lower guard rails to prevent that? In the worst case, we get to send a disappointed email and give those that didn't turn up a "kick up the backside" - it might even be healthy. -- Aaron (asj) 20:02, 6 November 2025 (UTC)

Definition of attendance

I don't think a definition of attendance should be added in this clause. It could be added elsewhere, although it likely isn't necessary at all. Proxy votes count because it's stated in the articles of association. -- Aaron (asj) 20:12, 6 November 2025 (UTC)

I agree that it's not needed, if it was it should be elsewhere and worded differently.

--'RepRap' Matt 22:35, 9 November 2025 (UTC)

Surely attendance should count if attending virtually via Zoom, rather than physically in this age.

-- (Ian Turner) 22:40, 9 November 2025 (UTC)

That's a change I'd been keen to see. I don't think there's anything explicitly preventing us from counting those that attend online. The main issue is voting. We generally just go for a show of hands / fingers. Sorting out OpaVote etc for this kind of thing would be a pain and incur additional expense.

-- Aaron (asj) 22:57, 9 November 2025 (UTC)

You can do votes on Zoom and hands in the room, tends to work when doing much more technically challenging meetings with 100+ online attendees and dozens in person. It just needs someone able to manage the voting and poke people to vote online. As long as you don't need to record who voted for what it works great. I'd also prefer it to be another - different - item to vote on though! Andrew Armstrong (talk) 11:02, 10 November 2025 (UTC)

Awkward phrasing

I have nothing to say about the actual change itself at this time, but I do think that the phrasing is rather awkward.

A more clear and concise phrasing would be "An AGM or EGM will be quorate if 20% or fifty (50) voting members attend, whichever is lesser."

Gsuberland (talk) 05:41, 10 November 2025 (UTC)