Constitution - Frequently Asked Questions

28th July 2011

The following lists some Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) concerning the proposed changes of SBW's Constitution.

How are the roles of Committee Members to be determined each year?

The current roles are detailed in the Procedures Manual (available for perusal in the Member's area of the website on Documents & Forms page). The serving Committee will draw on its expertise and knowledge of the current needs of the club/committee to determine the draft roles in Q4 of each year. These draft roles would then be advertised during the nomination process in SBW's magazine, The Sydney Bushwalker, in Dec/Jan to Members. The Members can then comment on these proposals as they see fit, ahead of each year’s AGM and the conduct of the elections.

In addition, as a 'check and balance', an 'Activities Sub Committee' will be formed of experienced active Leaders/Subject Matter Experts representing the Club's various activities (we used to have such a Sub Committee in the past) to assist the Management Committee and advise on such matters as Leader skilling, endorsement of Leaders, endorsement of Activity Programs, etc.

How will receiving nominations ahead of the AGM be conducted?

The change in the Constitution is to have nominations in writing received a minimum of 7 days prior to the Annual General Meeting (AGM). The approach would be to actively source them well prior:

1. then announce the 'Slate of Candidates' at a meeting prior to the AGM 
2. then ask for more nominations to fill any gaps
3. communicate this by email to the Members (and ask for more nominations)
4. do a phone around to chase more nominations (i.e. the above is basically exactly what we do at present)
5. then, 6 days prior to the AGM, email out the final Slate to the Members and publish it on the website
6. On the night of the AGM, any positions without nominations are left vacant. The new Committee then immediately declares these as 'Casual Vacancies' which can then be filled from the floor  
   

When and how will electronic voting be conducted?

This is just to provide an option for future committees if there is strong competition for positions (i.e. there are multiple candidates). Electronic Voting will be an option along with Postal Voting – and the procedure is almost exactly the same, as the electronic vote is really just an electronic version of a postal vote.

The process for electronic voting would be to email out a link with a unique code to each Member. With the code, Members will be able to access electronic voting and then cast a secure vote. The results will go to independent Scrutineers for announcing to the Members at the AGM.

A range of commercial software is currently available to do this. For example, there is 'Vote Now' - http://www.vote-now.com/ or Survey Monkey - http://www.surveymonkey.com/Default.aspx- which is a bit cheaper.