Organisation/2016 EGM

A General Meeting of London Hackspace has been called by the membership under section 303 of the Companies Act 2006. This meeting will be held on Wednesday January 13th at 19:30 in the Classroom at London Hackspace.

Agenda items for this meeting are no longer being accepted.

Members wishing to vote on resolutions in this meeting should consider the discussion on the mailing list while making their decision on how to vote.

Agenda

All resolutions to remove a person as a member or director (resolutions #1, #2, and #3) will be voted on by online poll which will start seven days after the meeting. If you wish to vote on these resolutions only, we will be providing a simple way to register for a proxy vote for this poll shortly.

Special Resolution 1

That Dean Forbes is removed as a member of London Hackspace..

Proposed by Thomas Greer. (A 75% majority is required to pass this resolution)

Resolution 2

That Dean Forbes is removed as a director of London Hackspace.

Proposed by Thomas Greer.

Special Resolution 3

That Thomas Greer should be banned as a member of the Hackspace. This ban should be reviewed by the Trustees annually.

Proposed by Tom Hodder. (A 75% majority is required to pass this resolution)

Special Resolution 4

Amend Article 23(b) as follows: "The number of directors shall be not less than three, nor more than twelve.” This has the effect that the number of trustees of the hackspace would be increased to 12, and that this should be achieved by appointing one additional trustee at each yearly election, until the total number of trustees is 12. (over the next 3 years)

Proposed by Tom Hodder. (A 75% majority is required to pass this resolution)

Special Resolution 5

Remove Article 31(b).

This removes the requirement in the articles for a director to be a member of London Hackspace.

Proposed by Tom Hodder. (A 75% majority is required to pass this resolution)

Resolution 6

The grievance procedure is not fit for purpose as it stands; it needs to be reviewed, and documented, it must satisfy the following requirements:

• That time frames are set for when a complaint can be made (i.e. current events only) and relating to the response and actioning of it
• Satisfy “separation of duties” requirements from the main activities of the board
• That the directors tasked with this role are changed on a periodic basis (not longer than 6 months)
• Have independent oversight by a professional person i.e. accountant, solicitor, etc. (and not a Director of LHS) to prevent the potential for abuse and maladministration
• Have an appeals process
• That complete and proper records are kept
• That this is added to the memorandum and articles of association as appropriate i.e. in the formal statutory documentation

That no cases are progressed until these balances and processes are in place

Proposed by Sara Ensor

Resolution 7

That an improved Grievance Procedure is produced by the Trustees in full consultation with the membership and approved in a monthly meeting within the next two months. The procedure should consider that Trustees are volunteers with often limited amounts of time available.

This procedure should provide that:

• Reasonable limits are imposed on the age of complaints and the amount of time in which Trustees should deal with them.
• The nature of evidence which should be considered by the Trustees in evaluating a complaint, both under the Rules and the Code of Conduct, is clearly defined.
• The level of evidence required to issue informal and formal warnings is clearly defined.
• The largest possible amount of information about each case should be made available to the membership, considering that some complaints may contain information that the complainant wishes to keep confidential, and also that members who are being complained about should not be unreasonably judged by honest mistakes.
• Records should be kept of all complaints and their resolution.
• If possible, a method of appealing against a Grievance Procedure judgment should be available.
• Any changes to this approved Grievance Procedure should be made by the membership, and not by the Trustees alone.

Proposed by Russ Garrett

Special Resolution 8

Amend Article 26 to read:

(d) Retiring directors may stand for re-election unless they have already been elected two consecutive times.

(e) A director who has retired due to the limit in 26(d) will not be eligible to stand in a directors election for three years.

This imposes a term limit of two terms on trustees.

Proposed by Sara Ensor (A 75% majority is required to pass this resolution)

Special Resolution 9

That the attached amendments to the Articles of Association are adopted.

Proposed by Russ Garrett. (A 75% majority is required to pass this resolution.) This resolution will adopt the changes to the Articles as outlined in this pull request.

Proxy Votes

You may appoint a proxy for this meeting by sending an email to the Chair at russ@london.hackspace.org.uk from the email address associated with your membership account, with the subject "EGM Proxy" stating:

• The name of the member you wish to nominate as your proxy. (You may nominate the Chair as your proxy.)
• If you wish, instructions on how the proxy should vote.

The Chair will abstain on all proxy votes unless instructed otherwise. Proxy votes for resolutions #1, #2, and #3 are not necessary as everyone who has sent a proxy application will be able to vote directly on the online poll.