On Wed, 4 Sep 2013, Brian May <brian@microcomaustralia.com.au> wrote:
The issue I have is that only a tiny percentage of the overall membership (based on subscribers to luv-announce) bothered to vote or turn up, so you can't really claim that the vote represents the views of the members.
Traditionally the AGM gets a significantly smaller number of members attending than any other meeting. This AGM had a 50% greater attendance than last year in spite of the fact that it had about hald the attendance of a typical meeting. Most members don't want to be involved in running the organisation, they just want to attend when there's a lecture on. To some extent that is OK, if you approve of every candidate who is nominated for committee then it's OK to not bother voting IMHO.
Also doesn't matter how good the arguments made at the meeting are, the proxy voters have already decided. So there is a need for high quality information to be distributed before the meeting (e.g. FAQ for or against the proposal). The mailing list is a poor way of distributing such information, on a controversial issue like this.
No there were enough people attending the meeting to carry the motion if the vast majority of them were in favor. Daniel, could you please publish the LibreOffice presentation you used at the meeting? -- My Main Blog http://etbe.coker.com.au/ My Documents Blog http://doc.coker.com.au/