strathspey@strathspey.org:28073

Shellagh Whyte

Re: What happened?

Nov. 7, 2001, 11:09 p.m. (Message 28073, in reply to message 28052)

From William Whyte

My own conclusions regarding the AGM are more positive than those
posted so far.

My first comment would be to console those ardent reformists who
are
disappointed that the Bristol motion was defeated. Personally I
doubt that the amended Exec Council motion would have received
the necessary two-thirds majority vote if it had been the only
choice on the agenda. Having the Bristol motion on the agenda
initiated a debate on what amount of reform to have, rather than
a debate whether to have reform at all.  Thus we (those who want
change)
should be grateful to Bristol for presenting this catalyst. A
move to one member - one vote is not excluded in the longer term,
once we see what a leaner executive system can do.

As a first-time attendee I was impressed by the quality of the
debate, albeit I heard no reasoned/serious argument for a zero
increase
in subscription fee whereas there must be a case to be made for
finding alternative ways to increase the Society's income. If
there is such a pathological distaste for raising subscription
levels there surely are other ways to extract money in a less
painful manner. But again if John Fenningworth had not argued for
a large (percentage-wise) increase to 15GBP the actual increase
to 10GBP might well not have gone through.  My feelings now
however are
that a repeat request at the next AGM will need a more detailed
justification to get approved.

The biggest bonus of the new constitution is that there will be
elections to a Management Board, thus bringing new energy into
the decision-making process.  But this will bring some aspects
probably not present until now, politics for one. I do not know
how much 'politics'  there has been in the past, but where there
are elections there is politics. Issues will be more defined, and
indeed the grand debate; "are we a charitable association intent
on promoting SCD world-wide, or a members association interested
in having fun dancing" might come more to the fore. Since SC
dancers are in no way immune from the human weakness of wanting
to believe in two opposing things at the same time, this is
unlikely to be settled one way or the other, but maybe the
question will be understood by more members than is presently the
case.

Regarding attendance, I do not know whether to be pleased that we
had 235 delegates or not. How many of these were overseas members
and how many were UK members "standing-in" with or without
specific voting instructions? It would be interesting to know the
number of delegates that could have been there if all branches
had been fully represented.

Lastly I was struck by the fact that the results of the votes
were all 'fairly' sensible. I have seen situations in other
associations where the AGM ended up voting for contradictory
resolutions, or making rather unwise leaps into the dark. These
not uncommon mistakes were avoided, despite the fact that the
mish-mash of motions and amendments were not structured for easy
understanding.

So common-sense was well in evidence, yet major progress was made
from a "governance" viewpoint , and we also had a good time
thanks to the Perth Branch. It didn't rain in the real Scottish
style either !


Bill Whyte
personal id xxx@xxxxxxx.xx