Suspended (Voting) Tensions

The Vertical Life Mag (VL) has published a spot-on account of the things which happened at the recent Victorian Climbing Club (VCC) AGM. However the AGM isn't over yet and has only been adjourned but we'll get to that later. VL opens their article with this statement:

Did the Australian Climbing Association Victoria (ACAV) succeed in taking control of the Victorian Climbing Club (VCC) at last night’s AGM? 

Yes, and no.

Yes because if you look up the term "branch stacking" that was a textbook example of what happened and No because if you see this as an armed assault, that obviously didn't happen. Yes because ACAV affiliated members took the majority of the committee and No because half of the officers don't have an ACAV affiliation. 

Packed to the rafters - 2019 AGM Part I

As VL pointed out, there were over 100 members in the room & online, therefore you can't say a minority wrestled their way in ... or can you?  It's a substantial amount of members who wanted the committee to be replaced - there's no doubt about that. However also a substantial amount of members (over 30) only signed up with the club in September - one of them is now on the committee. The bottom-line is that everything happened within the rules - whether you like it or not - and the result needs to be accepted.
Now let's have a look at the committee and other functions. The new committee looks like this:

2019 changes of the VCC committee

Although some of the members tagged as "ACAV" have resigned from that club, they are still in some way affiliated. E.g. James McIntosh was on the how-to-vote-card which was handed out that night although he isn't an ACAV member anymore. The non-committee function are simply appointments by the committee and can also be done by committee members themselves.

How-to-vote-card

The club is now in what I'd describe a post Brexit referendum situation. You voted on the future of the organisation however it wasn't a landslide win. In fact it was really close which means almost half of the membership base didn't vote for the current president and other members of the committee.

It's now in the hands of the new committee to demonstrate via actions that they can unite the membership base, gain the trust of those who didn't vote for them, keep the social part of the club alive and make progress regarding climbing access. Personally I hope I'm wrong regarding the intentions of the new committee members but only time will tell.

What's Next?

The AGM has only been adjourned since it got late. There are two more resolutions to decide on: "Should the club affiliate with the ACAV?" and "Should we raise the membership fees?". The first one is the interesting one. There are four options:

• No affiliation
• Supporting partner
• Affiliate club membership
  (VCC pays $500, reduced ACAV memberships available)
• Automatic dual membership
  (VCC pays $10 for every new VCC member signing up/renewing)

The option with the most votes gets across the line however Kevin Lindorff already said, he'll call a Special General Meeting (SGM) if the votes of the last three options combined make up more than 50%. The date of Part 2 of the AGM will most likely be announced in the upcoming Argus together with a new proxy-vote form for the two remaining resolutions. Given the results so far I'm expecting some sort of affiliation - with or without an SGM. 

Cheers 🍻

Philipp