Technorama Annual General Meeting

The second Annual General Meeting of Technorama Incorporated was held on Monday 18 September, entirely in cyberspace.   The meeting was Chaired by the President from the comfort of his family room table.    Well… when we say comfort, it was practical.  The audio/visual part of the event was run using GoToMeeting for audio, graphics and occasional video linkage.  But an absolute star was the beta test run of Sparklevote Live, an extension to an existing platform that was delivered to spec and just in time for the meeting.

The challenge with any meeting is that it involves people.  The NSW Associations Act allows a meeting to be conducted using electronic means, but it must be conducted according to the rules, and all attendees must have the same access as if they were in the room.  That’s a challenge, because our rules require that we must be able to take nominations from the floor, run a secret ballot, take a paper vote if requested – lots of actions that are easy when everyone is physically present, but very challenging over the phone.   And up until now, there has not been a tool that we could trust to manage voting and balloting, AND which would allow on-the-fly motions to be set up and balloted securely in real time.

Sparklevote solved the problem for us very neatly, providing us with the ability to have a show-of-hands or secret vote created instantly.

On the day, 24 people attended the meeting, coming and going just like they would in a physical meeting room.   To facilitate the meeting and help with the process, Dean Gillespie (CEO of Sparklevote) stepped into run the polling process.

No question: from a technical point of view (and isn’t that what Technorama is about?) the AGM was an outstanding success.  We now have processes which we know will work.

AGM results

John Martin, our Returning Officer, was able to announce election results early when the number of nominations exactly matched the number of positions to be elected.   Changes to committee are:

  • Chris Holliday retires as Treasurer, having managed the portfolio since the previous AGM.
  • Jim Parish becomes Secretary/Treasurer and will manage both portfolios
  • William Martin (BayFM) joins as a Committee Member
  • John Maizels (President), Stephen Wilkinson (Vice President), Frank Wilcox, Mike Tobin and Chris Deacon (Committee Members) were all reelected