This document contains everything you need to know for running an online AGM for your student group. Parts of this guide are written for you to amend and send out to your membership, to give your members guidance on attending the AGM, and you some guidance on running it.
This will probably be the first time your group has run a large online meeting, so bear in mind there will almost certainly be issues along the way. Try to keep an open mind, keep things flexible and above all else, fair to your members.
A massive thank you to UoB Lifesaving Club who helped write this document.
Any questions – bristolsu-development@bristol.ac.uk.
A good place to start is to establish and list what roles are up for election and the responsibilities of each role. You could either copy-and-paste from your constitution, or ask each person currently doing the role to submit something.
List these roles (and their descriptions) on your social media and email out to all your members. It’s good to do this well in advance of the AGM, a couple of weeks is ideal.
How you receive nominations for committee roles is entirely up to you and all groups do it a little differently. I’ve outlined some options below:
Nominations could be received via a Microsoft Form or just over email. It’s a good idea to ask candidates to include a photo of themselves as part of their nomination so that members know who they are. Candidates can be advertised before your AGM. This could be via a dedicated Facebook event page, a shared document or separate posts on your socials.
Advertise to members the date and time of your AGM. Remember – as a democratic event all members should have the opportunity to attend, stand for any committee position and vote. Your constitution may have some guidance as to how far in advance you need to advertise, so do check this first.
We recommended using Skype for Business to host your online AGM. This platform is reliable, safe and all students should have access to it. There are alternative platforms like Zoom, which students can log into to set up a premium account from the University.
Suggested comms out to members:
The AGM will be conducted on _____________ at a start time of ______
The meeting will be held using the Skype For Business programme that all students have been given access to by the University to aid online learning. Search ‘Skype for Business’ on the University webpage and you’ll find full instructions for downloading.
Please make sure you download and set up Skype for Business prior to the AGM so we can help if there are any issues!
To log in you will need to use your university email address (xy12345@bristol.ac.uk) and password, not a personal one or one that you already use for a Skype account. Logging in can be a bit slow so please just be patient. Please log in 5 or so minutes before the scheduled start time so that we can get started promptly.
It is good practice to decide before the meeting who in your committee is doing what.
We would suggest the following roles:
It’s a good idea to set etiquette rules for your meeting before it starts. That way all attendees know who should be speaking when and what to expect from the meeting.
We would strongly recommend you get your committee together and test this out the night before, just so everyone is really clear on their role and can sort out any tech issues without holding up the meeting.
Suggested comms out to members:
Use your laptop connected to a good Wi-Fi network. A laptop is much more preferable than a phone as it makes it much easier to see and allow you to access the chat feature.
If you are not speaking please mute your microphone. This can be done by pressing the big microphone button at the bottom of your screen. This makes it much easier to hear the person who is speaking and makes it fair to everyone. (Remember to turn it back on when you start speaking!)
If you wish to comment or ask a question please make use of the chat feature, the Secretary will be monitoring this throughout the meeting so please just comment that you have a question or point to make. The chair of the meeting will then indicate to you to unmute your mic and state your point or question. Please try to make it very clear when you have stopped speaking.
If you drop out of the call for any reason either intentionally or accidentally please let the secretary know and we can add you back in when you’re ready. The same applies for any technical issues you may be having. When you re-enter the call please do so quietly so as not to disturb whatever is being said at the time.
Screensharing is a really useful feature you should get to grips with too. It could be a good way to highlight new parts of your constitution, graphs, images etc. Think about what you would want to show your members on a screen or in a PowerPoint presentation if this were ‘in person’, and go from there!
How you run the actual elections bit is usually referred to in your constitution and all groups do it a little differently. It will also depend on how you have decided to run nominations. Again, doublecheck your constitution before deciding on a method. We’ve outlined some options on how to do this online:
All candidates running for the role will declare themselves to the outgoing Captain (depending on how you have run nominations, you may already know who is running, or you may ask for there and then)
The candidates running for the election will be removed from the call by the outgoing captain / president. They may not remain in contact with anyone still present in the meeting.
The candidates will be individually added back into the call, they will have 2 minutes to present the reasons why they should be elected, they will then receive up to 3 questions from the outgoing committee and members present. Priority of questions will go to the outgoing committee member that has held that role. Once they have presented and answered their questions they will once again be removed from the call. The other candidates will be given their turn.
After all candidates have been heard, the members remaining in the call will vote to elect the role.
Once the secretary has received and counted the votes the candidates will be added back into the chat and the result announced. Once elected candidates are not eligible to stand for any other positions.
Please note this method can take a long time and is generally quite clunky. If this is similar to what you would do at an in-person AGM, perhaps now is the time to change things up a bit?
As above, but all candidates remain in the ‘room’ and can hear each other speeches / questions.
You may have asked for all and only nominations to be submitted before the AGM and shared statements with your members. In this case you may wish to skip candidate speeches (and save some time) and go straight to any questions.
We would advise all candidates to have a text version of what they want to say to hand, which they can share in the chat, or by circulation if needed. Anticipate the internet connection won’t be perfect for everyone, and there could be drop-outs, mishearings etc. so a backup may be needed.
Your constitution will state how votes are counted – usually First Past the Post or Single Transferrable Vote. Some options for receiving votes as below:
Once voting is complete, check everyone is happy and welcome in your new committee!
Don’t forget, you should post results of your elections and minutes of your AGM out to your whole membership
Example Agenda
The Agenda for the 2019/20 Annual General Meeting held at 8pm on Tuesday 24th March.
- Welcome and Apologies
- Committee Reports
Reports from the outgoing committee will be heard in the following order;
- Club Captain
- Vice-Captain
- Treasurer
- Secretary
- Equality and Diversity Officer
- Social Secretary
- Training Officers
- Competition Secretary (Home and Away)
- Proposed changes to constitution
- Proposal to include ‘Home Competition Secretary’ as an elected committee position.
- Proposal to allow the individual running the league competition held at Bristol to be elected by members. Once elected the individual may sit on the committee the following year for as long as they would like.
- This allows the opportunity for members to get a say in who runs the competition when there are multiple parties interested. Proposer:
- Election of new committee
The elections of the new committee will be conducted in the following order;
- Club Captain
- Vice Captain
- Training Officer(s)
- Secretary
- Treasurer
- Social Secretary
- Competition Secretary
- AOB
- Constitution
- Not all members will have seen your constitution, or even be aware you have one. It is good practice to send this out with the agenda before the meeting so everyone can view.