General Meetings and AGMs

Questions:

1. What is the difference between a General meeting and an Annual General meeting?

2. What are the meeting requirements for the following types of companies?

a. Proprietary company
b. Public company
c. Listed company

3.In your own words, you are to explain the following terms:

a. chairperson
b. secretary
c. Treasurer
d. Abstention
e. Adojournment
f. Agenda
g. Motion
h. Casting vote
i. Proxy
j. Tabled

4. What documentation is required when organising and managing a formal meeting? Be sure to include a description of who is responsible for teh documentation, and indicate any timelines required for this documentation.

5. Explain the role of the minute taker, and the interaction undertaken before,during and after a meeting.

6. ALT International will be holding a meeting of team leaders on the first Wednesday of next month. The meeting will take place in the board room at ALT Internationals head office – 133 Federal Avenue, Werribee Victoria 3030. This meeting will commence at 10:30 am and will run for 1 hour. Discussions will include Budgets, Timeliness, Staff Attendance, sales targets, and OHS. Develop and agenda for this meetin.

7. When planning and managing a meeting, there are a number of tasks that can, and should be delegated List the types of tasks that could fall into this category, and the benefits associated with delegating these talks to other staff members.

8. You are to read the following case study, and prepare minutes from the information provided.

Old Spice Paper Products speccialises in party products such as paper plates, serviettes, paper cups as well as greeting cards and wrapping paper. The national office for Old Spice Paper Products is located at 199 Tree Ave, Woodend Victoria, where both the administration and manufacturing operations are housed. Old Spice Paper Products is managed by a board of direcotrs who meet monthly at the Woodend site. The members of the board are

  Jack Stone (Chair)
  Silvia Devola
  Katherine Montigo

  Gillian Collins (Deputy Chair)
  Janice Bennett
  Joseph Patulio

  Albert Brockwook
  Sauli

9. In your own words, how does the following legislation affect business operations regarding organising meetings?

a. anti-discrimination legislation
b. ethical principles
c. code of proactive
d. privacy laws
e. occupational health andd safety

1. General meetings are simple and regular types of meetings. Such meetings are held usually on a very regular basis and conduct business and for this no special notice are required. A meeting of a company’s shareholders is an example of general meetings.

Annual general meetings are those kinds of meetings which most organization held these once a year. For AGM, a special notice is required before the meeting to all important members. (Staggs, 2008)

2. Meeting requirements for:

a. Proprietary Company: Proprietary Company requires a disclosure document like a prospectus that is an information statement.

b. Public Company: Minimum two directors, must be aged over 16 years. At least one director should be an individual.

c. Listed Company: At least one individual director. It should be registered legally. These legal requirements and obligations are supplemented by

ASIC Policy  (Abe de JongGerard, 2006)

3. a) Chairperson: He is the presiding officer of all assembly, committee, meeting, or board. And also he is the main head of a department who gives the instructions.

Meeting Requirements for Different Companies

b) Secretory: A secretary is a personal assistant or we can say administrative assistant whose work is to support the management and executives, using a variety of project management, organizational skills and communication.

c) Treasurer: Treasurer is the person who is in charge of money which is paid out or taken in the government system, organization or business.

d) Abstention: Abstention is an instantaneous activeness of declining to agreement of the vote. It could be against a proposal also.

e) Adjournment: Adjournment is to suspend the proceedings to another time or place.

f) Agenda: It is a list of meetings and its activities in the order by which they have to be taken up, by starting with the call to order and ending with adjournment is called as an agenda.

g) Motion: For the purpose ease of discussion & possible adoption as resolution which formally submits proposal to a meeting.

h) Casting Vote: Sometimes chairperson of the company gives this vote to handle the issue and solve the problem because both sides have equal votes.

i) Proxy: A proxy is a person who is designated by another to represent that individual at a meeting or before a public body. It also refers to the written authorization allowing one person to act on behalf of another.

j) Tabled: Tabled means everything is set in a proper position in a particular manner. (Peni E, 2014).

4. It is a very important task to do, minutes and any other documentation used for a meeting should be checked before its distribution. This has to be undertaken by the manager or another main person who is present at the meeting. One more important thing to do is prepare and send out papers. It is necessary to prepare spare sets of documents for the participants who may not have had time to print the documentation or did not receive their documentation in time for the meeting or may have inadvertently not brought them with to the meeting. (Chen K,2006, Apr 06)

5. The minutes from a meeting should be accurate in record content data. It is required to show them that how the decision is being made and why it is being made. A minute taker has to take care of many things like:

a. Introduction to each and everyone

b. Apologies from the sides of those persons who could not come.

c. Main agenda items and important things that we have to discuss about.

d. Communication is also the important part.

e. Needs to know how the members were told and the actions which were processed.

f. At the end they also talk about the next meeting and future tasks they have planned.  (D.J. Danker, & M. M., Luecke, 2005)

6. At first, a notice should be sent to all the members who has to be there at the meeting at the particular time. The purpose of it is to inform them prior few days about the meeting. ALT International needs a well written agenda. They need to decide the time & place for the meeting and also that what is it about. The person who is making the agenda should have all information about the objectives, purpose of the meeting. (E Staff, 2002)

7. Planning the meeting is the task of the upper level department. This is not only just a meeting; it is the function of exchanging the ideas between people and giving important information to members. With the help of delegation, it becomes very easy to perform the tasks. Those kinds of tasks include spreading information, sending the notice to all members and aware them about the topic they are going to discuss about. ( J. Muir, 1995)

8. Date: 15 July, 10:30 AM

Present: 7/8 (Apology from the side of Albert Brockwood)

Title of meeting: Changes in sales tax & exemption laws

Attendees: Jack Stone, Janice Bonnet, Gillian Collins, Joseph, Katherine, Saul, Silvia.

(Script)

Next meeting: 15 August (Chapman, 2004)

9. a) The subject to this Act is to be as determined by the Board of the company. All the meetings are presided by only the president.

b) Ethical principles help in maintain professional competence very actively within ethical guidelines of their professions.

c) Private meetings have these private laws, which because the information are very important and not supposed to reveal to any outsider so there are some privacy laws.

d) It’s also very important to take care of the health and safety of all the members who are participating in the meeting. It shows the roles and responsibilities of the company. (P. Lopez-Fresno, 2013)

References:

Abe de JongGerard, M. R. (2006). Shareholders’ voting at general meetings: Evidence from the netherlands. Journal of Management & Governance, 10(4), 353-380.

Chapman, B. (2004). Travel depts. grapple with meetings data. Successful Meetings, 53(6), 12. Chen, K. (2006, Apr 06). Closed china forum is exposed; minutes of meeting on market overhauls are leaked to the web. The Wall Street Journal Asia 

Danker, D. J., & Luecke, M. M. (2005). Background on FOMC meeting minutes. Federal Reserve Bulletin, 91(2), 175-179.

Lopez-Fresno, P., & Savolainen, T. (2013). Working meetings as a tool for knowledge management and trust building. Paper presented at the 236-XVI.

Muir, J. (1995). Effective management through delegation. Work Study, 44(7), 6.

Peni, E. (2014). CEO and chairperson characteristics and firm performance. Journal of Management & Governance, 18(1), 185-205.

Staff, E. (2002). Annual meetings are a boon to IR, not a burden. Investor Relations Business.

 Staggs, K. (2008). Meeting NERC-CIP requirements. Power Engineering, 112(9), 74-74,76,78,80.