It's been a busy week! We have pitched our proposed club changes to 90 members over three game nights and opened the window for nominations to stand as committee members. This post should go out to all Club Members, plus we shall email the contents separately to all member email addresses just to be sure. This means you may get it twice, but better that than being uninformed.
The Proposal (In summary)
We have been very successful and running the club is becoming a significant undertaking. We expect to handle £20,000 worth of income in 2025 and have over 5,000 attendances.
We wish to change the legal structure of the club from an Unincorporated Association to a Social Enterprise. This will -
limit the risk and liability currently placed on committee members and the club
allow us to legally enter into partnerships and contracts
allows us to seek significant external grant funding to improve and grow
This will have almost no direct effect on club members that wish to come along, pay their fee and play each week, but it is a legal change that puts the club on a very secure footing for the longer term.
This change is good news. It is proposed because we are successful and want to build on that success and get access to other ways to improve. The proposal document discusses this in more detail and is available on the files section of the website here. Along with the 2024 Accounts, the legal Articles of Association that will form the Social Enterprise, and a number of budget documents for 2024 and 2025.
If you have questions then please raise them, Ben and I are happy to address concerns raised on our WhatsApp General Chat group, Discord General channel, Boardgamers Facebook Messenger group, or in person.
Committee Elections
Our annual elections are due. Ben and I shall be standing for re-election as Treasurer and Chairman respectively. There is a vacancy for Secretary.
If the proposal is agreed then the elected committee shall be bound by the will of the club to implement it. The elected committee members will then become the first three Board Directors of the new Social Enterprise and shall work to establish it. We also believe this new organisation should expand to five directors to have better diversity on the board and spread the workload further.
If you wish to stand for election to any of the 3 current committee posts (Chairman, Treasurer or Secretary), then please make that known to either Ben or Alan by 5th March 2025.
Voting
We shall be voting on the proposal, and for committee elections at the same time.
With the club becoming bigger across several nights and now having 131 members, gathering everyone together for a vote has become impractical.
At the briefings, all three night's attendees were happy for us to conduct this vote online rather than in person. To address concerns raised about the process, and ensure the integrity of the vote, on-line voting shall now be limited to one day only (a non-club day) and the raw voting data shall be made available to Karen Hodgkinson - Manager of the Daniel Owen Centre as an impartial 3rd party.
The time table for voting is now -
5th March - Last day to nominate yourself for committee posts.
6th March - Candidates announced to the club
6th March to 18th March - those standing for election may campaign for votes. We shall provide each candidate with the means to post on the website and as always any club member is welcome on any of our game nights to talk among other club members
18th March - online voting is opened for one day only www.deesidedefenders.org/vote
20th March - AGM, presentation of outcome of the votes
You must be a current club member to vote. Applications for membership are now closed until the voting process is concluded. To vote simply navigate to the vote page on the website.
Please ensure you are able to login to see the vote page. If you have lost a password or other login problem, we may not be able to fix that if you wait until the 18th March to check.
As members of the existing committee that has put together the proposal, we would clearly encourage you to vote for it. We believe this is a significant opportunity for the club. However the really important thing is that this is, and will remain a community club. So above all else, make YOUR voice heard and VOTE!
Alan & Ben
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