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Why is the SPDSA having their AGM now?

posted Sep 28, 2010, 11:57 PM by Tyler Durden   [ updated Oct 2, 2010, 9:39 AM ]

The Sherwood Park District has scheduled their Annual General Meeting for the 7th of October 2010. Details can be found here. It looks like the District is proposing some significant changes to the structure of the Board.  The details of the proposed changes can be found here.

Without going into the merits of the proposed changes I have two questions.

1. Why is the SPDSA having their AGM now?
According to the 2008 SPDSA bylaws posted on the SPDSA website here and archived here  

"The annual meeting shall be held each year on a date which shall not be prior to 6 weeks after the fiscal year end but not later than 10 weeks after the fiscal year end, such date to be determined by the Board of Directors." See Section IX A.

and also in the bylaws

"The fiscal year of the Association shall be the calendar year." See Section VI A.

When I look at my calendar, the 7th of October does not fall within the timeframe described in the bylaws for holding the AGM.

This may not be an issue for some, however, any SPDSA member who wished to propose amendments to the bylaws must submit their proposals in writing to the Board of Directors 30 days before the date fixed for the Annual Meeting (see Section XI C.).  So a member wishing to propose an amendment would rightly believe they had until  Jan 12th to submit these changes.

The SPDSA posted the announcement of the AGM on Sept 10th, 27 days before the AGM.  

Sorry members you will need to wait till next time and hope you can read their minds as to when the 2011 meeting will be announced.

So, for any members who had hoped to emulate some of the changes proposed for the CSA at the local level are out of luck. See the following link for proposed changes to the CSA http://csagovernancemodel.blogspot.com/
For example: No Director be a member of a Provincial/Territorial Board, in order to prevent a conflict of loyalty.

Here is a very good article by Jason De Vos describing the proposed CSA changes and highlighting why local level directors shouldn't be sitting as directors on parent organizations.

As far as the changes proposed here is a question for those going:

2. Why does the document of proposed changes refer to sections of the bylaws that are not in the bylaws posted on the SPDSA website?

So a prediction or two:

1) When you get to the meeting any thought you put into the proposed changes will be moot and you will get to listen to them explain how it is all a mistake but lets hurry and approve these changes ... after all, we do not want to be here all night. Major changes to the board are thus approved with limited membership input.

or

2) the SPDSA, like the ASA, is working from a copy of the bylaws that has not been approved by the membership and filed with Alberta Registries and it is different than what is posted on their website. But don't worry they will 'merge' the two documents when they file this approved version. This merge process opens up the opportunity for more mistakes.


So soccer management in Sherwood Park is becoming like soccer management at the ASA:
  1. Meetings that are not in compliance with bylaws
  2. Confusion spread to hasten along decisions

I wonder what is common between the SPDSA and the ASA to cause such similar behaviour?

SPDSA do the right thing, postpone your AGM to give your membership an opportunity to put forward any changes they might have wished to do so. Modify your proposals so they are consistent with the registered bylaws not some unofficial copy.
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