On Friday 6th December the Dons Trust Board were informed by members proposing resolution 16 to the upcoming Dons Trust AGM that they would like to withdraw the motion for consideration.
Following precedent the secretary will withdraw the motion on the night of the AGM, we have included below the accompanying statement sent to the board by the proposing members.
A message to members from Archie Willett, Paul Rolles, Dan Probert, Charlie Talbot, Ed Scott and Kris Stewart, the proposers of a members’ resolution put forward to the AGM:
On Wednesday this week we came to the difficult and disappointing decision to withdraw our resolution (resolution 16) from consideration at the upcoming AGM.
We’ve looked at the agenda. It’s set up so that consideration of the motion won’t happen until a long way into the evening, after interest and engagement will have been used up on the bureaucratic details of the AGM. Genuine discussion and engagement on significant issues should be top of the agenda at every members’ meeting. A more member-friendly agenda would have meant some of us could attend in person to join the discussion. Having experienced recent member meetings, the board is not able to organise hybrid meetings properly and we can’t rely on that here.
We’ve looked at the info the board and secretariat shared. We’re astonished and hugely disappointed that the board didn’t feel able to show support for its own policy and processes and the work the club and Trust have been doing around membership. We don’t understand why the board didn’t apparently even hold a vote on whether or not to support the resolution or agree with the sentiment.
We looked at the online proxy voting form sent out on Monday. We prefer to be polite, but it’s really bad. The form as sent out told members nothing about each resolution – not even the basic info on what it is, rather leaving it up to people to continually cross-reference, all the way down a very long list. Having brought this to the board’s attention, nothing has been done to improve it.
The board has also decided to remove the option of giving a proxy to another member (or to the chair of the meeting) so they can listen to the discussion on the night and cast a vote accordingly.
We’ve also had zero communication from the board about the meeting, the motion, how they intend to handle it etc. We’ve brought things to the board’s attention and had no response.
In the circumstances, we felt we have no choice but to withdraw our motion from the agenda for the AGM. We don’t believe that there can be a full, open, transparent and democratic discussion of members coming to a consensus given all of the above.
We passionately believe in the sentiments expressed in our motion. Join the Dons is a brilliant message – simple and powerful. The early numbers recently published show how effective it has been already. We’ve brought inside our loyal season ticket holders, meaning over six thousand Dons have their say in the future of our Club. And we’ve gained another six hundred and eighty-one brand new members, who are not season ticket holders but have been enticed to Join the Dons. Two of us especially have appreciated the massive difference it has made for our peer group of younger fans to feel included, listened to and engaged. In a fractious few months this has been a real bright spot and it was to highlight the importance of this to the newer members we brought the motion in the first place.
Since we made this decision on Wednesday, the results of voting for the DT board have been released. It’s great to see the engagement of new members in the most important of votes – for the board and in the 75% / 50.01% debate. We look forward to a new board continuing the work begun on engaging and empowering more of the fanbase and bringing everyone together. And we look forward to supporting them in that. Come on you Dons… and Join the Dons.