News

SitRep 39/2020 and AGM Notice

September 25, 2020

AGMS – 2020

Please take the time to read this important information about changes to the way our AGMs will run this year.

The formal notice of AGMs is here.

The current public safety orders in place because of COVID19, along with the unpredictability of the pandemic and the need to keep our member firefighters as safe as possible, require us to do things differently for the 2020 AGMs.

The rules require that all members be able to attend an AGM. This means we cannot hold single or multiple AGMs face-to-face because we cannot control the number of attendees or the social distancing requirements under the public health orders and general advice.

We are also not able to hold AGMs by Zoom for a number of reasons – Zoom has limits to numbers that can participate and, regardless, it is difficult to manage when there are large numbers of participants. Voting in Zoom would also be very difficult where members are joining the meetings in groups.

We have designed this process for the AGMs to:

1. Meet the requirements under the rules of the union and,
2. Encourage the participation of members as much as possible.

This year AGMs will be station based, similar to the way in which AGMs are held for Country and Retained members every year. These meetings will be published in advance and any member is able to attend any station meeting. Quorum for any meeting will be seven (7) and maximum numbers are to be twenty (20) unless there are circumstances in your station/workplace where there are more than 20 members at the station/workplace at any one time. Where this is the case, numbers should be limited to those that are acceptable given the COVID restrictions/guidelines at the time of the meeting.

Delegates or contacts for meetings will be asked to register meetings and will be provided with the information you need to hold the meetings. The same delegate or contact will be asked to return the results of your meetings.

In addition to AGMs, the Secretary and members of State Committee will run briefing sessions by Zoom open to all members in the lead up to station meetings to talk through the big issues for consideration at station-based AGMs.

Motions and the meeting agenda will be distributed following these briefings.

The AGMs will have a heavy focus on Awards and endorsing logs of claims – your bargaining position for your Award negotiations.

IMPORTANT DATES AND TIMES

This is the notice of AGMs being made today, Friday 25 September 2020.

AGMs are to be held in the period of Monday 26 October 2020 to Friday 6 November 2020.

Registrations to hold a meeting are open from 25 September 2020 to 1700hrs on 9 October 2020. Information on how to register a meeting are included in the AGM notice here.

Meetings will be published on 14 October 2020. An overview of the Secretary and State Committee briefings will also be published at this time.

Secretary and State Committee briefings will be held from 15 October 2020 to 20 October 2020. Please register to attend one of these briefings here. We will forward the Zoom meeting links to all those who register their attendance. Please note these are NOT AGMs. These meetings will include information about the up-and-coming meetings.

Formal motions will be published and distributed on Friday 23 October 2020.

Meetings are to occur Monday 26 October 2020 to Friday 6 November 2020.

Results from AGMs will be published in the week of Monday 9 November 2020.

If you have any questions please get in touch with office@fbeu.net and we will direct you to the best person to assist.

Union delegates are encouraged to contact your organiser if you need more information or assistance in setting up a meeting.

I strongly encourage members to actively participate in the 2020 AGMs and thank you in advance for embracing this different way of holding the meetings.

In Unity,

Leighton Drury

State Secretary

You can download this SitRep here.

You can download the AGM Notice here.