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Practical governance for volunteer committees and not-for-profit organisations. Hosted by governance consultants Kate Hartwig and Kate McPhee, each episode tackles one topic — clearly, honestly, and without the jargon. Short enough to finish before your coffee goes cold.
Imagine this. It's the annual general meeting where the members elect the new committee. The four usual suspects have already nominated each other. The chair asks if there are any nominations from the floor. Silence.
Kate H:Awkward silence.
Kate M:And then a hand shoots up at the back of the room. It's a member who hasn't been seen or heard of for at least two years.
Kate H:And then there's another hand. It's the member who's complained loudly at every single event for the past twelve months.
Kate M:And then a third hand. You can see from the body language in the room that nobody has any idea who this person is.
Kate H:Well, all seven people are declared elected. The members congratulate the new Committee with stilted applause and leave the meeting as soon as they can.
Kate M:Six months later, everyone is wondering why everything has gone sideways.
Kate H:So what happened? We'll tell you what happened. Welcome to The Committee Room. Welcome back to The Committee Room. I'm Kate Hartwig, Kate one.
Kate M:And I'm Kate McPhee, Kate two. We help volunteer board and committee members of small not for profit organisations cut through the confusion, meet their obligations, and get back to doing whatever is the real reason their organisation exists. We're in our Great People, Great Committee series, and today we're talking about elections because it doesn't matter how well you understand your role and your duties if the wrong people are in the room in the first place. Without a good election process, the rest is just good or bad luck.
Kate M:And a quick note before we start, this podcast is for general information on best practice governance for small to medium, not for profits. It is not legal advice. Okay. Let's get into today's episode. Let's start with the thing we just illustrated in the introduction, calling for nominations from the floor at the annual general meeting.
Kate M:You know, in some ways, feels democratic. It's very open, very grassroots, very any member can step up, and yet it is one of the worst things you can do for your organization.
Kate H:Okay. It just makes me shudder. Here's why. Firstly, it's not really democratic. Only the people physically present at the AGM or those logged in, if you're running it online, get to nominate or vote.
Kate H:The rest of the membership, and let's face it, it's usually the majority, has no say whatsoever.
Kate M:And secondly, you've got no control over who puts their hand in the air. You can end up with committee members who are running their own agenda or who've got no idea what they've signed up for or who aren't prepared to actually do the work or who simply aren't a good fit for the culture your organisation is trying to build.
Kate H:As our opening scenario rather vividly demonstrated.
Kate M:Yes. Now to be very clear, you can't control who gets selected, and you shouldn't try. That's the member's job. But what you can control is the process. So you want candidates who are properly informed before they nominate and members who have a democratic opportunity to vote.
Kate M:You want to create an environment where the right people want to put their hand up.
Kate H:It takes a bit more work up front, but trust us, the results are worth it.
Kate M:If you were designing a best practice election process from scratch, it would have eight steps. Now we understand that not every constitution is fully up to date. In fact, Kate, we regularly see constitutions that haven't even been reviewed this century. But if you follow the steps that we're going to outline as closely as your current constitution allows, you'll have a really good process.
Kate H:So step one. This is your preparation phase. As far ahead of your AGM as you can manage, ideally at least two months, you need to put together a nomination pack and link it to your website. Job descriptions, meeting schedule, code of conduct, constitution everything they need to make an informed decision about whether the role is right for them and whether they're right for the role. Now that second question matters as much as the first, because you want people going in with their eyes wide open, discovering three meetings in that it's nothing like they expected or nothing like they wanted.
Kate H:Step two, open nominations to eligible members. Give people twenty one to twenty eight days to come forward enough time for the right candidates to seriously consider if this is something they want to do.
Kate M:So step three, check that every candidate has sent in a nomination statement as you require in the nomination pack. You know, maximum 500 words. It doesn't have to be long, but you want them to tell you what knowledge and skills they've got, what experience, why they'd make a good committee member, what they want to contribute, and so on. Now I know that some people think that that sounds a bit corporate for a volunteer committee.
Kate H:But it really isn't, Kate. I mean, there's a very practical reason for requiring that everyone provide a candidate statement or a nomination statement. If someone can't be bothered putting together a short statement about why they want to be on the committee, well, that tells you something important about how they'll approach the role. It's also really useful for members who don't know all the candidates personally. It gives them something to base their vote on when they're selecting who will be sitting around the committee table.
Kate M:I think that's an incredibly important step, Kate. So step four, appoint a returning officer. So that's someone of good standing with no stake in the outcome. Often, you know, a past chair or someone like that works really well. So their job is to independently oversee and scrutinize your election process.
Kate M:That adds integrity, and it protects everyone involved.
Kate H:Step five, open the voting. Now here you've got a number of options. Mailed ballot papers, that's the traditional method. It works, but it's slow and nowadays it's relatively expensive. Physical ballot boxes at your premises, if members can access them easily, or and this is increasingly the choice of smart organisations, use an online voting platform.
Kate M:Yep. The online platforms, Kate, they're really good. They're accessible to all of the members wherever the members are. They're fast. Platform just automatically calculates, does all that math that I had doing, and there are really good options available now at price points that fit almost any association's budget.
Kate M:Make sure you allow enough time too. Around a week or so for online voting, longer if you're taking the paper based snail mail option. Every member deserves a genuine opportunity to participate in the election of the next committee.
Kate H:Step six, count and scrutinise. Now for paper votes, the Returning Officer counts generally with independent scrutineers present. For online platforms, the system handles the count itself. So the Returning Officer just needs to verify the result.
Kate M:And then step seven, and this is one that people often overlook. It's the, you know, the human aspect. You need to communicate the results of the election promptly and professionally. So you need to contact both the successful and the unsuccessful candidates before there's any public announcement. You have the opportunity then to enthusiastically welcome your new committee members and genuinely thank the unsuccessful candidates who put themselves forward, and it's not always easy to do that.
Kate M:So so they deserve some thanks and acknowledgment.
Kate H:Then at the AGM itself, step eight, announce and welcome the new committee. Explain it will take office at the close of the meeting. There's no election of members agenda item because the election has already happened. You simply announce the results.
Kate M:To enthusiastic applause. There's no awkward floor votes. You know, those moments where only one person misses out and nobody knows what to say. They're dreadful. You want something that is clean and dignified and democratic.
Kate H:Another thing, Kate, to
Kate H:make your election process go more smoothly is to elect your office bearers prior to the AGM. Because the election results are known well in advance, there can be an ad hoc meeting of this new Committee prior to the AGM solely to elect office bearers. Now, generally, this has all been discussed and everyone knows who will be putting up their hand for chair or president well in advance, so there are seldom any surprises here. Get it done prior to the AGM, and you can not only announce the new Committee but the new office bearers as well. The alternative to a well run AGM is a shambolic meeting.
Kate H:Two hours of a beautiful Sunday afternoon, nobody will ever get back. This kind of mess is why people stop attending. A badly designed AGM is obligation endured rather than an opportunity used to build confidence amongst the members that the organisation is in good hands.
Kate M:There are a few other things that make a real difference to how well elections serve your organisation over time. Let's look at terms first. Staggered two or three year terms, that's where only part of the committee is up for election each year, mean that you only need to fill two or four positions at a time. Your continuity is maintained, and new members can join an established group who can help them settle in.
Kate H:Whereas if your whole committee is up for election every year, you are only one bad AGM away from organisational amnesia, so stagger your terms of office.
Kate M:What is it the kids say? Your future self will thank you?
Kate H:Kate, I am my future self. Who thought it would ever get to this? Anyway, that's just a weird saying, but we do know that staggered terms are a cheap insurance against organisational amnesia. I bet the cool kids don't use that term when they're out on a Saturday night.
Kate M:I love my work, Kate, but I confess organisational amnesia is not something I want to be thinking about on a Saturday night. Instead, let's think about term limits. Set them. Set limits that you can enforce. Around eight to nine years on a committee without a break is a reasonable maximum.
Kate M:That's long enough for someone to settle into the committee, find their voice, really get into the work of the committee, step into a leadership role if that's what they want, and make a meaningful contribution. Beyond eight or nine years, organisations need fresh energy, and frankly, the person who's been in the role for that long has earned a good long break.
Kate H:Or can take their energy and skill to another club. And a word on past presidents because this is a thing. Once the president's role ends, it ends. Stepping back from the top job is harder than it sounds, even for the most beloved of leaders, but a clean break is better for the incoming president, better for the organization, and honestly, it's better for the outgoing president too, even if it doesn't feel that way at the time.
Kate M:There's nothing so past as a past president.
Kate H:I I do love that line. Also, yesterday's president is tomorrow's backseat driver.
Kate M:Okay. So to recap, nominations from the floor at the AGM, never ever do it. Change your constitution if you need to. Have a proper election process with eight steps where people are informed before they nominate and all the members get to vote. A robust process protects your organization and gets the right people in the room.
Kate M:Have staggered terms for continuity, set term limits for renewal, and have a clean handover when leadership changes.
Kate H:The Committee that invests in a good election process will have better people around the table, better meetings, and better results. Everything else follows from who's in the room.
Kate M:So listeners, your challenge this week. Have a good look at how your organisation runs its elections right now. Is it a proper process, or is it still the hands up at the AGM approach? You don't need to change everything overnight, but identify one thing that you could improve before your next AGM and just do it.
Kate H:To make your Committee life a little bit easier, we've put an election process checklist and a candidate statement template in the show notes. Download them and start there. And there's more on making the most of your AGM in just a tick. We'll have a link to Kate Two's book in the show notes.
Kate M:If today's episode has helped you, please subscribe wherever you get your podcasts so that you don't miss future episodes and share the link with someone on your committee. We'd be very grateful if you could take two minutes to leave us a review. And, of course, the show notes, including the downloads that Kate mentioned, are at the committeeroom.com.au.
Kate H:So what's coming up in our next episode? Well, once you've got the right people elected, how do you make sure the questions that need asking actually get asked? We're talking about the power of questions in the committee room, why they're not a sign of ignorance, why staying quiet is never neutral, and how to build a committee culture where the hard questions get raised before they become hard problems.
Kate M:Until then, I'm Kate McPhee.
Kate H:And I'm Kate Hartwig.
Kate M:And this has been The Committee Room. Remember,
Kate H:you don't need good luck if you've got good governance.