2021 AGM Agenda

Liberal Democrats for Electoral Reform
ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING 2021
November 2, 2021
7.30-9pm
AGENDA

Register in advance for this meeting:
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Apologies for Absence

Minutes of the Annual General Meeting of 24 October, 2020
Accuracy
Matters Arising

Reports
Chair
Treasurer
Membership Secretary

Annual Accounts
To consider and approve the examined annual accounts for 2019 and 2020.

Membership fee
To set the minimum annual membership fee at £10 and the concessionary fee at £5 for the year commencing 1 October 2021.

Election of Officers and Executive Committee Members*
President
Chair
Secretary
Treasurer
Membership Secretary
Up to five Ordinary Members of the committee

Appointment of Examiner
To appoint an Examiner of the accounts for the coming year.

8. Motions to AGM.
Amend LDER Objectives - submitted by the LDER exec 2020/21.
Approve adoption of the following objectives:
We favour an electoral system that reflects the fundamental Liberal Democrat values of liberty, equality and community and helps to deliver a just and representative system of government.

2. We believe that to meet these values, an electoral system should deliver maximum power to the voter, enabling all voters to support representatives of their choice without fear of wasting their vote, and should result in elected members that are genuinely accountable to their electors and a representative body that proportionately reflects the opinions of the electorate.
3. We support the use of the Single Transferable Vote for all public elections, and for all internal party elections, as the system that best achieves these objectives.. We support other changes to democratic arrangements that will advance our values.
4. We seek to promote these values and objectives within the Liberal Democrats through influencing party policy, engaging with the party leadership and informng all party members on the benefits of these proposals. We seek to promote the Liberal Democrats externally as being at the forefront of the wider democratic reform movement and to work with other political and non-political organisations to promote our aims.

Background to the proposed changes.
Replace 'the Liberal Democrat values of fairness, democracy and effective representation for individuals and communities' with 'the fundamental Liberal Democrat values of liberty, equality and community and helps to deliver a just and representative system of government.'
This change aims to bring our objectives into better alignment with the party's overall values and principles.
2. Unchanged.
3. Delete '…in Multi-Member Constituencies…' and delete 'For positions to be filled by a single individual, we support the use of the Alternative Vote'.
These changes clarify our objective (of STV) and remove the technically correct but ambiguous and potentially confusing reference to the Alternative Vote.
4. Replace 'lobbying' with 'engaging'; and replace 'educating' with 'informing'; and add '…political and non-political…' to the final sentence.
These changes better reflect our relations with party leadership and membership; and emphasise our intent to work with all reform-supporting organisations.

As a reminder, our current objectives are:
1. We favour an electoral system that reflects the Liberal Democrat values of fairness, democracy and effective representation for individuals and communities.
2. We believe that to meet these values, an electoral system should deliver maximum power to the voter, enabling all voters to support representatives of their choice without fear of wasting their vote, and should result in elected members that are genuinely accountable to their electors and a representative body that proportionately reflects the opinions of the electorate.
3. We support the use of the Single Transferable Vote in Multi-Member Constituencies for all public elections, and for all internal party elections, as the system that best achieves these objectives. For positions to be filled by a single individual, we support the use of the Alternative Vote. We support other changes to democratic arrangements that will advance our values.
4. We seek to promote these values and objectives within the Liberal Democrats through influencing party policy, lobbying the party leadership and educating all party members on the benefits of these proposals. We seek to promote the Liberal Democrats externally as being at the forefront of the wider democratic reform movement and to work with other organisations to promote our aims.
Go to: lder.org/en/page/our-objectives-and-goals for more information including our constitution.

9. Motions for debate can also be submitted by full LDER members, if relevant to the objectives of LDER and deemed by the Chair to be in order. Motions must be submitted to info@lder.org ten days before the AGM is held (in this instance October 24). Emergency motions can be submitted up until the the start of the AGM, again at the discretion of the Chair.

Close of formal AGM.
10. Introduction of Lord Paul Tyler by Wendy Chamberlain MP; LDER President 2021.
Meeting address by Lord Tyler.
11. Q and A to Wendy and Paul/open discussion on priorities for the remainder of this Parliament.
12. AOB/close of meeting.

*Officers and Ordinary Members of the Executive Committee shall be elected by the general membership of the Group. Each nomination for election to the Executive Committee must be submitted to the Secretary in advance of the start of the AGM, by two full LDER members, after obtaining the nominee's consent.
Once elected, executive members can co-opt up to three additional members onto the Executive Committee.
The party believes it is essential to foster equity, equality, diversity and inclusion within its organisations. We welcome nominations for the LDER Executive which reflect this.
While all Liberal Democrat party members, and also non-party allies, are wholeheartedly invited to join the meeting, only paid-up members of LDER are entitled to stand for election, submit motions or to vote at the AGM.
If you are interested in standing for the executive, or in being co-opted, please feel free to discuss the nature of the role, commitments etc with the LDER secretary - just email info@lder.org.

LDER - goals and roles; our cause needs you!
From our Objectives 2021-23 plans, lder.org/en/page/our-objectives-and-goals you will see LDER has big ambitions and an extensive work programme. This is because we are in a mission-critical period - between now and the next General Election which could be as early as May 2023 - for achieving the reforms that the UK and its voters deeply need.
You may not have time, or even inclination, to be on our executive, but there are other ways you can help us win this time. Please see Appendix A for more information on this.