What to present at your club's AGM

Most of an AGM is fixed by the club’s constitution: the notice members get, the order of business, the quorum and how officers are elected. What goes in the reports is up to the committee. It is where most AGMs lose the room, and where a good one earns the volunteers it needs for next year.

This post is about that part: what each officer should present, the numbers to bring, how to run the votes, and what to do afterwards. It ends with a notice, an agenda and a one-page report you can copy.

What a club AGM is for#

An AGM does four jobs, and every report should serve one of them:

1. The members approve the accounts. The money is theirs, and the AGM is where they see it.
2. The members elect the officers and the committee. Nobody runs the club without being chosen.
3. The members decide the things the constitution reserves to them. Usually the subs and any change to the rules.
4. The committee tells the members how the year went. Whether the club is growing, who played, and what is planned.

Anything that does not serve one of the four belongs in the newsletter instead.

The six weeks before the AGM#

An AGM goes well or badly in the weeks before it. Most of the arguments on the night are about a proposal nobody saw coming, or a report nobody had time to read.

1. Six weeks beforeFix the date and askBook the room, then ask for nominations and proposals by a closing date.
2. Three weeks beforeSend the noticeThe agenda, the one-page report, the accounts and every proposal, together.
3. The eveningReports, votes, electionsPapers taken as read, so the time goes on questions.
4. A month afterMinutes outA draft to every member, approved at the next AGM.

Six weeks out, fix the date and ask. Book the clubhouse, then tell members two things: the closing date for nominations to the committee, and the closing date for proposals. Your constitution may set both. If it does not, two weeks before the notice goes out works.

Ask people to stand before you ask the room. An AGM where the chair asks for volunteers and gets silence is usually one where nobody was asked in advance. Talk to the people you would like on the committee in person, weeks ahead. If you need to show them what a job involves, club committee roles: what each job involves has a one-page description to copy.

Three weeks out, send everything in one go. The notice, the agenda, the one-page report, the accounts, every proposal word for word, and the list of nominations. A member who has read the papers asks better questions. A member who has not can at least see that nothing is being hidden.

Every number beside last year’s#

“We have 214 members” means nothing on its own. “We have 214 members, up from 190” tells members the club is growing. Put each number next to last year’s, and let the difference do the talking.

Bring three years if you have them. Two numbers are a change; three are a direction. A membership that fell, then rose, tells a different story from one that has fallen twice.

What each officer presents#

Every officer gets two or three minutes. That is enough for three or four numbers and one plan, and it is all most members will remember. The detail is in the papers for anyone who wants it.

The chair

The year in three sentences: what went well, what did not, and what matters most next year. Then thank the volunteers by name, including the ones who are not on the committee. The person who marked the courts every week, the parent who drove juniors to matches and the box league organiser all count.

The chair’s report is not a summary of the other reports. If the treasurer is about to say the club made a loss, the chair does not need to say it first.

The treasurer

The treasurer’s report is usually the longest part of the evening and the least understood. Keep the part presented in the room to three lines:

1. Income against last year, split into subs, court fees and visitors, coaching, and everything else.
2. Spending against last year, with anything unusual named. A one-off repair is not a trend, and members should hear that.
3. What the club holds at the end of the year, and what each part is set aside for.

The third line is the one members most need. “We hold this much” invites the question: why are we raising the subs, then? Answer it before it is asked. “This much is set aside to resurface the courts in four years. This much is a cushion of three months’ running costs.”

Then the accounts are approved. Most constitutions ask for them to be checked first, by an independent examiner, an auditor or simply two members who are not on the committee. Say who checked them, and propose that they are approved.

The membership secretary

• How many members, and how many last year.
• How many joined, and how many did not renew.
• Juniors and adults, and any category that grew or shrank sharply.

The number who did not renew is the one most committees leave out, and the one members most want to understand. If it went up, say why you think so, and what the committee plans to do about it. If you asked the people who left, say what they told you.

The competitions organiser

Membership numbers say who paid. They do not say who played. Show each competition the club ran, how many members took part, and how many matches were played:

• The box league or ladder: players, matches, and how many members played in it for the first time.
• The club championships: entries in each event, and the finals day.
• Social nights: how many were run, and the average turnout.

A box league that ran all season with forty players is something to put in front of the members who never saw it. Name the winners of each event. It costs nothing and people remember it.

The team captains

How many teams the club entered, where each finished, and how many different members played for a team. The last number matters more than the results. A club whose teams are always the same eight people has a recruiting problem, even if it won the division.

If a team needs players or a captain for next season, say so now. There will never be more members in one room.

Juniors and coaching

How many juniors are in coaching, how many play in club competitions, and how many juniors moved into adult play this year. The last number is the one that tells members whether the junior programme is feeding the club or running beside it.

Courts and the clubhouse

What was repaired or replaced, what is due next, and roughly when. Court surfaces, floodlights, nets, the fence and the clubhouse roof all have a life. A member who hears every year that the courts will need resurfacing in a few years is not surprised when it happens.

The welfare officer

A short statement: that the club’s safeguarding policy was reviewed, who the welfare officer is and how to reach them, and what training the coaches and volunteers did. Nothing more. A welfare officer’s report never mentions a case, a concern or a name, even without details. If members want to know more about the policy, point them to it.

Proposing a change to the subs#

The subs are often the one decision members came to vote on. Give the proposal its own place on the agenda, after the accounts and before any other business. A rise slipped in under the treasurer’s report feels like an ambush, even when it is not.

Present it in four parts:

1. What changes. The old and new amount for each category, in a small table. Show every category, including the ones that are not changing.
2. What it pays for. “Floodlight costs rose by a third” or “we need to put more aside for the courts” is a reason. “Costs have gone up” is not.
3. What happens if members say no. Which plan is delayed, or which cost the club cannot cover.
4. Who is protected. Juniors, students, or members on a hardship rate. Say what the club does for anyone the rise would price out.

Members will accept a rise they can see the reason for. What they do not accept is a rise that arrives without one, or a second rise a year later because the first was too small. For setting the categories and the rates, see membership categories and fees for racket clubs.

Rule changes and proposals from members#

A proposal changes something: the subs, a club rule, or the constitution itself. Each one needs three things before the meeting:

• The exact words. “That rule 7 is changed to read: …” and nothing looser. A proposal that is only an idea becomes an hour of drafting on the night.
• A proposer and a seconder, both members, named on the papers.
• Notice. Whatever your constitution asks. Changes to the constitution itself usually need more notice, and a bigger majority, often two thirds of those voting.

On the night, the proposer speaks first, then anyone else, then the vote. Small changes to the wording can usually be agreed in the room. A change that alters what the proposal does should wait for the next meeting, because the members who stayed at home never saw it.

Electing the committee#

If there is one nomination for each job, the chair can ask the meeting to elect them all together. If two people stand for one job, hold a vote. A show of hands is fine unless somebody asks for a secret ballot, and most constitutions allow them to.

If a job has nobody standing, say so plainly and ask in the room. If nobody stands then either, most constitutions let the committee co-opt someone during the year. Say that too, so nobody feels the job was filled behind closed doors.

Change the bank’s signatories, the governing body’s contacts and the website within a month of the meeting. Handing over a committee job: a checklist covers what a new officer needs from the old one.

Running the room#

The chair’s job on the night is to keep it moving and to let everyone be heard. Five habits help:

• Take the reports as read. “You have all had the report. Are there any questions?” saves twenty minutes and nobody minds.
• Questions after each report, not at the end. A question about the accounts asked during any other business has lost its context.
• Park the long argument. If one subject is taking over, offer to set up a small group to look at it and report back. Then move on.
• Count the votes and write the numbers down. “Carried, 31 for and 4 against” in the minutes ends any argument about what was decided.
• Finish on time. A meeting that ends when it said it would is one people come back to.

A number on its own tells members nothing. A number beside last year’s tells them how the club is doing.

When too few members turn up#

An AGM below the quorum cannot make decisions, so it is worth working to avoid one. The clubs with full AGMs give people a reason to come that is not the business:

• Hold it on a club night, and play afterwards.
• Present the competition prizes at it.
• Put food on. It works every time.
• Send the papers early, so members can see a decision is being made that affects them.

If the meeting is still not quorate, follow your constitution exactly. Most say it is adjourned to a set date, and some say whoever attends then is a quorum. Write down who was there and what happened.

A one-page AGM report#

Everything the officers present fits on one side of paper. Fill in the numbers, add a line under any that moved a long way, and send it out with the notice of the meeting.

An AGM agenda#

Your constitution has the final word on the order. Most club AGMs run in this one and take under an hour:

After the AGM#

Within a month, send every member a draft of the minutes: who attended, each decision, and the numbers for and against every vote. They are approved at the next AGM, but members want to know now what was decided.

Then do the paperwork while the meeting is fresh. Change the bank’s signatories, update the officers on the governing body’s records and the club website, and change the subs in whatever the club collects them with. For when the new year’s subs fall due, see how to collect club subs on time, every year.

Last, put next year’s AGM in the diary. The best time to fix next year’s date is the evening after this year’s meeting, while everyone still remembers which parts took too long.