Voting: Current Members in attendance at the meeting (physical venue or electronically online) have the right to one vote per membership. A Special Resolution Vote will take place requiring 75% of the votes to be “in-favour” for the Resolution to pass.

In compliance with section 59 of the HEA Constitution, President/Chair Karen Chegwidden has determined that voting will be by a “show of hands” by members in attendance - whether they attend in person or via the electronic-internet “Zoom” platform.

Note: the family member attending the meeting and voting, must be listed on their Membership card. This is accessible via the HEA website.  Zoom cameras will be required to be "on".

Special Resolution: The Member-held meeting on 5 May 2018 will be recognised as a valid Annual General Meeting (AGM) of the HEA, Inc.  

A Special Resolution is required to remedy the 2018 member-held AGM by making a one-time exception to the HEA’s Constitution rule regarding 14 day notification for general meetings, specifically Constitution point 54.

Background:

On 3 April 2019 NSW Supreme Court Orders made by Justice Black declared that the attempted expulsions of HEA Life-Members President Vivienne Fox and Karleen Gribble by five members of the 2017 Management Committee, to be of “no legal effect or force”. Meaning they never happened, they were completely invalid. (Link to Orders).

Exactly one year before, on 3 April 2018, 250 members of the HEA petitioned and formally requisitioned the 2017 Management Committee to hold a Special General Meeting to address concerns over the attempted expulsions and the cancelling of the AGM which had been scheduled for 20 March 2018.

The members’ requisitioned SGM was never called by the 2017 Management Committee and they also attempted to cancel the second scheduled AGM which had been set for 5 May 2018. The Zoom attendance link and the voting ballot were prematurely closed by one of the outgoing committee members just 7 hours prior to the scheduled AGM start time of 7:30pm AEST on 5 May 2018, leaving the members without an avenue to meet and elect a new Committee.

Seventy HEA Members, led by the rightful President, Vivienne Fox, continued with the scheduled AGM - the largest attendance in HEA history. A new “Zoom” online teleconference link was created. The meeting followed the original Agenda set out by the 2017 Committee.

It was acknowledged at this member-held AGM, that not every member was made aware that the meeting was still going to go ahead, so it was decided that the newly elected committee would be ‘interim’ for only 4 weeks. It was voted upon and minuted, that a fresh election with all nominees and members voting to occur on 2 June 2018.

However, this was blocked by members of the previous committee and some of their supporters by alleging to the Office of Fair Trading that the member-held AGM was illegal and that Vivienne Fox was “not a member”.

The people who were voted in as the 4-week “interim committee” ended up in those positions for an entire year, but without a way to communicate to all the members, and without access to the HEA administrative property. However, they held the Association together, meeting regularly and paying bills wherever they could out of their own funds, and communicating with the members the best they could.

These matters ended up being taken to the NSW Supreme Court and finally on 3 April 2019 mediation occurred and Orders made, resulting in an election of the 2019 Management Committee. This election took place on 4 May 2019. All of the “interim” committee were re-elected, as well as three other new nominees.

The 2019 Management Committee would like to honour the members’ right to call and hold a Special General Meeting.  Though all of the Petition points of April 2018 have now had a resolution, it is time for the members to meet together and discuss and ask questions about the events over the past 18 months.