[UK-TUG] Draft motions for dissolution special general meeting (SGM)

[Jonathan Fine]

Hi all

Nicola Talbot has asked what would happen if the members individually
expressed wishes were

Member 1: W, Y and Z.
> Member 2: W and Z.
> Member 3: Y and Z.
> Member 4: X.
>

This is a good question. Well-chosen examples are always helpful. Thank you.

It's helpful first to create a common denominator, so we avoid explicit use
of fractions. In this case we first divide the surplus funds into 4 * 3 * 2
= 24 equal parts. Each member gets 6 of these parts. Using this the
preferences table is (each row adds to 6):

0 2 2 2
0 3 0 3
0 0 3 3
6 0 0 0

Adding the columns we get: 6 5 5 8. (Check: 6 + 5 + 5 + 8 = 24). Therefore
the distribution is
X: 6 / 24
W: 5 / 24
Y: 5 / 24
Z: 8 / 24

So far so good. Nicola then asks "what happens if everyone else decides
that X" is inconsistent with the parenthetical part of the motion? To make
this concrete, I'll suppose that X is Oxfam or some other non-typesetting
worthy organisation.

The constitution says it is the Committee, not the members or the AGM, that
are responsible for ensuring consistency in the parenthetical part of the
motion. When the committee sees the request that funds be sent to Oxfam, I
would expect the committee to explain to the member why that can't be done,
and give the member an opportunity to amend their request. (There's an
implied obligation on the committee to act in a reasonable way.)

If a member expresses no preference, or expresses only invalid preferences
which are not revised, then the outcome should be the same as expressing no
preference. This would result in an equal division into larger parts. In
our example the preferences table would be

0 2 2 2
0 3 0 3
0 0 3 3
0 0 0 0

This would result in

X: 5 / 18
W: 5 / 18
Y: 8 / 18

I hope this helps.

with kind regards

Jonathan
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://tug.org/pipermail/uktug-announce/attachments/20211004/f6c834f3/attachment.html>