Perhaps you had upset the secretary somehow
I don't believe he can make up these rules unilaterally and try to impose them just before a deadline. There is no precedent or requirement in the constitution for advance nominations.
6.3. Representatives from the classes of Individual and Group Membership shall be elected at an Annual General Meeting, by a show of hands of those present who are eligible to vote. Here the two-house voting system outlined in sub section 8.9 will not apply. Each representative shall serve for a term of two years from the AGM.
The secretary also tried to impose new rules for proposing motions to the AGM which do need to be in by a deadline, however, there is no precedence for other conditions. I brought it up at the last council meeting and the minuted discussion is copied below;
TA asked RW whether the procedure for submitting AGM motions has changed, citing that RW was now asking for hard copies of proposals to be submitted, wet-signed by the proposer.
RW confirmed that he has not changed his mind on this.
JP commented that historically a proposal must meet the deadline, but a seconder can be sought after.
LW felt we should be accepting proposals by email but that they should have two signatures. ?
ME read out the section of the constitution regarding this, emphasising that this states the minimum requirements as being for the proposal to be submitted to the Secretary by midnight on the day of the Council meeting preceding the AGM. ME said it says nothing on what format this takes (electronic or paper), nothing about needing a seconder, and nothing about needing signatures. ME felt we should be working on what the constitution says, and not making up additional rules or requirements beyond what the constitution requires. ?
LB felt we should take this discussion as feedback and address the constitution accordingly.
DC suggested it might be easier to put the requirements in the Manual of Operations. ?
ME reiterated his earlier point, saying that the BCA has 6000+ members all of who are entitled to put forward a proposal to the AGM, and all of who he believed would look to the constitution for the requirements on doing this. He did not feel people should also have to digest the Manual of Operations too, so this information should not be in the Manual of Operations instead. He raised the matter of what if someone goes away from this meeting and decides to put a proposal in before midnight; they might be able to fulfil all the requirements of the constitution, but are we really going to reject this because of some unpublished additional requirements that seem to be at the discretion of the Secretary? He felt that the bare minimum requirements set out in the constitution should be the only requirements for submitting a proposal, and if the BCA want additional requirements, then they also need to be stated in the constitution. ?
AB said he has worked in local Government and doesn?t feel putting conditions for such things in the constitution is right as it gets too complex. He said that precedent from previous meetings should be sufficient to justify requirements not set forward in the constitution. He felt that RW was right to try to formalise the process.
TA agreed but felt that communication of such additional requirements should not come so last minute. ?
LW asked if we are happy to accept motions that are put forward to the AGM according to the constitution (i.e. no additional unpublished requirements): For 8, against 5, abstentions 6. LW declared that he expects all non-seconded proposals to be seconded before any discussion.