Once you have a date for your AGM, please contact Head Office and/or your party council, letting us know the date and time you would like to hold your meeting.

Head Office will then set up your meeting on Zoom and give you a link to share with your members. We will also provide a membership list with information on who can attend, vote and stand for election.

The notice of the AGM must be sent to all members by email at least seven days before the meeting. Where possible, if members do not have an email address you should try to notify them by phone or post.

The agenda should state the time and date of the meeting, the joining instructions, and list all positions to be elected.

There is no quorum required for branch meetings provided that all members are notified in advance, and that the meeting starts at the time notified. The decisions and elections of any AGM that is attended by five or fewer voting members are subject to ratification by the relevant party council.

To seek election, you must have been a member of the Party for nine months, and not be in arrears at the start of the AGM. The nine months requirement may be waived for new or relaunched branches if permission is granted in advance from Head Office.

Gender Balance

The Rule Book requires that there should be a gender balance within your Officer team. That means that you should take nominations for each position in turn.

The suggested order is Chair, Secretary, Treasurer, Vice-Chair 1, and Vice-Chair 2. If you have other officer/executive positions these should then follow.

How this works in practice:

• If you have an even number of officer roles, at least half must be held by women (e.g. four positions, at least two of whom are women).
• If you have an odd number of officer roles, you must round up every other year (e.g. five positions, at least two of whom are women one year and then three the next or vice versa)

Delegates to the Party Council

Your party council secretary will confirm the number of delegates your branch is entitled to send.

Your delegates must meet the above requirements: they have nine months membership, are not in arrears, and the delegates should be gender balanced.

Delegates to the Labour Party

You may also decide to elect delegates to your local CLP and LCF/LGC at your AGM.

Your delegates must meet the above requirements: have nine months membership, are not in arrears, and the delegates should be gender balanced. In addition they must be a Labour Party member and be registered as living within the area of relevant CLP or LCF/LGC.

With the exception of vacancies, new delegates elected at your AGM will only take up office at the AGM of the CLP or LCF/LGC. You can read more about CLP Delegates here.

Elections Using Zoom Polls

We recommend holding the elections with the Zoom polls functions. That means that everyone who joins the call through their computer or smartphone will be able to cast a secret vote.

Members who do not have a computer or smartphone, can dial into the meeting with their landline – that means they can speak in the meeting and stand for election, but unfortunately will not be able to vote.

The Chair will request nominations for each of the positions notified on the agenda. Members can self-nominate and don’t need to be present at the meeting.

If more than one nomination is received, then an election will be held. If you are using the Co-operative Party’s Zoom account, an official from Head Office will create the poll and members will be able to cast their vote on their screen.

When everyone has voted, the candidate who has received more than 50% of the vote will be declared elected. If no candidate has more than 50% of the vote, the lowest candidate will be eliminated and another round of voting will take place.

Elections Using Anonyvoter

Alternatively, you can use a platform called Anonyvoter, rather than Zoom polls (click here to sign-up) – this system is used by CLPs. This will allow those on the phone to take part, but is also more complex, especially when roles are subject to gender balance requirements. If you are going to use Anonyvoter, we recommend that you require nominations to be submitted in advance.

You would still hold your meeting via Zoom, however, the voting would be done by email. To do this, the Secretary would note the names of everyone who joins the meeting (including those joining by landline), and find their email addresses on the membership list. They will then login to their Anonyvoter account, and add these email addresses to the AGM ‘Event’.

If you have asked for nominations in advance, then the Secretary will name the candidates. If no nominations have been received then the Chair will request nominations for each of the positions notified on the agenda. Members can self-nominate and don’t need to be present at the meeting.

If more than one nomination is received, then an election will be held. The Secretary will do this by logging into their Anonyvoter account, creating a new poll by entering the names of the candidates who have been nominated. – selecting AV instant run-off vote as the poll type.

They will then start the poll, this will email all those who’ve attended the meeting a link to vote in the election – the Chair will ask the members to check their inboxes (including spam folders) for their voting email.

Once everyone has had the chance to vote, the Secretary will close the vote and announce the result.

We suggest that you take nominations for Chair, Secretary and Treasurer at the same time so members can vote in these three elections in one go – this will also determine the gender balance requirements for the other positions (see above).

For elections of delegates, the Secretary should use the process as set out above, however: the vote type will be First Past The Post and the number of positions to be elected will be the number of delegate places.

For example if you have five delegates places, you would say the number of positions to be elected is five. Remember at least two of these five positions must be held by women, so once the voting has closed, look at the results: the two women with the most votes will be declared elected (it does not matter if there are other candidates above them). The other three positions will be filled by the candidates with the most votes.

Your AGM is an important way for members to elect officers to work on their behalf and to agree plans for the year ahead.

However, you should also see your AGM as way to organise a speaker to help educate members, plan campaigns and develop policy.

Head Office can help arrange a speaker on a topic of interest. Some examples might be:

• An update on one of our campaigns with a discussion on what your branch can do locally, for example: Food Justice, Unlock the High Street, Protecting Retails Workers from Violence and Modern Day Slavery.
• A talk about some of our recent policy work, such as Owning the Future.
• An update on our work in Local Government and how your branch can work to support and grow Co-operative candidates and councillors in your area ahead of your next elections.
• A talk about the co-operative movement, how it has responded to Covid-19, and how to get involved with local co-ops and campaigning.
• We can also help arrange a speaker from our Party Staff, NEC, Networks, the Westminster, Holyrood or Senedd Groups of Co-operative Representatives, or a Co-operative councillor or metro mayor.

We expect the majority of meetings to continue to take place online.

We therefore suggest that you now go ahead and plan to hold your AGM online using the procedures in this briefing.

An online AGM helps organise local activity in your area and make sure that all your positions are filled.