Where can the Operating Agreements be found? I'd like to review them to be sure I understand the deal that we're being invited to approve. These agreements are the key legal documents that will govern our rights as members in the 3 successor clubs. Currently, we have the existing club by laws and the Societies Act & Regulations which set out our legal rights and are the basis for members having the right to use the club facilities. Currently, members' rights to use the facilities for the objectives mentioned in the club by laws are quite robust and the board have a fiduciary duty to support those objectives and activities. But if we donate the facilities to the City and have only a contract (one for each club) allowing access to the facilities, the members will be in a much different and quite possibly weaker legal position to have access to the facilities, which will be its property, not ours. So the wording in these proposed agreements with the City about exactly what we can do and when, in these facilities. We can't assess the agreements without reading them. It may be that not everyone wants to read them, but I do.
Could you please e mail these documents to me so that I can review them? I do think it would have been preferable to include them in the meeting materials, and that would certainly be normal for a major transaction like this involving a corporation or a society. It's very, very important to be completely open and transparent about the new legal arrangements that we're being asked to approve. The assets of the club are being transferred entirely to a third party and the club is being reorganized into three new entities which will each have different relationships with the third party, and (I assume) different contract rights to use the donated assets. The meeting materials explain the reasons for the donation, but are pretty scant on the new arrangements that the board has negotiated for each group with the City. As members, we can't assess those arrangements on the basis of the information provided so far. It's very important to be open and transparent with the membership about this. This is not a rude or unusual request and should not be surprising.
I haven't received any response to this question from yesterday. It's a pretty basic question. And there's only one right answer. We're being asked to approve a major reorganization of our society. In any corporate transaction like this, the shareholders get to see the legal documents that they're being invited to adopt to govern their position going forward. The fact that we're not getting to see them, in advance of the meeting where we vote on them, is very disturbing.
The operating agreements for each of the 3 New Societies were provided to each of the SFGC Directors involved with them, that is: Archery, Gun Range and Hatchery. These were provided to those Directors who were obliged to inform the members they represent. If they have not done that, you are encouraged to talk to the Director who represents you.
No, that is NOT the message that was conveyed to me about the agreements at the director's meeting. The message sent to me was even if I showed the agreement to a lawyer, that there was a concern I'd show it to someone else.
Wait. President Bob, your answer doesn’t make sense: why in the world didn’f (and don’t) you merely send the main proposed agreement with the City of Surey, along with the Operating Agreements, to each member? The best interests of the club obviously require that each member be given those documents PRIOR to voting on approving the documents.
ALSO, why in the world would you say that only members “represent[ed]” by each of 3 directors (never mind the troubling fact that you state that you believe directors represent specific members) can see the proposed Operating Agreements?!?
The Range Director has now sent me the agreement package, this morning. Evidently he understood had been forbidden by others on the board to send this to any range member until this morning (see above). It's quite clear from a quick look at this document that the treatment of the three member groups is very different, and much, much more favourable to the hatchery group. It is surprising that these agreements and a clear, plain-English summary of their key points and differences wasn't sent out in the meeting material.
It would be surprising, if you hadn't asked Bob for any club documents in the past. He has demonstrated over and over again that he REALLY doesn't like to share info. with our membership.