The reason for this meeting is for you, the membership to vote on whether or not the club becomes a charity. In order to do this, the committee must first set up a “company” which is registered with the charities commission. We must then transfer all of our assets to that company and then “wind up” the club. This sounds scary but in actual fact there will be no apparent changes for the members – the club will continue to function exactly as before with only some constitutional changes that are required by the charities commission.
Why are we proposing to become a charity?
There are a number of benefits of us becoming a charity. Primarily, being a charity attracts many more charitable donations from organisations that currently cannot be given to non-charities. All donations can be “gift aided” so that we can claim back the tax paid by the person or organisation giving the donation. This alone makes the move to charitable status very financially worthwhile. In addition to this, there are various other financial benefits such as certain projects – especially “Sailfree” projects - can purchase materials and services at zero rate of VAT.
We are not alone in being a sailing club run as a charity. Clubs such as Yorkshire Dales and Ullswater have also made this move.
For more information, please see the government Charities Commission website http://www.charitycommission.gov.uk/ Voting: The constitution states that each class of membership has voting rights as follows: Full members have one vote, Family membership has only one vote and corporate members have only 1 vote but Life Members have no vote and couples’ membership is not mentioned and so is a grey area. An additional resolution, therefore, to be voted on first will be that the committee will amend the constitution to give Life Members one vote and also Couples Members one vote. If carried, this is to have immediate effect with regard to voting on the remainder of the resolutions.
Non-Attendance at the Meeting Any members eligible to vote but not attending the meeting will be deemed to be accepting all resolutions unless they notify their wishes to the Secretary or Commodore prior to the meeting.
