AGM season, again
You administer a lot of resident management companies, and each one has an AGM. For every one of them someone prepares a notice, attaches the accounts and budget, sends proxy forms, collects them back, books a room or a video link, takes attendance, records votes and writes up the minutes. Then the director changes and company filings follow.
Individually, none of this is hard. Done dozens of times a year, often in the evening, it takes over the calendar of the property managers and company secretarial staff.
Why AGMs stay manual
Every company is a little different: its articles, its members, how it likes to meet. So the process has stayed a folder of Word templates and a spreadsheet of members that has to be checked against the current leaseholder list each time.
Proxies and questions arrive by email and post in the days before the meeting, and the person running the meeting often only sees the final tally when they arrive. Minutes are written from handwritten notes afterwards, which is when they tend to slip.
The cost of doing it by hand
Errors in the member list mean papers go to former owners or miss new ones. Proxies get lost. Members' questions submitted in advance get no answer on the night because nobody collated them. Minutes are late, and actions agreed at the meeting are forgotten until the next one.
All of this lands on staff whose main job is managing buildings, and it does little for how directors and members see your firm.
Our AGM workflow
We build a workflow around your existing templates and the company's own rules. We do not provide company secretarial or legal advice; the rules you set are the ones it follows.
- Member list: members are drawn from your leaseholder records at the date you set, with changes since the last AGM highlighted for checking.
- Papers: notice, agenda, accounts, budget and proxy form are assembled from your templates and sent by email, with printed packs queued for members who need post.
- Online responses: members can appoint a proxy, confirm attendance and submit questions through a simple form linked from the notice.
- Meeting sheet: the property manager has a live list of attendees, proxies held and questions received, with vote counts entered on the night on a tablet or laptop.
- Minutes draft: notes or a recording transcript, where members have agreed to recording, are turned into draft minutes in your format by a language model, for the property manager to edit.
- Actions and filings: agreed actions go to the property manager's task list, and changes such as new directors are flagged for whoever handles company filings.
| Stage | Before | With the workflow |
|---|---|---|
| Member list | Checked by hand against current owners | Built from records, changes highlighted |
| Proxies | Arrive by email and post, counted late | Collected online, counted live |
| Members' questions | Scattered across inboxes | Collated before the meeting |
| Minutes | Written from notes days later | Drafted from notes, edited and approved |
| Actions | Remembered, or not | Tracked as tasks with owners |
How AGM season feels afterwards
Papers go out from one place, proxies and questions arrive already sorted, and the person running the meeting walks in knowing who is coming and what will be asked. Minutes are drafted before they get home, and actions do not wait for the following year.
Company secretarial staff get a clean list of changes to file rather than finding out from the minutes.
Signs your AGMs need this
- AGM notices are built from Word templates for every company.
- Proxy forms arrive in several places and are counted on the night.
- Minutes are finished long after the meeting.
- Actions agreed at AGMs are not tracked.
- Member lists are checked by hand against current owners every year.