CIH Annual General Meeting - members vote for change
05/07/10
This year's AGM held on 22 June, was one of the busiest for many years. The two lead items on the agenda were the new membership and governance proposals. These proposals, recommended by CIH's Council of Trustees, will make CIH a more open, inclusive and responsive professional body with a structure that allows the governing body to lead the strategic direction of the organisation and allows more members to get involved.
The membership voted strongly in favour of the framework proposals. The changes to membership will mean, amongst other things, that the current five grades of member will be replaced with two - CIH Member and CIH Chartered Member. Services for members will be structured around four packages of benefits. These reflect the key reasons why people join CIH - they are: the Essential package, the Information package, the Advice package and the Careers package. CIH Chartered Members would receive all four packages and CIH Members would receive two packages, and can buy additional packages, which are all individually priced, according to their needs.
The changes to governance will mean, amongst other things, that the current Council will be replaced with a smaller Governing Board with a focus on strategy, and whose members are recruited on the basis of skills and experience. The AGM is confirmed as the supreme decision-making body of CIH and will continue to hold the new Governing Board to account. There will be more opportunities for individual members to get involved in decision making through advisory groups, delegated boards, NBU boards and regional committees. A Code of Governance will be produced for the organisation, which sets out the principles of good governance.
CIH President, Paddy Gray said, 'It is fantastic that CIH members have got behind the modernisation of their professional body in such numbers. This reaffirms the supreme importance of the AGM and the ultimate accountability of CIH to its members. More work remains to be done on the details of the new proposals and we will be communicating with all members in the next two months.'
A full set of proposed changes to the Charter and Byelaws will be put to the membership at a future general meeting, to enable implementation of the membership and governance provisions.