The 2020 AGM is on

The 2020 AGM is on....

We will be formally giving you notice of the AGM in late July, however because the situation is somewhat complex and because we want to be completely transparent about how the meeting is going to work, here is an explanation of the situation.

The summary is that we will be having an online AGM which you will be invited to join, on 9^th September 2020 at 7.30pm. All voting will be conducted using postal votes – these will be sent out with the notice of the AGM in July.

Now for the detail: We are required to follow the rules for holding an AGM set out in the Synagogue’s “Articles of Association” (our governing document). This document doesn’t directly allow for an online AGM to take place – but has requirements that we can follow in the current circumstances. I won’t go into the full explanation of the rules and their implications here – you are welcome to contact Matt Thornfield, our Company Secretary at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. if you wish to know more about this. However we have come up with the following plan for this year which is permissible within our rules:

We will initially be giving you notice of an AGM to take place on 12^th August 2020, however we will ask you not to attend the meeting. This will result in that meeting being abandoned as not enough members will turn up.

Under the rules, this will allow us to call a second meeting on 9^th September 2020, which can go ahead even without sufficient members present. We will arrange for this meeting to take place online, so that members can receive the accounts and other reports and ask questions of the trustees and Rabbi. 

Because of the strange position we find ourselves in this year, we are not planning to hold elections for Board and Executive Officer positions in the normal way – we’ll explain more about that when we send out the notice of the AGM in July.

If you have any questions about this message, please feel free to contact David Israel, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., or Matt Thornfield. For now, please make a note of the date of our meeting, 9^th September 2020 at 7.30pm in your diary, and look out for the formal notice which will be sent out next month.