At the Special General Meeting (SGM) this afternoon (Monday 6 September), the Society’s Fellowship voted by a large majority (97% of votes cast) to amend the Bye Laws as proposed by the Society’s Council.
All Fellows and members of the Society were sent details of Council’s proposed changes on 2 August and Fellows were asked to vote on whether they agreed with them. Out of a total of 11,450 eligible voters, 2,672 valid votes were cast. And of these, 2,572 votes were for ‘yes’ and 80 votes for ‘no’.
In addition to including the option for the Society to hold Annual General Meetings and SGMs online, and to enable digital voting, the changes to the Bye Laws include:
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Removing out of date procedural instructions - these have been updated and moved into a separate, working document that can be updated more easily as processes develop and improve.
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Removing age-related criteria from membership category eligibility to avoid discrimination.
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Creating a new sub-category of Fellowship called ‘Associate Fellow’ to recognise the importance of Fellows in the early stages of their careers and to be able to provide targeted support for them.
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Renaming ‘Young Geographer’ as ‘Student Member’ to be clearer about who that category is for.
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Removing the requirement for applications for Fellowship to be seconded by an existing Fellow, to remove this barrier to application.
Most of the changes will be implemented immediately and the amended Bye Laws are now available on our website.
However, the changes to membership categories will require some changes to our administrative processes and therefore they will be introduced from April 2022. If these changes affect you, we will be in touch with you directly in the coming months.
If you have any questions on the Society’s Bye Laws please contact us on director@rgs.org.