Last year CILIP's Annual General Meeting (AGM) attracted a maximum of 182 votes from a total membership of 14,832: roughly 1% of membership. I can't say I'm surprised by this figure. After all, who pays attention to AGMs anyway? It's just a lot of i-dotting and t-crossing and signing off of accounts; it's something that needs to be done but which does not need us all there to do it. I don't think I've ever participated in a national AGM before now (not least for geographic reasons).
This year's AGM attracted 160 voters to the hall (up ten on last year and double that of 2010) plus 892 proxy ballots. With a reduced membership of 13,690, that works out at about 7.5% of the total: a 7.5 increase in percentage terms and a six-fold increase in real terms. Why such a surge of participation? Well, for one thing there was nothing to vote upon in the 2012 AGM beyond the standard agenda items. Indeed, a quick and inelegant trawl through archive.org suggests that this is the first time in over a decade that anybody's submitted an additional motion in advance of the meeting. In the case of 2013 we had two bits of extra business: the question of what we should be called and the question of what we should call Ed Vaizey. One or both of these item inspired the interest of hundreds of extra members, myself included.
A year ago, I suspect most of us would have been up for a name change. CILIP is not a pretty moniker. But the way CILIP went about its attempted conversion to ILPUK rubbed a lot of people up the wrong way (about 700 people by the looks of things). The prospect of a naval-gazing vote on a deckchair-shuffling name inspired the No Confidence in Ed Vaizey campaign and as a consequence we had something resembling decisive political action on the agenda. Symbolic, admittedly, but it's a start. This item's presence (and subsequent success: the motion was carried 669 to 200) marks what could hopefully be the start of something good for CILIP: the organization's dismissive and high-ham-fisted approach to the name change has led a small portion of its membership to question the purpose of the AGM and to seek a more relevant and active agenda. With the body losing 1,000 members a year, and librarianship in a state of government-imposed crisis, let us hope that this new attitude gains momentum and that next year's AGM is both more relevant and better attended.
Improved mechanisms of inclusion would not go amiss in this regard, but people have been moaning about that sort of thing for a while now. Fingers crossed for next year. For now, though, let us raise a toast: to the Knowledge People!
A year ago, I suspect most of us would have been up for a name change. CILIP is not a pretty moniker. But the way CILIP went about its attempted conversion to ILPUK rubbed a lot of people up the wrong way (about 700 people by the looks of things). The prospect of a naval-gazing vote on a deckchair-shuffling name inspired the No Confidence in Ed Vaizey campaign and as a consequence we had something resembling decisive political action on the agenda. Symbolic, admittedly, but it's a start. This item's presence (and subsequent success: the motion was carried 669 to 200) marks what could hopefully be the start of something good for CILIP: the organization's dismissive and high-ham-fisted approach to the name change has led a small portion of its membership to question the purpose of the AGM and to seek a more relevant and active agenda. With the body losing 1,000 members a year, and librarianship in a state of government-imposed crisis, let us hope that this new attitude gains momentum and that next year's AGM is both more relevant and better attended.
Improved mechanisms of inclusion would not go amiss in this regard, but people have been moaning about that sort of thing for a while now. Fingers crossed for next year. For now, though, let us raise a toast: to the Knowledge People!
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