The General Meeting 2014 took place on Friday afternoon, with 7 Resolutions and 2 Amendments to discuss.
The first section of the meeting passed quickly, with the highlight being President Margaret’s opening address, in which she spoke about the Building the Future of SIGBI plan, SIGBI’s ECOSOC recognition and participation in the Commission of the Status of Women in New York. The creation of the post of APD ECOSOC in 2014 will ensure that SIGBI concentrate their efforts on maintaining their status at the UN. Margaret also talked about the success of SIGBI’s participation in the Global Summit to end Sexual Violence in Conflict and thanked everyone who helped to make it such a success. She talked about the conference of African Clubs which took place in Pretoria earlier this year, and the Growth Accelerator plan, which will be explained in more detail to Clubs via Club mailings over the coming year.
Resolutions
Resolution 1, concerning Associate Membership, produced a lively debate with arguments both for and against the Resolution being put forward by a large number of delegates. In the end the Resolution, which needed 75% of votes to be successful, narrowly failed with only 70% of votes being cast in favour. This meant that Resolutions 2 and 3, which were also part of the Associate Membership debate, were withdrawn.
Resolution 4 was to remove some of the restrictions concerning linked membership, to widen the availability of this membership option. This Resolution was comfortably passed.
Resolution 5 was a tidying up exercise in terms of clarifying the protection of the Soroptimist Emblem and the SIGBI logo in the SIGBI Constitution. Again this was passed by 98% of the vote.
Resolution 6 was to freeze the capitation fees for Bands 1 and 2 until 31 March 2017, and there was one amendment which charged the FMB with carrying out a re-evaluation of the impact of increased capitation fees on the membership of SIGBI on AACM countries. Both Resolution 6 and the Amendment were passed with 88% of the vote.
Resolution 7 was to continue to split the £2.00 donation payable with fees in the UK, Republic of Ireland, Channel Islands and Isle of Man, for the next three years, as follows: £1.00 to the Benevolent Fund, 50p to the Diamond Education Grant and 50p to the Emergency Relief Fund. There was one amendment to this Resolution, such that the Benevolent Fund donation would be increased to £2.00, whilst retaining the split for the other two charities. Both the Amendment and the substantive Resolution 7 were passed with over 90% of the votes. Therefore, the donations part of the SIGBI capitation fees for UK, Republic of Ireland, Channel Islands and Isle of Man members will rise to £3.00 from 2015.
The meeting closed with the introduction of the FMB for 2014-2015, which are as follows:
| President | Jenny Vince |
| President Elect | Margaret Emsley |
| Vice President | Ann Hodgson |
| Immediate Past President | Margaret Oldroyd |
| Director of Communications | Jane Slatter |
| Director of Finance | Judith Lewis |
| Director of Membership | Sue Williams |
| Director of Organisational Development | Ann Hodgson |
| Federation Programme Director | Susan Biggs |
| Director Without Portfolio | Joyce Boorman |
| Director Without Portfolio | Talat Pasha |
| Director Without Portfolio | Isobel Smith |