This year’s Annual General Meeting (AGM) is on Monday 29 July. At the AGM, which will be hosted online, we will be voting:
To elect OASF board members
To disapply audit requirements for next year’s accounts
We will also be presenting this year’s OASF accounts.
Election
This year, there are 5 spaces on the OASF board to be elected to bring the board up to its full complement of 10.
Any OASF member who signed up by Saturday 29 June can stand for election, they just need their nomination form signed by two other OASF members (who also signed up by Saturday 29 June). We encourage any members who have an interest in becoming an OASF board member to stand.
We have attached a role profile below to give you a sense of what is expected of OASF board members but will also publish some blogs from current board members to provide personal insight into what it’s actually like and why we do it. If you are interested but not yet sure, feel free to contact any of the existing OASF board who would be happy to give any advice or answer questions. OASF can also help prospective candidates with finding other members to sign their nomination form. Candidates can contact us at hello@oasf.co.uk.
The elected term for a board member is normally 3 years but can be staggered to minimise the amount of turnover each year. We will confirm the terms of elected board members after the AGM.
If you would like to stand for election, please complete the attached nomination form below by Monday 22 July and send it to the election management group at oasfelection2024@gmail.com.
Existing Board Members
Mick Harwood has stepped down from the OASF board and won’t be standing at this year’s election. We would like to thank Mick for the time and effort they have put into OASF in their time on the board. They worked closely with the Community Trust and were instrumental in a number of community initiatives, including the free Over 30s and Walking Football sessions. We wish them look in the future.
Matt Dean and Mark Mills will reach the end of their elected terms at this AGM and must stand down. They can choose to stand for re-election if they choose to do so.
Election Management Group
To ensure this year’s election is open and fair, we have assembled an election management group separate from the OASF board. The members of the group are:
Dominic Lowe, OASF membership secretary
Robert Whitaker, Blackpool Supporters Trust
Allison Dyson, OASF member
Disapplying Financial Audit
As a community benefit society, OASF is required to get its accounts professionally audited every year unless its members vote to disapply that requirement at the preceding AGM. If OASF members vote to disapply the financial audit requirement, OASF is instead required to get its accounts independently examined (such as by a qualified accountant), but this would be cheaper than an audit.
Financial auditing is very expensive as it must be done by a specialist auditor. Quotes for this work are around £3,000 to £4,000. That is why we are asking our members to vote to disapply the audit requirements for the next set of OASF accounts, as they did last year.
On its website, the FSA provides advice on the difference between an audit and an Independent Examination (IE):
"In essence, an audit will assure members that the accounts are right, whilst an IE will confirm to members that there is no evidence to suggest the accounts are wrong.
The IE does amount to an Independent Review of the Trust Accounts and therefore goes some way to meeting the principle of openness by providing a level of comfort to Trust Members that the accounts presented at the AGM have been subject to an independent review.
Nevertheless, it is for the members of each individual Trust to decide whether the IE is sufficient as a form of scrutiny of their Society Board Members."
The vote requires a majority of at least 75% to pass.
Members’ Questions
As part of the AGM, we are inviting OASF members to submit questions for the current OASF board to address during the meeting. If you have any questions you would like to submit to the board, please send them via email to hello@oasf.co.uk or use the Contact Us page on our website.
The deadline for submitting questions will be Monday 22 July. We will then collate the questions and answer them during the AGM. If we receive more questions than can be reasonably answered during the AGM, we will answer other questions in a written post afterwards.
Election Policy
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