12 December 2019

Dear Members of the Illawarra Basketball Association,

Last night we held both our adjourned Annual General Meeting, and the first board meeting of the new board.  As agreed by the previous board at our last board meeting, representatives of Basketball New South Wales attended at the meeting and assisted in the processes to have the meeting conducted in a fair and orderly fashion.

Our members saw some changes from the manner in which things have been done in the past, including the introduction of coloured bracelets to signify the voting members and differentiate them from non-members holding proxies.

We also note that, so far as possible, the voting was conducted on a show of hands so that the people present in the room were able to have their say.

For the election of directors, the recommendation of Basketball New South Wales was that the candidates be elected by a process of voting for, against, or abstaining in respect of each candidate available.

Only those candidates with a majority vote would be entitled to take up positions on the board.

As a result of that process the following candidates were elected to the board:

Radmila Avramovic;

Michael Turton; 

Glen Stutchbury; 

Michael Brannon; and,

John Dunning.

BNSW confirmed at the start of the meeting that the directors who were remaining on the Board were Sam Ackroyd, Edith MacDonald and myself, Graham Lancaster.

In relation to the resolutions to amend the Constitution, resolutions 6(a) and 6 (c) were passed by the members with 6(b) not being passed.

Whilst there was much emotion around the proposed amendment in 6(B) of the Agenda, allowing non-members to hold proxies, it was observed by myself at the meeting and then confirmed by Simon Merritt of Lander & Rogers later, that, as a company limited by guarantee, and therefore a public company, the Illawarra Basketball Association Limited is required to follow the provisions of the Corporations Act 2001.

s.249X of that Act provides that a proxy can be an individual or a corporation and has no requirement that it be a member of the company.  Mr Merritt went so far as to state that any provision in our Constitution that stated otherwise was invalid, confirming the reason why the amendment was proposed originally. 

Following the Annual General Meeting, BNSW asked the incoming directors as well as the incumbent directors to meet for the purposes of setting dates for board meetings going forward and for electing their executive.

The representatives of BNSW then supervised the election of the executive officers by the Board with the following candidates being successful:

President: Myself, Graham Lancaster

Vice President: Sam Ackroyd

Secretary: Radmila Avramovic

Treasurer: John Dunning

The representatives of BNSW then encouraged the new board members to work collaboratively and in the interests of basketball and the members generally rather than pursuing any private agendas.

As President, I echo those sentiments very strongly.

There is a National Integrity Framework that Basketball Australia initiated and which, through our membership of BNSW and their membership of Basketball Australia, our Association is bound by. I encourage members to review that through the BA website

In accepting the role I acknowledge that our former President, Sam Ackroyd has worked well to help deliver an outstanding financial outcome for the Association and will no doubt serve our members well in the role of Vice President.

I would like to thank our new board members, those who are incumbent and those who have retired in the last few months for their efforts and contributions for and on behalf of the Association. I also thank BNSW for their guidance and not inconsiderable assistance to our Association.

As Spiderman’s Uncle Ben said, “With great power comes great responsibility” and so it is now our responsibility, as a Board to serve the Association and take it forward in pursuit of the promotion of our sport, basketball.

Graham Lancaster

President