{"id":7249,"date":"2024-05-03T13:01:42","date_gmt":"2024-05-03T16:01:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/?p=7249"},"modified":"2024-05-03T13:01:42","modified_gmt":"2024-05-03T16:01:42","slug":"astor-theatre-board-responds-to-members-concerns-before-upcoming-agm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/2024\/05\/03\/astor-theatre-board-responds-to-members-concerns-before-upcoming-agm\/","title":{"rendered":"Astor Theatre board responds to members’ concerns before upcoming AGM"},"content":{"rendered":"
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John Simmonds, chairman of the Astor Theatre Society, addresses a members’ meeting on Thursday at the Liverpool theatre. (Rick Conrad)<\/p><\/div>\n

The board of the Astor Theatre Society on Thursday clarified who can vote and who can be nominated to its board at its upcoming general meeting.<\/span><\/p>\n

Some members who signed up in the past two months were concerned that the Astor would not allow them to vote.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

About 50 people turned out for the members meeting on Thursday evening at the theatre. Board chairman John Simmonds explained that all members in good standing will be able to vote at its upcoming annual general meeting.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s been controversy over conflicting bylaws and conflicting interpretations and we\u2019ve tried to remain as quiet as we could on those issues. But it was necessary to do a lot of research to make sure we were on good ground in what we were proposing. Every member who is in good standing who is over 18 years of age and a resident of Nova Scotia can vote at the AGM.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The meeting was held in response to a request from the ad hoc group Queens County Community Theatre Advocates. That group was formed after the resignation of associate artistic director Ashley-Rose Goodwin in March.<\/span><\/p>\n

The group said it was concerned about recent decisions made by executive director Jerri Southcott and the Astor Board. The group said that as Astor members they wanted\u00a0 to hold the board accountable.<\/span><\/p>\n

In an April 25 update to the group\u2019s members, one of the founding members of the group Kevin Colwell wrote that the Astor appeared to be taking a \u201crestrictive\u201d approach to voting at the upcoming AGM. He said that in discussions with the Astor, it appeared they were planning to prevent anyone who became a member after Dec. 31, 2023 from voting.<\/span><\/p>\n

He called on group members to attend the May 2 members meeting and the May 9 AGM.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"

About 50 people were at the Astor Theatre in Liverpool on Thursday evening for a meeting on voting at the upcoming annual general meeting. (Rick Conrad)<\/p><\/div>\n

The issue over voting arose because of confusion about which set of bylaws was valid.<\/span><\/p>\n

Simmonds said Thursday that until the board did a \u201cdeep dive\u201d into their archives, even they were unsure of the proper voting procedures. So they hired Marjorie Hickey, a lawyer with McInnes Cooper in Halifax, to look into it and give an opinion.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt outlines in great detail exactly what all the steps were, how the three sets of bylaws compare and contrast, where we stand legally now. And she has confirmed through case law and others that we are in good position now using the 2017 bylaws.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

As a result of that legal advice, the Astor has also changed the date of the May 9 AGM to June 24.<\/span><\/p>\n

According to its most recent bylaws, the Astor will appoint people to replace three directors who resigned in the past couple of months.<\/span><\/p>\n

There will be four open spots on the board of directors at the June AGM. Any member can be nominated to sit on the board.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cSo hopefully this will set the record straight on where we stand and where we propose going with all of this,” Simmonds said. “It will be a true democratic process at the AGM in terms of nominations. We look forward to having many of you putting your name forward.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Some members of the Queens County Community Theatre Advocates were at the meeting. But they didn\u2019t want to comment until they could read the lawyer\u2019s report to the Astor.<\/span><\/p>\n

Simmonds said after the meeting that he believes it addressed many concerns from community members. He said the board believes it\u2019s on solid legal ground.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re very comfortable that we\u2019re in good shape now with our current bylaws. And that allows us to move forward and alleviates a lot of the issues and controversy brought to us by the community,\u201d he said in an interview.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt clarified things that we didn\u2019t know ourselves. So it was new to us. So once we digested it all ourselves and came up with a final conclusion verified by the lawyer, \u2026 all the rest of what went on in the past is not really relevant now.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Simmonds said the Astor will announce the new appointed members of the board in the next week. He said it will also send notice about the June 24 annual general meeting to all members and advertise it in local newspapers and online.<\/span><\/p>\n

Email: rickconradqccr@gmail.com<\/a><\/p>\n

Listen to the audio version of this story below<\/p>\nhttps:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/astormembersmeetstorymay324.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The board of the Astor Theatre Society on Thursday clarified who can vote and who can be nominated to its board at its upcoming general meeting. Some members who signed up in the past two months were concerned that the Astor would not allow them to vote.\u00a0 About 50 people turned out for the members […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,5],"tags":[2130,2123,38,1421,2129,2028,41,2009,39,49,2012,1161,1577],"class_list":["post-7249","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-community-news","category-news-posts","tag-annual-general-meeting","tag-astor","tag-astor-theatre","tag-astor-theatre-society","tag-bylaws","tag-governance","tag-john-simmonds","tag-kevin-colwell","tag-liverpool","tag-queens-county","tag-queens-county-community-theatre-advocates","tag-theatre","tag-voting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7249","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7249"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7249\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7253,"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7249\/revisions\/7253"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7249"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7249"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7249"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}