Great idea Mark How about "waking up" :-) and looking into the cost (including the cost of personnel time and training) and methodology of achieving this. There are though some who do not have and indeed will not have the Internet and they cannot be excluded purely because they don't/won't use facilities online. Their vote must somehow also be taken into account and once you start either proxy or postal voting to overcome this, why bother with the additional cost of online voting. Look at the accounts - if the Society did not have some decent legacies last year once again it would have been in deficit. Could we justify the extra cost? How many members would vote with their feet if they had to pay more? A postal vote would be much more effective but it comes down to the fact should the Society be responsible for the return postage? With a membership of 12000 (and if all in the UK which they are not) would come down to a cost of at least £6000 plus staff time/cost to administer so in my view not practicable. Outsource it? I have used the services of the Electoral Reform Society in a postal vote and they are not free. Regards Alec At 09:32 02/07/2011, you wrote: >Hi > >I am one of those members who doesn't have strong feelings about how the >SoG is run - I pay my subs, and use the facilities and that's it. But one >thing I have observed from this exchange is that we seem to be stuck in a >slightly old fashioned way of thinking. For instance, people have mentioned >postal votes .... what about online voting? Members give their proxy vote >to whoever because they can't be at the AGM ... but with modern technology, >why aren't we thinking about virtual, online AGMs which would reach members >around the world? You wouldn't need a proxy if you could log in, see the >AGM in action and vote. Candidates for election could put their >pre-election addresses on camera - stick it on >Youtube, it wouldn't cost anything - >rather relying solely on addressing a meeting in person or sending out >printed profiles and election blurb. > >Perhaps it's time the Society looked more widely at the whole issue of >voting and governance, using slightly more >sophisticated methods than sticking >your hand up in the air. > >Just an observation from a "sleeping" member. > >Mark @ Yetminster > >------------------------------- >To unsubscribe from the list, please send an >email to [email protected] with the >word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the >subject and the body of the message