Elections, Annual and Extraordinary General Meetings: Advice
Annual General Meetings vs. Extraordinary General Meetings
An Annual General Meeting (AGM) is a compulsory meeting that Committee must organise with its members, which usually takes place during YUSU's re-ratification period. The focus of this meeting is to summarise your society's year, and to vote upon any proposed constitutional changes, and to elect your committee for the year ahead.
An Extraordinary General Meeting (EGM) is a meeting that can take place at any point of the year. EGMs can take place if a committee member has resigned and their role needs filling via. a by-election, or if there is a constitutional amendment that you wish to implement sooner than your AGM (for example, the addition of a new committee position).
The exact same electoral rules and procedures apply for an EGM as they do an AGM. If you have any questions, email your link staff contact.
Before Your AGM, Your Committee Must...
Review Your Constitution
You should be familiar with your group’s constitution. It sets out your group’s aims and objectives, your committee structure, your democratic processes and code of practice. The purpose of the constitution is to give your group direction, tell members what your group’s purpose is and how you operate. Before you start to plan your AGM, the group’s committee and members should have the opportunity to review the constitution and submit any proposed amendments. Amendments might be:
Changing your membership fee [Societies, Sports and Media only]
Introducing a new committee role.
Changing the remit of a committee role.
Introducing a group-specific role, e.g. a sign-out procedure for equipment.
You must ensure that any rules introduced do not exclude any members. Collect any suggested amendments and decide how these will be voted upon. If nobody has any proposals, the group’s constitution will remain the same for the next year.
Amendments to your constitution must be passed by a two thirds majority vote of those present at your AGM– see your constitution for more details!
Plan and Announce Your AGM
An AGM has three main purposes:
To summarise your group’s year.
The Committee should report on the successes and difficulties of the past 12 months, including a financial report.
To vote on any proposed constitutional changes.
To elect a new committee for the next 12 months.
This must be a wholly democratic process, and all committee positions must be open for nominations from all student members of the group.
You may decide that it isn’t possible for your group to complete all three of these items in one session, or that you need to use different processes for each section. This is completely up to you; as a committee you can decide how you want to manage each process.
Hosting An AGM
AGM Rules 📜
Your AGM must be open and advertised to all members at least 7 days in advance.
Your AGM must reach quorum for any votes to stand.
Quorum is 20% of YUSU members of the group or 10 YUSU members of the group– whichever is greater.
Only paid-up members of the group who are also members of YUSU (including associate members) are allowed to vote in the election. Only paid-up members of the group who are full members of YUSU and enrolled on a University of York programme are allowed to stand in the election.
You can check whether someone is a member on the Member Dashboard.
If an individual hasn’t paid, they can buy online at or during the AGM.
All members should be made aware of their ability to stand for election and vote.
All positions must have Re-Open Nominations or “RON” as a candidate.
This means that if your members are unhappy with the candidates, they can vote to re-open the nomination procedure for that position.
Once you’ve decided a date (or set of dates) for your AGM process, inform all your members as soon as you can, and no later than one week in advance. Be sure to clearly explain how all the different processes will work and how and why they should get involved. You do not need to inform YUSU of the date or format of your AGM unless you require our support, which is always available.
Summarise Your Year
You should include a summary of your group’s year at your AGM. You might choose to do this through a document or social media post, a presentation to members over Zoom, or something different.
Include statistics like membership numbers, an overview of the group’s finances, and key highlights from the year. You might want to hand out some awards or personalised thank-yous to your committee members.
Vote on Constitutional Amendments
Outline any proposed constitutional amendments to your membership. You may choose to do this on a Zoom call or through a Google Form, where members can vote. Mention the reasons why this amendment has been put forward, and any relevant arguments against it so members can make a fair choice.
Clearly outline to members how they can vote on the amendments and the timeline. For example, members can vote in real-time during the Zoom call, or you’ll leave a form open for a set amount of time (e.g. 48 hours, one week) to take votes.
Constitutional amendments require a two thirds majority to pass. Voters can vote yes or no to the amendment, or they can choose to abstain. Once the allotted time has passed, you can announce the results and inform the incoming committee of the changes so the amendments can be written into the constitution - or you can do this yourselves.
Elect Your Committee
Typically we encourage groups to meet in person and elect their Committee at a hustings-style event, however this may not be suitable for your group. Always consider what is most appropriate for your group-- online elections through Zoom or Google Meet are a good alternative to gathering in person. If you do choose to meet in person, please ensure you follow relevant University guidelines.
No matter which choice you go with, ensure that the rules for elections are followed– you must advertise the elections at last 7 days in advance; quorum should be reached; only those with membership of the group and YUSU can stand for election or vote; and you must have Re-Open Nominations as a candidate.
Candidates can campaign for their role if they wish, for example through social media. However, the current committee should not contact group members to endorse individuals or suggest who they would vote for, to keep the election as fair as possible.
Running An Election 🗳️
Appoint a Returning Officer
The first thing to do is decide who your Returning Officer will be. Typically this is the President/Chair of the outgoing committee, but they must be impartial, so if they are running for another position they cannot take on this role. The Returning Officer cannot vote in the election. The Returning Officer decides the rules of the election and how it will be organised.
Decide Upon the Format of Your Elections
Online Call
If you’d like to run your elections over a call, we’d first recommend using the First Past the Post voting system, as it’s much easier to calculate in real-time. You can invite nominees to give a short speech about why they’d be good for the role. They could take questions from members, and then voting could open.
Once the votes are tallied you can announce the winners live on the call and then move on to the next position. This enables people who have been unsuccessful in running for one position to re-run for a different one later on.
You could run the voting through a Google Form, or through a programme like Socrative, which you can access for free using your @york.ac.uk email address, meaning that you can update and add questions in real time.
Online Form
If you don’t want to host a big call, you could ask individuals to submit ‘manifestos’ (just a short statement about why they’d be suited to the role) to the society email address by a certain date. Then you could upload these to a Google Form or similar programme for people to read through and vote on.
You could use either the First Past the Post or Single Transferable Vote systems for an election in this way. The key thing here is to ensure that the timelines for nominating and voting are clearly communicated to all members, and that the voting form is left open for long enough for members to engage with it.
Blended Option
You could go for the option of having a hustings event on a Zoom call where nominees made speeches and took questions, and then open a voting form afterwards for people to make their choices.
Choose Your Voting System
First Past the Post (FPTP)
When using FPTP, your electorate casts one vote for their favourite candidate. The votes are then counted, and the candidate with the highest number of votes is the winner.
First Past the Post is the most straightforward voting system, and is easy to calculate. You could use a simple Google form or similar programme to cast and count votes.
Single Transferable Vote (STV)
When using STV, your electorate ranks the available candidates in their order of preference (though they aren’t required to rank all the candidates).
This system is more complicated to administer– you can find out more information and examples of using STV, and use tools such as this transferable vote counter to assist you.
Once your new committee has been elected, all that’s left for you to do is ensure they’re as well-equipped as possible to take on their new roles by providing a strong handover. This essentially means passing over the important information, items, and skills to your successor. YUSU staff won’t know all of the specifics about how you run your individual group, so it’s your responsibility to pass on that information to ensure your group’s continued success.
We encourage each outgoing committee member to meet with their successor within two weeks of their AGM to talk things through, and to provide a handover document with all the key information. Outline the key elements and responsibilities of the role; think about what you were told at your handover meeting, and what else you wish you’d known when you started.
The outgoing President should provide their successor with the password to the group email account and any social media accounts. Anything physical, such as keys, equipment, resources, money boxes, marketing documents and anything else you’ve used during your time running your group needs to be passed on as well. If you like, you can provide your contact details to the new committee, so they can get in touch if they get stuck with anything.
We have templates available if you're not sure where to start on your handover or what to include!
I Want to Hold An AGM Outside of YUSU's Reratification Period. Is This Allowed?
If you are not holding an AGM during the re-ratification window, that is absolutely fine, however...
You must still complete the re-ratification process during the re-ratification window, and state the date of your proposed AGM.
You must hold an AGM at least once every twelve months.
You must email your link staff contact with any future updates to your committee, so that dashboard access can be granted.
We Have Received No Interest During Our Elections. What Do We Do?
If you have held your AGM and there is no interest form your members to run in committee elections, firstly gain some feedback and try to hold by-elections in a different format, and advertise this across all channels possible before holding an EGM.
If you still do not have any interest to be on committee, contact your link staff member for advice. If there are still no members who wish to fill your committee roles, then you can put your group up for adoption with our 'Adopt an Activity' scheme, meaning that students in the future can adopt your group if they are interested in this.
It is important that you still provide a handover and save this in your group's Google Drive, so that future committees can pick up where you left the group.