I’m missing something - the three membership / fundraising options sound sensible, and are just cashing in on the fact there are lots of rich people willing to pay to be a member of the MCC, or to shorten the waiting time...
How goes this change who can be on the Board? Isn’t that open to all members?
Sorry, I haven't yet bored everyone with the whole story.
Selling memberships was an effective fundraising wheeze, but it was quite controversial, and the governance issue there was that the Committee put it to a vote at the AGM but bundled the benign proposal with the controversial one in a single vote, to get it through.
For the same AGM, the Committee proposed rule changes so that:
- instead of allowing any member to stand for election to the Committee in future, only candidates approved by a nominations vetting process (controlled by the Committee) would be allowed
- anyone on the Committee who the Chairman thought did not exhibit 'appropriately collegiate behaviour' could be excluded from the committee
- anything that the Committee did that the Chairman ruled to be 'in good faith' was valid, even if it was actually against the rules of the club
These proposals were withdrawn at the last minute, in response to an outcry, but supposedly 'due to drafting errors'.
Then a group of members put forward an alternative proposition (getting the necessary 200 signatures), to be voted on by an SGM, that instead of these rule changes there should a a governance review to increase democracy and accountability. This proposal was rejected by the Committee on the grounds of ‘incorrect paperwork’, ‘legal problems’ and ‘timing difficulties’. The Committee then hurriedly announced their own SGM on 15 October to try to pass broadly similar proposals to the ones above, before this alternative proposal could be voted on. If they get their way, then the Chairman will control 4 out of the 7 votes in the nominations process, and can thus put up anyone he likes for election to the Committee and exclude anyone he doesn't like.
The MCC Committee has a long history of a profoundly undemocratic attitude to members (I could go on) and this is their boldest power-grab ever.