As you know, the joint CSGA-CSTA 2020 summer meetings, originally scheduled for mid-July as in-person events in Winnipeg, have been deferred to 2021 (same time and location). In their place, we moved ahead with a slimmed-down remote meeting format for 2020.
Ultimately, the unpredictable travel conditions, restrictions on the size and format of public gatherings and the associated logistical challenges and financial risks related to COVID-19 left us little choice.
Our virtual Annual General Meeting took place today. It ran for approximately five hours (as opposed to the traditional four days) and was attended by a wide range of CSGA members and stakeholders.
Each member was supplied with a unique control number in advance of the meeting which enabled access to a secure online portal managed by a third-party invigilator. Members were able to vote on association business during the meeting, with full confidence in the integrity of the results. The AGM was particularly noteworthy for its town hall-style discussion of the Seeds Canada amalgamation proposal.
Fittingly, the CSGA board of directors took centre stage in this lively exchange with members, where the pros and cons of the proposal and the board’s rationale for supporting it were discussed at length. If CSGA members and those of the other participating associations ultimately vote in favour of the amalgamation, this year’s AGM could very well have been CSGA’s last — a fact not lost on those in attendance.
The CSGA member vote on the amalgamation proposal is scheduled to run from July 15 to Aug. 27, the latter date being the day of a planned virtual Special General Meeting of Members (SGM) where the outcome of the vote will be announced. CSGA members received their amalgamation ratification packages (including the amalgamation agreement, articles of amalgamation, supporting documents and voting instructions) by regular mail in early July.
The essential elements of the package, approved by the boards of the five participating associations in May, were posted to the CSGA website and the Seed Synergy Partners’ website in mid-June. To ensure that the members of all five amalgamating associations are in a position to make fully informed voting choices, the CSGA is collaborating with its Seed Synergy partners on a series of joint member webinars.
Additionally, CSGA is holding a series of parallel virtual town hall sessions exclusively for its members through July and August. So please read through the amalgamation ratification package if you haven’t already, participate in the sessions if you are able and — most importantly — cast your vote.
- Virtual Annual General Meeting agenda: seedgrowers.ca/calendar/agm-2020/
- Essential elements of the ratification package: seedgrowers.ca/seeds-canada-ratification
- Seed Synergy Partners website: seedsynergy.net
- Info on upcoming joint webinars regarding the Seeds Canada proposal: seedsynergy.net/webinars
—Glyn Chancey is executive director of the Canadian Seed Growers’ Association
