Proxy Voting and Arbitration EGM
You
should all by now have received your paperwork regarding the EGM that your
Board has called for 11am on 10 July at The Brewery in Chiswell Street EC2.
It has been called to discuss two issues: Proxy Voting and Arbitration.
Arbitration
This is quite simple; a member can be an
elected as an Arbiter, then leave the Society yet still remain an Arbiter.
This must surely be wrong and your Board is requesting that when an Arbiter
surrenders his or her membership of Dial-a-Cab, then his or her position as
an Arbiter should also be surrendered and an election would then be held to
replace that outgoing Arbiter.
The Society currently has ten Arbiters, four of whom have left the
Society. Consequently, when a situation arises and five Arbiters are needed,
we then struggle to fulfil our commitments. The BoM believe that the request
we are making is just commonsense; therefore we would ask you to vote ‘Yes’
to the proposed rule change regarding Arbitration.
Proxy Voting
The BoM have also asked
you to consider changing the rules to allow Proxy Voting. It is an open
secret that some outside companies are attracted to gaining an interest in
Dial-a-Cab. If this scenario were ever to go as far as members voting on the
situation, then I am led to believe that a postal vote (although very
similar to Proxy Voting) would not be allowed. Consequently, in order that
every member’s voice should
be
heard, Proxy Voting would need to be introduced so that every member would
then be allowed to vote regarding any possible demutualisation.
Any member that did not wish to attend the meeting could give their
vote to whomever they desired, provided they were a member of Dial-a-Cab,
and instruct them to vote in a certain way – or indeed any way they fancied.
Before you all become concerned that you will have to find a
colleague who is attending |
the meeting, you can always return your
proxy voting form and instruct me, as
Chairman, to vote on your behalf whichever
way you wanted. You will probably agree that
this is very similar to ‘voting by post’ but
with that subtle difference.
The BoM would ask members to vote ‘Yes’ to proxy voting, as we
believe that it is in the interest of the
members and the Society that everyone has
the option to vote. As a reminder, if
you do not intend to attend the EGM on 10
July, you must vote by post. Failure to do
so will unfortunately result in a £50 fine
being imposed.
Statements by E-mail
You will all be receiving in the near future
a letter from our Financial Accountant,
Warren Smith, giving you the option of
receiving your monthly statements via
e-mail. Obviously, this will only apply to
members that have a PC and an e-mail
address! We will transfer your ‘credit
money’ into your account in the normal way,
but instead of receiving your statement in
the post, we will should you so desire, send
you an e-mail with all the information you
require. All you will have to do when you
receive Warren’s letter is to send him an
e-mail with your badge number and he will do
the rest.
New Accounts
You can read a Mailshot reply to Brian Cohen
(C81) from our Sales Manager, Lydia Foulkes,
on how successful we have been in winning
new accounts from our competitors in recent
times. One new account that we have taken
(in Marylebone Road) had been with their
previous supplier since 1970 and to take an
account that
has been with a supplier for thirty five
years, I think you will agree, is quite an
achievement.
mostly smaller or personal accounts;
however, during the past |
month we have opened three
accounts (including the above one) that will total in excess of £1.2million
per annum in turnover.
Once we have won the account, it’s entirely up to you, our members,
as to whether we retain the account because I am totally confident that the
‘backroom work’ we do - i.e. invoicing and MIS - is second to none.
Consequently, everything will come down to service and that’s where you all
come into the equation. If we are doing everything else correctly, it is
then down to Call-Takers and Members to supply the service to retain the
account and I’m sure that you can be relied upon to retain this work - even
if you have to put yourself out once in a while.
The City and Parking
I’m sure that many of you are aware of the
situation that now prevails in certain parts of the City of London regarding
parking and picking up trips despatched via the radio. It appears that there
are cameras in operation that record the incident and automatically issue a
fixed penalty notice of £50. At the moment we are receiving on average ten
per week and as you will no doubt realise, this could cost us in excess of
£25k per annum and if even more cameras are installed, the cost could be
substantially higher.
This is a
cost that your Society can ill-afford to lose, consequently we are making
enquires at the very highest level to gain meetings in order to rectify the
situation and you can read a reply to Mike Son’s letter to the Corporation
of London elsewhere in this issue.
There is no doubt in my mind
that every photo taken should be inspected by an individual, and if a taxi
is concerned, the picture should then be scrapped.
However, we must all play
our part by not giving the authorities ammunition so that when we have our
meetings we can take along statistics that show we are not exploiting the
parking regulations. And, I am very confident that this is the
case.
Brian Rice
Chairman, Dial-a-Cab |
