ICA General Assembly 2020

It is with great pleasure that we invite ICA members to participate in the General Assembly of the International Cooperative Alliance (ICA) to be held virtually on 3 September 2020. This is an administrative General Assembly which must be convened yearly in accordance with Belgian law. The General Assembly will begin at 13:00 CEST (Belgium time) and is expected to adjourn by 15:00. 

Meeting Documentation

• Official Meeting Documentation (download below)
• Voter Designation & Proxy Form (download below)
• Participation Guide (download below)
• ICA Articles of Association & Bylaws 
• Standing Orders for Hybrid General Assemblies (download below)

Agenda

Summary of how to Participate

Members have a choice to either: 

1. Participate in the Assembly online, or 
2. Designate their votes by proxy and vote online for the re-appointment of the auditor. 

Submit your Vote Designation & Proxy Form by the applicable deadline:

• 14 August if you want to participate in the online training and “dry run”
• 28 August if you want to designate a proxy-holder
• 2 September at 13:00 CEST if you want to participate in the General Assembly online, but do not need to participate in the online training session.

Take the time to read the official meeting documentation and instructions for participation.

In order to have a succesful General Assembly, members are highly encourged to join one of the test runs on 17 August. During this test run, we will also explain how to use the electronic voting system. There will be two test runs:

• 17 August, 9:00 CEST in English
• 17 August, 16:00 CEST in English, French and Spanish

Ask any questions you have if necessary and come back to this webpage before voting to read the answers to your questions and those posted by other members. Send your questions to hacquard@ica.coop. We will group the questions and publish them regularly below. The sooner you send your questions, the sooner we can provide answers that are accessible to everyone in the three languages.

Member Questions

What time does the General Assembly begin in my country?
You can find the equivalent time in your country by referencing an online time zone converter such as this one here.

How will it work with a proxy when most voting will be by show of hands?Just like in a regular physical General Assembly where members are asked for a show of hands for each item, but not formally count the number of votes, the online Assembly too would ask for a show of hands using the “raise hand” tool and not formally count the number of “hands” up for each vote. Reference the Participation Guide for an explanation on how this will work.

Is there a limit to the attendees per member? We would like to have some of our board attend also as this would be a first for us.
For security reasons in order to ensure only the voters can participate and also due to the limitations of the online system, members can only register voters. The number of voters that members can register will depend on the number of votes that your organisation has in the ICA.

How many representatives can my delegation register?
Please reference the email sent to your organisation on 31 July which has number of votes and member number which is needed to fill out the vote form. Your delegation can register the same number of representatives as the number of votes which your organisation is entitled to.

We are wondering to know details related the conference program training. Could you please provide information on how we can join the training course?
The details on how to join will be provided separately to each representative by email about 24 hours before it begins.

In the meantime, please carefully review the Participant Guide which you can download below. There are several things which you can do before the training to ensure successful participation.
 

* In case the General Assembly cannot be held due to exceptional technical issues beyond our control, it will be rescheduled within 15 days.