Money and meetings | Governance risks trustees don't budget for
30 July 2026
Sarah’s Socials | Post 10
Annual General Meeting (“AGM”) season is upon us again, and with it, the usual grumble from owners: why does a few hours in a boardroom cost so much? Venue hire, catering, notice distribution, meeting facilitation, it all adds up, and trustees often feel pressure to justify every line item.
But that question misses what a meeting actually is. An AGM or Special General Meeting isn't really an event, it's the moment a scheme's governance gets written down. Special resolutions, trustee elections, budget approvals, exclusive use rights, conduct rule amendments, these are decisions that can shape a community scheme for the next ten or twenty years. The meeting lasts a few hours. The consequences don't.
What is a meeting in a community scheme?
So what does a scheme actually need from a meeting, beyond ticking the legal boxes?
Proper notice and a valid agenda, yes.
Quorum, correctly calculated and recorded.
An accurate attendance register, including proxies.
Resolutions captured in the form they were actually passed, not reconstructed from memory afterwards.
Minutes that reflect what was decided and why.
And increasingly, given how often decisions get revisited years down the line, some way of proving all of it happened properly, long after the trustees who were in the room have moved on.
That last part is where most schemes come unstuck. Trustees serve their term and move on. Managing agents change, owners sell, and too often, the paper trail behind a decision leaves with them. The process works fine until someone actually needs the record: a new board questioning a historical decision, an owner disputing a resolution, an insurer or a Community Schemes Ombud Service Adjudicator asking for proof the right process was followed. That's the moment "we're not sure where that is" becomes a real problem.
What does Poena have to say about this?
Recently we discussed this matter with Poena le Roux, CEO of MeetingPal, who's spent over two decades in community scheme governance and technology.
Sarah: You've said before that trustees are asking the wrong question when they focus on what a meeting costs. What's the right one?
Poena: The right question isn't "what did this meeting cost", it's "what will this meeting's record still be worth in five or ten years." The meeting itself is a few hours. The decisions made in it can affect the scheme for decades.
Sarah: Why does institutional memory disappear so easily in community schemes?
Poena: Because every scheme goes through constant change, trustees finish their terms, portfolio managers move on, managing agents change, owners sell up. The knowledge of why a decision was made usually leaves with them. What's left behind is often a scattered mix of emails, personal laptops and old USB drives, and corporate records end up depending on individuals rather than belonging to the scheme itself.
Sarah: When does that actually become a problem in practice?
Poena: Rarely on the day. It gets tested years later, when a resolution is challenged, a new managing agent needs the history, or there's a legal dispute and someone has to prove the scheme followed proper process. Suddenly nobody can find the attendance register or confirm quorum was met, and the honest answer is "we don't know."
Sarah: So where does something like MeetingPal fit in?
Poena: We don't just host the meeting, we preserve the whole governance file, notices, agendas, attendance registers, quorum calculations, proxies, voting results, resolutions, minutes, recordings, all linked to that one meeting, permanently. If a question comes up in ten years, it's a request to retrieve, not a scavenger hunt through old emails.
Sarah: Final word for trustees heading into this AGM season?
Poena: Stop measuring the meeting by the hours it took. Measure it by what it can still prove, years from now, when someone asks.
Conclusion:
It is clear that trustees should not simply be focusing on the now, but also how do we justify the decisions of the scheme for years to come. If you need assistance navigating your next meeting, reach out to us at info@tvdmconsultants.com or call 061 536 3138.
About the author
Sarah Sydenham is a community schemes consultants at TVDM Consultants.
Sarah is also an admitted attorney, brings a well-rounded legal background and a passion for community schemes to her role.
Learn more about Sarah Sydenham.
