One of the problems is that there is a requirement that the meetings be held in the magisterial district in which the body corporate is situated.Does holding a skype meeting constitute a proper meetin
Regarding Jewish or other religious people I would suggest that unless this done deliberately to annoy or offend or avoid a particular owner it would be decision of the body corporate Trustees when and where meetings are held. For example Muslims cannot come on Friday midday, Jehovah Witnesses cannot come on Saturdays etc. One has to be practical and reasonable.
The same would apply to working people. While I understand what you say about working people, we would have the problem that we could never satisfy everyone. Some people work nights, some people work at great distances, some people work shifts. It is simply impossible to assist all the people all the time. Do people not go to the dentist because they work or are Jewish? No they simply make a plan. Dentist are not open after hours!
In practice the managing agents are also entitled to a home life and office hours. Owners should only be attending an AGM and the Budget meeting a year. While trustees should be attending 4 trustees meetings (including the budget meeting) and the AGM. The reality is that there are only 5 working nights per week – only 4 if you exclude Friday. Assuming that Fridays and weekends are out you are looking at only. 365 – 156 days available ie 209 days a year available. If we take all the holidays and the Christmas period when it is impractical to have meetings we are looking at perhaps 15 days public holidays and 18 days builders break over Christmas and 13 days over the July holidays when meetings wont be attended total another 36 days leaving a balance of useable days of 163. Assuming 1 AGM and 4 Trustees meeting a year it means that there are only days for 33 body corporates to have meeting per firm unless they have duplicate meeting space AND duplicate staff!
As soon as any good managing agent exceeds this number they cannot run any other body corporates!
Bear in mind thought that the staff who have worked a full day already will have to stay after hours at least four nights a week. On top of that most company offices close at 4.30 pm and most meeting start at 5 pm. This means that the staff have to sit around waiting for the start of the meeting. Some body corporates want their meetings to start even later!
The reality of the situation is that unless body corporates are prepared to pay a sizeable sum for these evening meetings that they are going to have to become used to meetings during working hours. It can be done just that if owners cannot attend they need to give a proxy to somebody to attend on their behalf.
Mike
Platinum Global
