Hi Rainer,

Thanks for confirming that you can make a meeting on Thursday.

My understanding of using a straw poll within our Group Decision Making process is that we would write a minute (like "That we continue to engage Helen Davidson as lawyer for the project, moving our business from McMillan & Co") and we then show cards - however, this would be indicative only, and would not be decisive

I believe that any orange or red cards would indicate sufficient strength of opinion to require us to set aside a meeting specifically to work through this issue (without time limit) until we reached a consensus that we can all live with.

I have this afternoon realised that different people have different understandings of how the legal profession works when it comes to representing particular clients. In my very limited dealings with lawyers, we have remained with the same firm (until last year when we needed PoA, etc) even when the lawyer we had dealt with moved firms. I thought that was the way it worked. Some others have stayed with the same lawyer even when that person has moved firm 2 or 3 times. I think these different perspectives have a bearing on what our assumptions are about what is 'normal' or 'expected'. For me, following a lawyer to a different firm is unusual, perhaps not quite the right thing to do. I may have been wrong, but that is the assumption I was working from . I wonder what other assumptions are lurking there, informing the way we approach this decision.

I want to say again to everyone what I have said in conversation to one or two - I have no doubt that we will work our way through this, and that we will learn things that we will be able to put into practice when the next big divisive issue comes up. And this will happen again... and again....  I think Charles Durrett talked about "the community tax of cohousing". When we get through this, I believe we need to look at the way we are doing our meetings, how we use the cards, what other things we could try (people have mentioned brainstorming and a card-spotter and time limits and more social occasions). We have done really well so far - but there's lots more to learn, and we need to keep re-learning what we too easily forget.

Anyway, hope to see you on Thursday night.
Anne




On Mon, Jun 3, 2019 at 8:10 PM Rainer Beneke <me@rainerbeneke.nz> wrote:

Hi Anne and all

Thank you for your suggestions. 

If we are having a straw poll I would have imagined it to be: ‘Who wants to stay with Helen, show of hands’ and ‘Who wants to stay with McMillan &Co, show of hands’. 

If however we have a straw poll on a motion (show of hands or coloured cards?) the motion should at least be complete and read ‘We continue to engage Helen Davidson as lawyer for the project, moving our business from McMillan & Co. to Anja Klinkert Lawyer & Mediator."

I can make it this Thursday to the meeting. See you then. 

Regards Rainer


I check my emails once a day. Please call me if you need an urgent reply.

Rainer Beneke
+64 21 144 7700

www.rainerbeneke.nz

On 3/06/2019, at 12:19 PM, Claire Loftus <passionforlanguage@gmail.com> wrote:

I'm away at a conference and can't quite get my head around all this in terms of saying anything about the content of the straw poll, but I can say that I an come to a meeting on Thursday, and that I appreciate people taking initiative and making efforts to find a way through this.

Claire

On Fri, May 31, 2019 at 1:08 PM Anne Thomson <e.anne.thomson@gmail.com> wrote:
Hi all,

Gay, Jan, Frances and Anne were talking on Wednesday about the difficult position we are regarding our legal representation in the future.

We have a suggestion to make.
1/ We meet next on 6 June (next Thursday)
2/ At that meeting we have no discussion about the the lawyer we will use, but we do hold a straw poll on the minute "That we continue to engage Helen Davidson as lawyer for the project, moving our business from McMillan & Co." If there is no strong opposition, then it could go on the agenda for the next regular meeting.
3/ If there is strong  opposition, then at the 6 June meeting we agree to have an extraordinary meeting, which those who do not hold strong opinions are not expected to attend unless they wish to. At that meeting the only agenda item would be to reach a consensus on how we proceed with legal representation from this point.

We identified some questions which we wanted to have answered. Others have given us responses as noted below:
1/ Does Kiwibank have a requirement or an opinion regarding whether or not we can change lawyers?
" I don't believe they should have any say on who we choose to use as a lawyer.  I think they will understand us changing if we decide to given the circumstances. They just need to have a qualified lawyer to sign off routine paperwork."
2/ What costs would be incurred if we move a trust account?
There should be no costs associated with moving the Trust account, according to Law Society rules - same as documentation - see below.
3/ Who currently holds our legal  documentation?
Kiwibank holds all the financial documentation originals, with other documents at McMillan,  UCOL holds original of company documents.  An Authority to UpLift would be the process to move the documents to another firm and there should be no charges for a client to collect the client's  documents on request according to Law Society rules.
4/ What back-up administrative support will be made available if 'our' lawyer is incapacitated at some point?

If we do find that we need to have an extraordinary meeting, we would also ask the small group to circulate before the meeting a list of the pros and cons as they identified them, for everyone to consider. Others may have other questions they also want addressed.

It would be useful to meet on 6 June in light of the induction workshop on Saturday 8 June, Currently there are 6 interested parties planning to attend, 3 in Dunedin and 3 traveling from Auckland or New Plymouth, 3 interested in the 2/3 bedroom unit and 3 in the 1 bedroom unit. I have been telling people that the workshop is 2-4pm, with a meal to follow at 5pm.

Please would you let us know how you respond to our suggestion, and whether or not you would be able to come to a regular meeting on Thursday 6 June, next week.
Thanks,
Anne
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