Hi all,
I confirm that the vote is by secret ballot.
Please bring a pen and determine your vote in advance. Should we meet the quorum, we will proceed with the vote without any more discussion about legal representation. Since some postal votes have now been cast, I even think it is no longer appropriate to share with the group any further information or opinion about the matter itself until the votes have been collected.
Below are some further procedural details. It follows our agreement and the discussion over email. I will repeat it tonight and elaborate where needed so everyone is clear. The procedure is arguably inequitable and complex; we might address these concerns later, but not tonight.
I do apologise for having invited postal votes while still working out the procedure. On reflection, I think we should refrain from such invitation until the procedure is completely clear.
I also apologise for my cold, technical tone. In fact, I do look forward to see you all tonight!
Take care Sander
Vote procedure in the meeting:
1. Quorum checks (number of shareholders, amount of funds represented)
2. Procedure rundown and reminders*
3. Distribution of ballots (incl proxy vote ballots)
4. Ballot marking
5. Ballot collection (incl postal)
6. Reading and tallying ballots
7. Announcement of the result
* We vote by secret ballot and allow for mixed FOR/AGAINST votes per shareholding. Abstained/spoiled/blank votes are, in effect, the same as AGAINST votes. Since many shareholdings have a unique number of votes, we cannot have one ballot per shareholding. We will use ballots worth 1, 2, 5, and 10 votes. This means we have about 100 ballots to read out and tally. This will take 5-10 minutes.