The term "the Membership" refers to the group of people whose approval is required to make changes to the College's Charter and Laws, ie the Fellows and Collegiate Members. This will often be written "F&M" for short.

"Trustees" and "members of the Board of the Trustees" are synonymous.

"Charity trustees" are people who meet the definition of a charity trustee in the Scottish Charities Act.

Please note: these should be exactly the same people as the Trustees/members of the Board of Trustees!

"Lay Trustees" are the people on the Board of Trustees who are not Fellows or Members of the College.

"Fellow Trustees" are:

• the President,
• the VPs,
• the Secretary,
• the Deans,
• and the three people whom Council appoints to be on the Board of Trustees from the pool of Regional Representatives and RAC Representatives. Because this is a bit of a mouthful, these people will sometimes be referred to as the "Three Special Trustees", but only informally.

Note that the Treasurer could be a Lay Trustee or a Fellow Trustee.

The current proposal is that the "governance year" will usually begin with the planned date of the December Council meeting, and end the day before the planned date of the December Council meeting of the following year.

Terms of office will start on the first day of the "governance year", except for the President.

This will enable the College to vary the timing of the AGM without affecting the (already complex!) rules about terms of office.

The Laws will enable flexibility in the definition of a year - it doesn't have to be a calendar year. It could simply be the period of time between one AGM and the next.

Brodies LLP will draft transition provisions to allow for the fact that in 2024, the AGM will be in September, and so the governance year will start soon after that, not in December.

PROPOSAL 

As happens now, the Outgoing President will continue for two Council meetings and two Trustee meetings (depending on how you choose to schedule these meetings) after the AGM at which the President Elect's election is announced.

The President Elect will observe these meetings, but will not be a Trustee and will not vote.  

In a normal year, with an AGM on St Andrew's Day, their term as President will begin on March 1st, with the Outgoing President's term ending the day before. (We could also say that the new President's term will begin on the day after the second Council meeting following the AGM, if this is easier than specifying a date).

Council asked for more information on balancing the College's desire to promote EDI, and ensuring that the College's Trustees can discharge their legal duties.

The gold button below will take you to a full discussion of this issue, and an opportunity to give your views ahead of the Council meeting.

Council has already agreed to propose to the Membership that at a later date, some of the process-based detail currently in the Laws will move to a new third layer of the College's governing documents, which will be called the Regulations.

At this later date, the Membership will need to approve which details leave the Laws to move into the Regulations. However, after that, the Trustees will have the power to decide what is in the Regulations, as long as it does not clash with the Charter or Laws.

The Membership will always have the power to a) see the Regulations and b) if they have the numbers, require the Trustees to consider and make changes to the Regulations.

If you click/tap the gold button below, it will take you to the timeline agreed at Council on February 9th.