Meetings
Corporation meetings are essential for communication, accountability and decision-making.
Meetings are the way a corporation operates. A corporation must hold meetings for a range of matters including to agree to their internal governance rules, make key decisions, appoint their board and for the board to report to members each year.
The obligation to hold meetings and the procedures are set in the Corporations (Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander) Act 2006 (CATSI Act). But you must always check a corporation’s rule book for meeting requirements and procedures because a corporation can change or replace many of the rules about meetings in their own rule book or can ask the Registrar to be exempt from them.
A corporation that doesn’t call or hold meetings, or follow the requirements for calling and holding meetings, may have weak standards of accountability, improper decision-making processes, or risk a meeting or its outcomes being invalid.
We provide general information from the CATSI Act. Check your corporation’s rule book for details specific to your corporation.
Types of corporation meetings
There are 2 main types of corporation meetings required under the CATSI Act:
- General meetings for members to receive information on corporation performance and make decisions on significant corporation issues such as changes to the corporation’s rule book, proposals to provide benefits to related parties, and appointment or removal of directors.
- Directors' meetings for directors to discuss and set strategic direction and policies, and oversee corporation performance and management.
The requirements for general meetings and directors’ meetings are different.
To carry out their work corporations will likely hold a range of other meetings that are not prescribed in the CATSI Act. For example, if they use committees, form working groups for specific tasks, for stakeholder engagement or as part of their daily business operations.