Quorum
A quorum is the minimum number of people that must be present for the business of a meeting to be carried out. You need a quorum present to start the business of a meeting and to keep it going.
Meetings for members and meetings for directors need to have a quorum for the meeting and its decisions to be valid.
Quorum for a general meeting
If there are not enough people present to reach a quorum within one hour of the start time in the notice, the general meeting is adjourned to the same place, day and time in the next week.
The CATSI Act specifies the numbers required for a quorum for a general meeting but a corporation can change this in their rule book.
| Number of members in a corporation | Number of members required for quorum |
| 20 or fewer | 2 |
| 21 to 30 | 3 |
| 31 to 40 | 4 |
| 41 to 50 | 5 |
| 51 to 60 | 6 |
| 61 to 70 | 7 |
| 71 to 80 | 8 |
| 81 to 90 | 9 |
| 91 or more | 10% of members |
To work out if you have a quorum
Count each member, and if the corporation’s rule book allows proxies, count each person who is there as a proxy but:
- If a member appoints more than one proxy, count only one of them.
- If a person is attending both as a member and as a proxy for another member, only count that person once.
- If the member who appointed a proxy also shows up, don’t count their proxy.
Quorum for a directors’ meeting
The CATSI Act says that a quorum for a directors’ meeting is a majority of the directors. But check the corporation’s rule book to see if this rule has been changed. For example, a corporation that represents different groups of native title holders where each group nominates their director/s might add an extra rule for a quorum that requires a minimum number of directors from each group to be present.