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AGM Delayed - Again

Due to take place in the first week of December and put back until the end of January, the Annual General Meeting of the London Yard Management Company has now been delayed until February at the earliest.

This means that the Annual Accounts to be discussed and approved at the meeting will be 11 months old and so out of date to be almost irrelevant. What is the reason for the delay? Well it isn't the accounts, which is the usual reason for a delay, because they were sent to shareholders in December. Speculation is rife as to the cause. Is the Board, which is expected to be replaced at the meeting, afraid to face the shareholders? Others are more inclined to believe the well known saying concerning the Board leadership's inability to coordinate a drinking spree in an ale fermentation establishment.

If, or when, a date is announced it will appear below. The meeting is open to London Yard property owners only.

London Yard Management Company Ltd

Annual General Meeting

Details to be announced

Watch this space

Chairman's Report pdf file - 1 Mb

Ignore the title error -

corrected version requested

Company Secretary Resigns

Nigel Pulver, the Company Secretary of the London Yard Management Company, has resigned from the post. He remains the company's external auditor until the AGM in January. The position of Company Secretary has been taken on by Sally Anne Otten (left) for the time being.

Sally Anne, who lives in Amsterdam Road, joined the Board recently. Previously an Insurance Broker in the Lloyds market for over 20 years, she now works in a division of the Home Office. Whilst living at Crystal Palace, Sally Anne was responsible for effecting the purchase of the freehold-in-common of her leasehold property and served for ten years on its Management Committee. She is also a Freeman and Liveryman of the City of London.

Sally Anne's first tasks will be to ensure that the AGM notice conforms to the regulations and that the voting system is not the nonsense organised by Clive Hawkes last year.

Democracy Rules - OK?

It is a little surprising that the current Board haven't announced that they accept Paul Duffy's and Simon Hollingworth's proposals, to be put to the AGM, that shareholders should be able to nominate directors at an AGM. This would bring the London Yard Management Company in line with every other normal company or plc.

At the moment members of the company can only join the Board if they are invited to do so (usually after volunteering) by the existing Board. The company's articles were set up this way because for a time, when the estate was being built, the developers needed to ensure that they retained control of the company until it was finished. Once handed over the clause excluding the normal election procedures contained in Table A of the Companies Act should have been deleted but no one got around to doing it. The argument for the clause's retention is that the Board needs to be a team working together. Other companies manage this by opposing an unwanted candidate at the AGM on the grounds that the they wouldn't fit in. It is then up to shareholders to decide.

Proposal Update

by Paul Duffy

Proposals - pdf file - 41k

I thought it would be useful to give owners and residents an update regarding our proposals and the reception that they have received so far. Having so far spoken directly to about 100 owners we have been pleased that our proposals have been favourably received and perhaps more importantly we have been surprised regarding some of the comments we have heard from owners.

Out of Touch
That the board is "out of touch" and "not very good at communicating" is a common complaint. Our proposal regarding greater transparency has been particularly well received. We have heard comments from many owners that the accounts circulated are impenetrable. "They don't include enough detail to ensure that owners know where the money is being spent" has been reflected back to us on more then one occasion.

Proxy Forms

We have received back a number of the proxy forms we circulated already and will be undertaking a further chase up to ensure that we get as many as we can, prior to the AGM. So if you haven't had a chance to drop it back to Holland Properties office we'd be very appreciative if you could shortly do so, so that we can keep an accurate count of where we are at. Also, we would ask owners who are not able to attend the AGM in person, but wish to vote for our proposals, to please fill in the Proxy forms that will be circulated with the AGM notices. Please return the Proxy marked as nominating Simon Hollingworth, David Bush or myself (Paul Duffy) as your representative at the AGM and please let us know you've done this by sending us an E-Mail to
Londonyard@hotmail.com.
Issues of Concern
As well as the positive nature of the feedback we have received so far, we have also found a number of issues that have raised some concerns for us regarding how the Estate has been managed. For example we discovered that the Auditor Nigel Pulver was also acting as the Company Secretary. While
we're sure that this was for expediency reasons it's a direct conflict of Company Law. In fairness to Mr. Pulver he resigned immediately as Company
Secretary as soon as it was brought to his attention regarding the potential for a conflict of interest. We also discovered that Mr. Clive Hawkes, who
has been acting Chairman of the Board of London Yard for some time (and indeed Chaired the last AGM), has, according to The Land Registry, may not been an owner of any property in London Yard since December 2002.

Continued Right

It transpires that an error in the filing to the Land Registry shows he sold his only
remaining property in December 2002. We brought this matter to the attention of Mr. Pulver and Mr. Hawkes on 21st December. [It is understood that the Land Registry entry has been amended - Ed 10/1/05] It is also of some concern that both Mr. Hawkes and Mr. Pulver have signed returns to Companies House that have a large number of inaccuracies regarding the shareholder register. These issues, and others we have discovered, reinforce our belief that the Board needs new leadership and direction. Also, a clear mandate from the owners, to bring in transparency to the areas that the owners feel the Estate Board needs to be addressing. Given that we chose to circulate our goals and objectives, we trust that owners understand if they vote in favour of the changes we've proposed, they in future, will have much more say and input into the running of the Estate.
Regards and Happy New Year.

Paul Duffy