UPDATE: has anyone else spotted the deliberate mistake on the BTA page? Someone needs to be checking their dates!

Glancing at the BTA website today we noted with horror that there was a posting about the 2006 AGM and a call for the election of officers and any resolutions of special business. What, already? Didn't we only just get through last year's and the resulting EGM... But, sure enough, the date is in the diary (Sunday 5th November) and it's going to be another interesting one. Interesting for four reasons.

1. The (very) quiet and largely un-reported backroom discussions that have been going on since the Chief Executive's headlong dash into the brave new world of the One Stop Plan was pulled up short in Cambridge should be bearing fruit by then which means that this, once again, could be the last BTA AGM...
2. If the Executive Board is going to put these new and, as yet, unseen proposals before the membership then will they be out in time for a meaningful November vote? Remember that for the original plans Norman and Jasmine did a country-wide tour explaining the proposals and their implications -- it would seem unlikely that will happen before the AGM. Which may mean that there will have to be another EGM in 2007...
3. The post of Chair is up for election which means that Jasmine Flatters will have the difficult choice of deciding whether to campaign to be re-elected Chair and so face the possibility of then immediately making herself redundant!
4. The two other Executive Board positions will also have a similar choice -- if the Executive Board is recommending these proposals and (big assumption, we know) they are seen to answer the criticisms which brought the last lot down to earth with a bump then who is going to bother putting themselves up for election?

Let us be clear, all this is speculation -- nobody is talking to us about the proposals at any level. Given that we campaigned against the ones set before the EGM one could draw the conclusion that they don't want us to know about these in case we muddy the waters before the AGM. But that would probably be paranoia -- after all, the BTA is a model of open governance these days, or at least it would be it its website could actually deliver the Board minutes that it lists so we could find out what was going on...