Adoption of the model rules for building societies seventh edition as the new rules of the Society

Every building society has a set of Rules which apply to the society and form an important part of the society’s constitution. The Rules dictate important matters such as defining membership criteria, how the society is managed, how directors are appointed, how directors’ meetings are held, how the AGM is run and how members can vote. The Nottingham’s current Rules have been in force since 1st July 2014. 

In January 2021 the Building Societies Association (BSA) produced a new and updated version of the model rules for building societies to adopt if they want to update and replace their existing Rules. The new model rules have been reviewed and approved by both the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and the Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA). We are proposing to adopt those new model rules as the new Rules of The Nottingham and are asking for you to support their adoption at our AGM this year.

We have included here the Rules we wish to adopt. There are two versions, one containing tracked changes which show the changes we wish to make to the model rules as produced by the Building Societies Association, and the other being a ‘clean’ version in which those proposed changes are included but not highlighted.

The principal changes highlighted in the Rules are as follows:

The changes which have been implemented by the Building Societies Association. The majority of those changes have been included to allow building societies to work more effectively in a lockdown, following the lessons learned from the COVID-19 pandemic. The model rules, therefore, now allow for meetings to be held virtually or at one or more locations, and this has meant that the model rules also need to cover changes to meeting specific rules such as how a quorum is formed for a virtual meeting or how it may be adjourned.

The changes we have made to the model rules to make them specific to the Nottingham. The model rules contained a number of gaps which were to be completed by each building society. We have completed those gaps in line with the existing Rules of The Nottingham to ensure that, for example, the qualification requirements to be a member of The Nottingham continue to apply.

We would welcome the support of our members to adopt the new Rules and would ask that you vote in favour of the adoption of the Rules at our AGM.

Andrew Neden
Chairman