co-option of two councillors at a virtual meeting

Question

Hi, I am drafting the Agenda for the first virtual Parish Council meeting on 11 May and we have two residents interested in being considered for co-option to fill the two vacancies. We will be using Teams for the virtual meeting. Voting can be evidenced by a show of hands from the councillors at the virtual meeting following the dial in contribution from the candidates. In the old face to face world, successful candidates would sign their acceptance of office and join and participate/vote in the meeting. Any thoughts how best to manage this in the virtual world - or should there be no difference ??

Answer 1

If you intend to co-opt both candidates, you could send them the declaration in advance of the meeting, enabling them to sign in the virtual presence of the Proper Officer at the appropriate point in the meeting.

Answer 2

the only challenge with Teams is that you can only see 4 people at the same time which makes voting a bit tricky.

Comments

Our Parish is doing a role call and recording all the votes cast so in the future there can be no challenges or misinterpretations.

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Fair enough.  We use Zoom which allows for all councillors to be see on one screen and I insist that they physically raise their hands to vote which works well as they can all see each other.  Our first virtual meeting actually went very well and was quicker than the normal face to face meetings!