At Eastlight, we have around 4,500 resident shareholders, who are invited to Annual General Meetings (AGMs) and occasional Special General Meetings (SGMs).
At these meetings, Shareholders:
Approve administrative resolutions, including for Board Members and who our auditors should be
Receive an update on Eastlight’s activities, including community work, over the previous year
Ask any questions they have to the Leadership Team.
However, few Shareholders choose to get involved in this way
At our last AGM in September 2024, just 67 Shareholders took part.
Last year, we wrote to those who had recently taken part in an AGM to invite them to take review of our Shareholding offer. To attract a diverse range of residents, we also publicised the invitation in Shine magazine, on our Facebook channel and in our newsletter to the Active Residents Network.
This is what residents told us:
We must improve communication
Things feel disconnected
We didn’t even know we were shareholders
We need to reach more people and be inclusive
Shareholding doesn’t cover things that matter to residents
It’s not fair that so many residents don’t have a voice and shareholders do
It feels like we need to improve scrutiny – things aren’t as good as they used to be
Shareholder makes it sound financial: we need something with, resident, in the title
We want something that brings everything together – no “us and them”
Being a Community Gateway is an ethos. It's about residents working alongside staff at Eastlight to make it a good company, and we need more opportunities for residents to get involved.
- Jeanette Sullivan, Chair of the North Eastlight Residents group
