NOTICE OF GENERAL MEETING
A General Meeting of Biathlon Australia Limited ACN 167 329 044 (BA) will be held on 8 October 2026 at 6pm (AEDT – Canberra/Melbourne/Sydney Australia time).
This meeting is convened by the directors pursuant to clause 9.2(a) of BA’s Constitution and pursuant to clause 16 of BA’s Constitution, the meeting will be held as a virtual meeting using Microsoft Teams (Join meeting link).
The meeting will be recorded for the purposes of preparing minutes.
BACKGROUND AND EXPLANATION
Since 2024 BA has been recognised by the Australian Sports Commission (ASC) as the National Sporting Organisation (NSO) for the sport of Biathlon & Para Biathlon in Australia.
During the 2025 recognition renewal process the ASC identified necessary changes required to be made to the BA Constitution to align with best practice for governance of sporting organisations and compliance with best practice governance standards. In particular, these best practice changes relate to director terms and board composition. The ASC has recommended that director terms should be increased from 2 to 4 years (with a maximum continuous term of 10 years) and that the number of Appointed Directors be increased from 2 to 3 and the number of Elected Directors be decreased from 6 to 5.
Additionally, the ASC recommend that the BA Finance, Audit & Risk Committee must include at least one independent member who is a CPA or Chartered Accountant.
In good faith, the ASC temporarily waived the requirement for BA to update our Constitution prior to the 2025 recognition renewal window provided that the BA Board undertook to codify these requirements in its Constitution (subject to member approval) before the 2026 Annual General Meeting (AGM). Hence the purpose of this General Meeting.
A failure to make some of the changes may result in a rescission of BA’s National Sporting Organisation status which, in the opinion of the Board would be a massive step backwards. In particular, NSO status was one of the key requirements for BA to satisfy as part of the IBU’s 13 point plan – should BA lose NSO status then it may in turn impact BA’s membership of / status within the International Biathlon Union.
We take this opportunity to remind members that the IBU and Biathlon Integrity Unit (BIU) has previously had serious concerns about BA, certain of its ‘noisy’ members and its governance & integrity practices. Over the past 6 years successive boards (including the current board under the leadership of independent chair / vice chair David Windsor and Sandy Willis) BA’s turnaround, standing and good governance has overwhelmingly exceeded all expectations of the IBU and BIU. The Board believes that this incredibly stable and positive momentum must continue – failing which, the Board cannot predict the outcome.
Another reason in support of extending director terms from 2 to 4 years is that this will greatly assist BA to maintain ‘corporate memory’. That is, if Board members only serve a short 2 year term with the possibility of board composition changing every 12 months is that many things (both good and bad) will be ‘forgotten’, including lessons learned, contacts & relationships, partnerships, operations, business-as-usual processes, and overall board stability, cohesion and consistency.
Implementing 4 year terms (with rotating elections every 2 years) and a maximum term of 10 years will align with the four year Olympic / Paralympic Games and Youth Winter Olympic Games cycles.
Finally, 4 year terms align with the terms of appointment of the Australian Olympic Committee and the IBU Executive Board (which is due for election at the upcoming IBU Congress in September 2026 – the congress following the Winter Games).
Changes to the BA Constitution require a special resolution of members. Only Voting members are entitled to vote on the Special Resolution. Voting Member means, in relation to a General Meeting, those Members present and entitled to vote in accordance with clause 5.1 of the BA Constitution.
The BA Constitution and Corporations Act requires a special resolution to be passed by at least 75% of the votes cast by members entitled to vote on the motion.
An invitation to a Q&A session on the changes to the Constitution will be held on Wednesday 30 September 2026 at 6pm (AEST). The meeting will be attended by a representative of the ASC. The information session will be held as a virtual meeting using Microsoft Teams. Join Meeting link
Please see a link to the General Meeting agenda the the motions to be voted on here: Agenda and Motions Within this Agenda, you will find a link to the marked up Constitution under Agenda item 2 for you to read ahead of the Q&A session, if you are attending.
