Open communication is great, but let’s assume that you received the Agenda for your Plan’s AGM, that you looked through all the Agenda Items, saw nothing innocuous, and so decided not to attend and to perhaps give your Proxy to the Chair of the Meeting.
OK? So the Meeting runs to plan and all those innocuous items are resolved, and then in “General Business” where nothing in particular is planned and therefore nothing specific is listed on the Agenda under this item (because it’s “general”), one of the Proprietors in attendance suggests some improvements to the Common Property – like say to the landscaping.
All those Proprietors in attendance think that’s a great idea, and among other improvements they, and the Chair with your Proxy, resolve to make those landscaping improvements including the removal of the shade tree that’s right over your Unit’s courtyard, and in order to pay for it all they go back to the proposed Budget and resolve to amend it and the proposed Levy Contributions to account for those additional costs.
Then you get the Minutes, don’t agree with what’s been resolved in General Business, and wish you’d have attended in order to put your point-of-view. But then you didn’t know that item was going to be discussed did you?
So that’s why General Meetings shouldn’t include an Agenda Item for General Business; although you’re right that “good communication and open channels” is quite acceptable – over a cuppa once the Meeting’s concluded!