Phlebe,
Just because the Chairperson doesn’t attend meetings doesn’t mean you can’t hold the meeting, in fact you can. I would strongly suggest not stooping to the Chairperson’s level and continue doing things correctly. You may wish to either convene an EGM and put forward a special resolution to ‘sack’ the chairperson off the committee. If you are going to do this, you may want to ensure you have the numbers to support this approach.
You could take a similar approach as the chairperson and distribute information to all owners, keeping to the facts and truth, including that the chair is not doing the right thing.
A good strata manager will be able to assist you and the owners corporation in these matters, with advice regarding correct process and legal requirements. They may not want to be involved in the politics.
EC meetings are necessary for making decisions of the EC, while they do not need to be physical meetings, they would need to still be proper meetings, being notice provided to all owners of the motions (giving 72hrs notice of the meeting), allowing proper democratic process to occur, and if owners aren’t agreeing to the decisions to be made, opportunity to object.
Even paper meetings of the ec require proper notice as if the meeting were to be a physical meeting.
Mr S