alinka – NO they should not, unless of course one of them is the Executive Committee Secretary who is the person responsible for convening General Meetings, but in a Plan as small as yours it shouldn’t have been too difficult for someone to consult with all eight (8) Owners about a suitable time, venue etc. and even if there’s no consensus, that’s what proxies are for!
Just as the Secretary convenes Meetings, without stating the obvious the Chairperson chairs them, but I say again that it’s customary for those functions to be delegated to a Strata Manager, who should discuss the details of venue etc with whoever it is that’s shown as the Owners Corporation’s nominee on their Agency Agreement; usually the Secretary.
The Motions to be included on the Meeting Agenda can be whatever is provided to the Secretary by the Owners concerned, so YES those Owners could submit a Motion about the Owners Corporation paying for the costs of the EGM, and that could have been resolved by those present on the basis of a simple majority vote one way or the other; so unlike the “non-special resolutions” there was no basis for the Strata Manager to dismiss it.
With regard to those resolutions, the Strata Manager should have known what type was required for each of the submitted Motions, and it’s their role to provide the Owners Corporation as their client with that advice and to re-word the Motions accordingly; that’s what you’re paying them for and it should have taken about 2 minutes “research” as the relevant provision of the SCMA is very clear at Sect 65A (with my emphasis in bold):
(1) For the purpose of improving or enhancing the common property, an owners corporation or an owner of a lot may take any of the following action, but only if a special resolution has first been passed at a general meeting of the owners corporation that specifically authorises the taking of the particular action proposed:
(a) add to the common property,
(b) alter the common property,
(c) erect a new structure on the common property.
As I said before, in the process of pulling its Strata Manager into line, your Owners Corporation also needs to review the current appropriateness of that Agency Agreement and, particularly so in the circumstances, its delegations and its nominee/s in terms of liaison with that Strata Manager.
Finally, it’s clear to me that you and the other like-minded Owners want those who requisitioned that do-nothing EGM to meet the entire costs of doing so, and whilst I can understand your sentiment it’s just not a practical option in my opinion. It will just end up as a they said : the rest of you said scenario, and with the Strata Manager just sitting back and relying the Schedule 1 charges (the disbursements schedule) that are outlined in the Agency Agreement that your Owners Corporation has already signed-off on; not worth the fight in my opinion.