Lakeland Dairies shareholders will vote on a number of rule changes at the co-op, at a special general meeting on 12 September. There will be one vote to adopt four rule changes, with a two-thirds majority needed to pass.

The first rule change is to give the board of the co-op the option of postal, electronic and hybrid voting, along with traditional, in-person voting.

Another rule change is to promote diversity in the membership and governance participation.

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The current composition of the share register and the governance framework of the society is overwhelmingly male, Lakeland chair Niall Matthews said in a letter to members in recent weeks.

This “is not fully reflective of the contributions made on-farm by spouses, partners and young farmers,” he wrote.

Members will also vote on a rule change which would promote “an inclusive and respectful atmosphere at all meetings”, so that all members feel that they can contribute freely. The final rule change is the adoption of gender-neutral language. Members will vote that the words “chairman”, “chairmen” and “chairmanship” in the society’s rules be deleted and replaced with “chairperson”, “chairpersons” and “chairpersonship”. They will also decide on whether all references to the words “he”, “him”, “his” and “himself” should be deleted and replaced with “they”, “them”, “their” and “themselves”.