THE Connemara Pony Breeders’ Society (CPBS) has told members it will not hold an EGM, claiming it has evidence that some signatures on the requisition for the EGM are bogus.

The requisition, containing 483 signatures, was delivered to the Society’s council on April 16th and, according to its articles of association, the deadline for an EGM to be called would have been Wednesday, May 8th.

This week, the CPBS emailed all members to inform them it “received a purported requisition from some of its members on April 16th, 2025, seeking the convening of an EGM.

“Having scrutinized the requisition submitted, it was determined by Council, based on verified evidence, that the requisition contained multiple invalid signatures. The council resolved that this rendered the Requisition invalid.

“In such circumstances, the Council has resolved that it cannot proceed to convene an EGM and any EGM convened on foot of the invalid requisition will be ineffectual. The Council is committed to acting lawfully and transparently. Moreover, it is taking steps to address discontent expressed by a section of its membership, including proposing conciliation and/or mediation.”

The Irish Field asked the CPBS council how many signatures they believed were bogus and what evidence they had of this and they declined to comment.

Motions

The requisition called for the EGM to deal with motions to remove three members of the council and to reverse a recent decision to change the pony inspection process.

After receiving the requisition the CPBS twice sent emails to the signatories, the first one prompting them to state whether they had personally signed the petition and whether they did so in support of both resolutions.

In the later email, the CPBS again asked the signatories to confirm if they personally signed the petition.

A solicitor’s letter was then sent to the CPBS claiming that communicating with members in this way was “inappropriate, highly irregular and an abuse of power by those who are responsible for such communication” and stating that “should the Council fail to convene the EGM the Council will be in breach of their obligations under the Society’s Constitution and company law”.

Forging ahead

Despite the council’s refusal to hold the EGM, the signatories said they were committed to forging ahead with one on June 28th with fromal notice due to be issued in the coming days.

A statement from Fiona Grimes on behalf of the Breeders Support Group said: “We as a group would refute any assertion that the requisition submitted to the Society on April 16th, 2025, is ‘invalid’ apparently because it ‘contained multiple invalid signatures’. Indeed we reject the content of this email and again express our concerns over what we believe to be the repeated acts and omissions by the Society in breach of Company Law and the Society’s constitution.”