DRAFT
MINUTES OF 65TH ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING HELD ON 22 FEBRUARY 2012 AT ST LUKE’S CHURCH HALL, WILLASTON, CREWE AT 19.30 HRS
PRESENT
CommitteeJoe Taylor (JT) ChairMarie Leeke (ML)
Paul Tudor (PT)Marilyn Norbury (MAN)
Peter Norbury (PDN)Kath Conroy (KC)
Bryan Roe (BR)Dave Langford (DL)
Grace Harding (GH)
27 general members present - memberships stood at 171
1Chairman’s Opening Remarks
JT opened the meeting by thanking everyone for attending particularly the significant number of new members present.
2Apologies for absence
Apologies were received from: Ken Willington (President & founder member), Keith Shaw, Joyce & Peter Dawson, Mike Jackson, Mario di Bratto, Sylvia Gregory, Barbara Waters, Chris England, Stan Thomason , Pauline Vawdrey and Gill Hayes.
3Minutes of previous meeting—23 February 2011
The minutes of the AGM on 23 February 2011 were approved (proposed by Peter Norbury and seconded by Bryan Roe) without amendment.
4Matters arising from minutes of previous meeting—23 February 2011
4.1P5 Item No 10 - Future of Club Holidays - JT reminded members that the decision on a future holiday had been referred back to the committee for a decision. It was agreed to start planning in September 2011 for a 2012 holiday. At that time there was no volunteer from within the general committee and so the matter had been referred back to the AGM. JT ask if any member/s present would consider looking into a future holiday, with help from the committee in respect of admin, suggestions, facilities available, maps etc but there were no volunteers.
4.2P5 Item No 11 Proposal for committee to deal with appointment of Chair - Subsequent to the AGM Chris England’s proposal had been amended, with his agreement, following offers from Joe Taylor and Paul Tudor who had been proposed and seconded. A form to approve the nominations was circulated to all members in March 2012. Both nominees were elected and took up their positions. JT stated he would undertake the role of Chairman for two years only. Two general committee vacancies remained unfilled.
4.3P7 Item No 12 Medical card proposal - Members at the AGM had proposed the committee should deal with this matter, anything introduced should be voluntary. The committee discussed the proposal at their next meeting and advised the members, via the Newsletter, that a medical card could be carried by individuals if they wished but no form would be provided.
4Matters arising from minutes of previous meeting—23 February 2011 (cont’d)
4.4P7 Item No 14 Sunday Rambles - Carol Davenport’s proposals - JT explained that, following the agreement for feed back to be given to Carol by the committee , he had chaired a sub committee which had met on 7 April 2011 and he had subsequently talked to her with regard to their findings. She had been appreciative of the consideration of her observations and was happy to continue her offers to help other potential walk leaders.
Carol was present at the current meeting and JT invited her to speak. She explained that her absence at the 2011 AGM had led her to put her suggestions and observations on paper and appreciated the way the committee had taken it on board. Carol went on to say that this had been a much better year without many of the difficulties previously encountered. Publicity had attracted new members, members now knew more about the committee’s workings and who the members were, expected return times for the walks had been made known and adhered to and any committee decisions, with supporting information, had been advised by the Newsletter.
Carol said the advantage of Crewe & Nantwich Rambling Club, over other similar organisations, was the six monthly forward planned programme and coach travel without the need to pre-book. Together with the very reasonable cost, the club were a welcoming group of people with good camaraderie and in view of this she wished to make a plea to new members in respect of over reliance of existing walk leaders.
She made the point that walk leading need not be just for those with experience. Members could learn to lead and she asked others to give it a go. Initially they could just join someone on a ‘reccy’. Easy routes can be suggested and she, and others, would be prepared to take people along to gain experience. The meeting gave Carol a round of applause.
5Chairman’s Report
JT commenced by saying he had enjoyed his first year as Chairman and in his opinion it had been a good one for the Club. He had received the support and help of the committee. He had been joined by Paul Tudor who had come in as Treasurer and he had tackled the job efficiently and he thought the results would reflect that finances were ion good order. Marie Leek had moved to the position of Membership Secretary had approached the job with enthusiasm and skill. The club had received a welcome addition of many new members through a number of sources including the continued popularity of the website. This he said had brought new life to the club and helped to fill the coaches.
Bryan Roe had continued his role as Newsletter Editor and looking after the website. Kath Conroy had been Club Secretary dealing with correspondence and also took on publicity. Marilyn Norbury had also continued as minute secretary and had been helpful to him in dealing with meetings. Mario di Bratto had been Ramble Organiser for two years and had achieved great success in getting leaders for walks ahead of the publication of the walk cards. Mario had been helped in this by Peter Norbury who doubled up as Vice Chairman. The rest of the committee had played their part, Grace Harding had organised the second meeting of the ‘retired’ walkers having taken over from Sybil Hackling in the past year and this proved to be very popular with another meeting already planned. JT went on to say that Ken Elkins was standing down from the committee and thanked him for his help over the past four years.
The other important people, JT said, were those that lead walks for the benefit of all members, they gave freely of their time to make sure we have an interesting calendar of walks. It was heartening to see that the coach had been well filled and this would be reflected the Treasurer’s report. He said we had, on occasions, been close to being full to capacity and contingency plans may have to be
5 Chairman’s Report (cont’d)
made for additional transport. The weather had been fairly kind in the past year and no walks had been cancelled since the beginning of 2011.
On the social side there had been a skittles evening in April 2011 but as had been mentioned earlier in the meeting it had not been possible to organise a holiday since the failed attempt in 2010. The Thursday evening walks in the summer had been popular and gave chance to relax and have a chat over a meal or a drink afterwards. In the same way the Hot Pot ramble and the mince pie walk gave chances to get to know people who you walk with. He said the committee were trying a bowls evening this year in May as a prelude to the Thursday evening walks programme and hoped many members would join in for an entertaining evening.
He concluded by saying the continued success of the club depended on the members being willing to come out rain or shine to enjoy the great variety of countryside we had in striking distance. Seeing full coaches was very heartening to those who worked to make it happen. He hoped the club may prosper for a long time to come.
Club Website - JT then invited BR to highlight some points of interest from the website. The site had been created in 2008 when it had received 250 unique visitors (that is ~22 different individuals each month who view the information about the Club that is available via the Internet) and from that number unique visitors had increased to 3001 (~ 250 per month) in December 2011. (A ten-fold increase in interest in 4 years.)
The total of ‘hits’ (number of pages and search engine enquiries) for 2011 was 52,000. BR said that a lot of new members had viewed the site prior to joining.
6 Treasurer’s Report & Annual Accounts - Year ended 31st December 2011
PT’s report began with a thank you to members and his committee colleagues for their help and support while he was ill recently.
He then took the members through the balance sheet and reported an overall profit of £485.65 for 2011.
During his report he explained various items:
1Car expenses for members if too many on the coach - passengers pay £8.00 as normal, the driver goes free and received petrol money equivalent to that received by the walk leaders when then plan.
2Expenses for walk leaders - free seat on coach and 5% of coach cost per walk. Paul also thanked people who shared cars when planning helping to keep expenses down and others who declined all or part of their money.
3PT explained the reasons behind the £6 for all adult subscriptions. This was because of the new flexible pension age, very few (30 out of 171) actually paid the higher £8 membership and it was easier for collection and accounting.
He also advised the meeting that the club no longer would be taking out Public Liability Insurance. Costs had risen from £115 in 2004 to £215 in 2011. The insurance did not cover members. It had
6 Treasurer’s Report & Annual Accts - Yr ended 31st December 2011 (cont’d)
been taken out in case someone sued the Club (eg leaving a gate open allowing stock to escape) There had been no claims against the club in 60 years, it was not a requirement of the RA for us
to be insured and it was not a Legal requirement. Any small loss incurred by introducing £6 membership for all would be offset by no longer paying PL insurance.
He gave a breakdown of numbers on coaches:
January - June Average39A = 8B = 18 C = 13
July - DecemberAverage 47A= 12B = 21C = 14
Full yearAverage 43 (37)A= 10 (9)B = 19 (15)C = 14 (13)
He praised the work done on advertising the club, which had brought new, regular walkers in and he also said that he felt that the club was a better mix of abilities now (2008/09 C party 58%/60% 2010/2011) C party 40%/33%) and that the future was a lot more promising now, with a lot less tension between the groups.
He finished his report by asking members whenever possible to have the correct money on the coach as this would be a great help.
A question was raised by Cindy Johnson regarding interest on the Club Account. PT advised there were no good interest rates around in the current climate. Carol Davenport suggested that the
Co-op may have a special account for clubs/charities. PT said there was less money held in the account at present as there were no holidays being organised.
The Chairman thanked Paul for his report and the accounts which were received, proposed by Sylvia Elkins and seconded by Keith Nowell.
7Auditor’s report
The new Auditor, William Kynaston, reported that he had examined the Income and Expenditure Accounts and Balance Sheet with the books and vouchers of the Club and in his opinion they presented a true and correct record of the Club’s financial affairs for the year end 31st December 2011.
PT had met with the Auditor finding him a most likeable gentleman who commented, as a local person and walker himself, he had related very much to the business and members of the club and had enjoyed carrying out the task.
8Membership Secretary’s Report
ML started by thanking all those who helped her to fit into the role of membership secretary, and supported her throughout the year. She also wanted to thank the members who had helped with delivery of newsletters, especially Joan Yarwood and Harry Nottingham. Membership at the AGM in 2010 stood at 157 of which 7 were life members and 17 members did not renew. She also commented that there had been a very good response to the advertising done by KC and 31 new members had been welcomed. The current membership was 171.
JT thanked ML for the good job she had carried out and reminded the meeting that subscriptions were now due.
9Ramble Organisers’ Report
PDN gave the report on behalf of Mario & himself and commenced by thanking all the leaders for their contribution to another successful programme. Especially Carol Davenport and Barbara Waters who, as regular B walkers, had both led C walks, also Pete Winby for leading 3 ‘C’ walks on one programme. He also wanted to mention Mike Jackson, who a lot of members would know, lived in the Lake District, and offered at least one walk for each programme.
He again wanted to reiterate the need for more C party walkers to lead their own walks. Both he and Mario were more than prepared to assist leaders - if C party walkers would come forward with suggestions of where they would like to plan a walk, they would readily help.
They would like suggestions of areas for walks which would produce a more varied programme - please let them have your ideas.
The pre-Christmas car ramble was a success and would continue in the future.
10Election of Officers and Committee
JT informed the meeting that with the exception of Ken Elkins, as advised earlier, all the current officers and committee were prepared to stand for re-election. There had been no further nominations.
Therefore, he asked the meeting to vote en-bloc to elect the following for the coming year:
POSITION / NAMECHAIRMAN / Joe Taylor
VICE CHAIRMAN / Peter Norbury
TREASURER / Paul Tudor
CORRES SEC / Kath Conroy
MIN SEC / Marilyn Norbury
M’SHIP SEC / Marie Leeke
NEWSLETTER / Bryan Roe
RAMBLE ORG 1 / Mario di Bratto
RAMBLE ORG 2 / Peter Norbury
COMMITTEE 1 / Grace Harding
COMMITTEE 2 / Dave Langford
The above was proposed by Carol Davenport and seconded by Viv Macdonald.
The meeting voted to re-elect the Auditor, William G Kynaston, for a further year and noted that there were currently three vacancies.
11 Proposed change to Rule 7 - Subscriptions
The Chair asked the meeting to vote on a change to this rule which currently read ‘The membership fee which is due at the AGM shall be agreed at that meeting’ - change to ‘The Subscription which is due at the AGM shall be agreed by the committee at their final meeting of the previous year’.
Proposed by Carol Davenport and seconded by Peter Thorpe.
12 Summary and close of meeting
The Chairman thanked everyone again for attending, commenting that the meeting had proceeded well - people were then invited to stay for ‘cheese and wine’ and a little bit of socialising. The meeting closed as 8.50 pm
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