Hps South Pennine Group

HPS SOUTH PENNINE GROUP

Annual General Meeting

Wednesday 4th November 2015

Committee Members Present:Dorothy Harriman(Chairman, Plant Sales Organiser),Judy Coulson (Vice-Chairman, Secretary, Membership Secretary), David Andrews (Treasurer), Angela Andrews (Coach Trip Organiser, Librarian), Jean Gater (Minutes Secretary, Plant Sales Publicity), Myra Smith (Newsletter Editor), Don Witton (Speaker bookings, Garden Visits Organiser), Dot Witton (Speaker bookings, Shop organiser, Fire Officer, Meet and Greet).

1 Apologies for absence

Janet Williams, Janet and David Cottam, Julie Bearpark, Pauline Bownes.

2 Minutes of the AGM held on 5th November 2014

These were accepted and approved by the meeting – proposed by Joan Hobson, seconded by Sue Stockdale.

3 Matters Arising

Flyers detailing meeting dates and topics: Barbara Dygnas asked if these had been produced. The Chairman informed the meeting that followingfull discussion by the Committee it was decided not to go ahead but that the information would be available on the Group’s website.

4 Treasurer’s Report and Presentation of the 2014/15 Statement of Accounts

All in all another excellent year in terms of plant sales which has enabled us to continue with our successful programme of speakers, invest in a public address system so that we can hear them and procure goods for sale in the shop, and so a loss for the year of £372.15 after procuring all these services and goods must be considered a superb effort.

Obviously your committee cannot authorise this spending without the tremendous funds generated from the plant sales and so once again I have to say a very big thank you to all the growers, and just a few words about the plant sales; I know our members enjoy being in the glass house to share their knowledge of plants but some of us spend hours in the classroom as cashiers and so we get to listen to the comments of the visitors and one often repeated accolade is what tremendous value we offer and the quality of the plants which brings buyers back every year. I will pick out Jean Gater for praise as she has set up a “Plant Sale data base” and e-mails all who have visited our sales as a reminder for forthcoming events.

There isn’t much I can add about the accounts as they almost mirror last year’s except and I have explained about the cash-flow with the shop to the point of absolute boredom so I’ll move quickly on and once again thank the committee for all their hard work and endeavour on our behalf.

Kate Lumb has agreed to be the examiner again next year and I would ask you to support her nomination and ask you to appreciate her hard work and effort in the usual way. Thank you Kate.

Any questions?

There were no questions and the Accounts were accepted by the Meeting.

5 Chairman’s Report 2014/15

I intend to make this report as short a report as I can, since we have a very good evening ahead of us after the AGM.

2015 has been a very busy year – starting on 11 March with Don’s propagation day which I think was a huge success. No matter how much we think we know about propagation, there is alwayssomething new to be learned from others. Thanks to Don for arranging this; I hope we can repeat it for other members sometime in the future.

Then in May we had our most successful plant sale ever, raising £6.660 forour Group’s activities. Many members contributed to the success of this, notonly by providing plants, but by all the peripheral work that needs to be donebefore and after the event. Thank you all.

Our annual coach outing this year followed in July and was to Woollaton OldHall; this was a wonderful day, with good weather and the most beautiful gardento enjoy. A big thankyou to Angela for arranging such a lovely day.

On 12 September, our 20th Anniversary celebrationsstarted in earnest with our‘garden party’ in the Eyam garden of June & Trevor Skinner. The rain did its bestto overshadow the afternoon, but the sun triumphed in the end and we had a most delightful time, eating strawberries and cream, followed by a magnificent variety of cake. Thank you to all the members who baked the cakes for us. You did us proud. I am sure everyone enjoyed the afternoon and I was very happy to see that

members took advantage of the chance to chat to one another which we don’t always have time or space to do at our meetings here. I hope you all enjoyed it as much as I did. A special thanks again to our hosts June and Trevor.

This event was closely followed by our Autumn plant sale when we raised £2,453.40for the Group.

Our celebrations continued with an exceptional presentation by Don at our Octobermeetingwhich I am sure is still fresh in all your minds. Just what was needed to remind us of the good days in the past, and to spur us on to more good things to come for the South PennineGroup. And I hope you all enjoyed your special cake after Don’s talk – thanks to Dot Witton for organising the cake.

Our final special celebratory year ends this evening with our special speaker Timothy Walker, who, of course, is no stranger to this Group. I know we will allenjoy what he has to say to us.

I hope you, like me, are looking forward to more good years to come for the South Pennine Group.

6 Election of Officers

All the current officers were willing to stand for another year which was unanimously accepted by the members. The Committee nominated Janet Boulding (our Conservation Officer) to join, and she is willing to serve- Proposed by Barbara Dygnas, Seconded by Decie Needham, and duly elected by the members. Kate Lumb was re-elected as Examiner of the accounts – Proposed by Tricia Fraser and Seconded by Hilary Hutson.

7 Any Other Business

Pam Hodgson asked for our current membership numbers. The Secretary confirmed there were approximately 116 with numbers rising.

8 The Ruth Iveson Memorial Bowl

The Chairman announced that this year the Ruth Iveson Memorial Bowl would be presented to Angela Andrews for her exceptionally hard work over several years for the group, including sourcing and booking speakers, coach trip organiser, librarian and support of the Committee and Group events.

The Chairman formally closed the meeting.