Notes from the AGM

Annual General Meeting – 20

th

February 2009

 

The following are extracts from the Annual General meeting, held on

Friday, 20

th

February 2009 at The Ark, Gallards Close, Southborough.
 

Chairman’s Report – Mike Handcock

Membership

– during the year our membership increased to 51 from 46.

Communications

– One way of doing so is to keep in touch with members and this I believe we have done through the medium of our Members Newsletters. During the year we have produced 4 editions and I’m very grateful to those who contributed articles, to those who delivered them locally. There were also a couple of Chairman’s letters, so we kept in touch. Moreover we now have a website, so we are reaching out beyond our membership and hopefully, in due course, this will bring us more members.

Activities

We are a working organisation and it is good to provide a variety of activities to raise money for our Projects to help people in Kaniv and this is what we’ve tried to do. Our policy is to give good value for money and I believe this is much appreciated by those who attend our events. We started the year with our Dinner on the 11

th

January and this was a very pleasant occasion attended by 30 people. This event is not a fundraiser, but the raffle we held did help towards our expenses. That was followed by a Beetle Drive in April, which was great fun. A new venture was the Open Gardens event held in mid-June and we were very grateful to those who opened their gardens, four in all, to members and friends – a great deal of preparation work goes on for an event like this, but it made for a very enjoyable afternoon and the weather being fine was an added bonus. The cream-teas at the Prances, the final garden of the tour, was what most especially made this a financial success and we hope to get other volunteers to offer their gardens this year.

The BBQ and Fete was less successful last year and the Committee will consider how such an event can be bettered this year. It certainly wasn’t a failure, but we clashed with the Olympic Game's day when Britain won a fist full of medals so perhaps some who might have come were glued to their television screens. We will give some more thought to this event to try and make it more irresistible to the general public.
There were some splendid prizes in the Grand-draw and I’m grateful to those who sought and secured some of the prizes. Financially it didn’t do quite as well as in 2007, but it was still our single most successful activity and thanks to everyone who bought or sold tickets. The draw itself brought our Summer Soiree to a close. Again we needed to be grateful to members of the Bidborough Dramatic Society and the Magpies from Paddock Wood who supported the event and to the church community at Christchurch which enabled us to use their hall for this popular event.  In September we shared a stall with SHDOFA, a the Southborough Society Exhibition.

Project 2008

– So all this activity enabled us to send £1,500.00 to Kaniv for the aid and welfare of elderly, poor people. I will talk more about this after the interval, but in this report I need to confirm to you that it was a most worthwhile and much appreciated Project and one of which we can feel quite proud. It has changed lives and may well have saved lives so that is very satisfying.

Visits

– In August, Anya Shafar, a 20-year-old University Student, spent a fortnight here, living with Colette and Bob Marsh and being taken on various visits by them and other SAKA members. She enjoyed her stay and was a very welcome visitor – we hope she will come again. The day following her return to Ukraine I set off for my first visit to Kaniv since 2004. ( reported earlier on this website)

Committee

– Lastly I want to say a big thank you to the Members of your Committee who work so hard, have been an excellent team and who are the inspiration of all that has been achieved. Thankfully they are all prepared to stand again and I hope you will support their nominations. Two disappointments I must mention applied to our failure to find anyone willing to take on the mantle of Honorary Treasurer; and neither were we able to find anyone willing to take over the role of Youth Representative so we didn’t have a young person’s contribution to our deliberations. So I’ve mentioned a few disappointments in what was actually a pretty good year, we’ve worked hard, we’ve had fun and in doing so we’ve raised £1,500.00 for some elderly folk who have suffered greatly in the past. That sum represents far more in goodwill and caring than in actual monetary terms so thanks to everyone for your efforts. That concludes my report.

 

Secretary’s Report – Jackie Prance

The secretary commented that much of what she had planned to say was covered in the chairman's report.  She continued - I can’t say often enough that we are and will be very grateful for any contributions of information, articles or adverts for future Newsletters and of course for our now fully operational website. Hopefully these will look even more professional as improvements such as more photos and better graphics are added and we all get more expert and practised. Any ideas for improvements to the website or any of our other communications would be very welcome.

 

Treasurer’s Report – Mike Handcock

Copies of the balance sheet and statement of income and outgoings were distributed.
 

Election of Committee.

We had received the following nominations for officers and committee members:-
Chairman – Mike Handcock
Vice Chairman – Bob Marsh
Secretary – Jackie Prance
Events Organiser – Colette Marsh
Membership Secretary – Mike Bailey
Publicity Officer – Brian Dobson
Committee Members – Trevor Poile and Ann Nolan.
No other nominations had been received. All were approved unanimously

.

Financial Scrutineer

. It was unanimously agreed that David Coward should continue to be our Financial Scrutineer.

 

Subscriptions. It was

 unanimously agreed that the subscription for 2009 to be retained at £3.00 for an adult, family membership to be £6.00 and young persons in full-time education to be entitled to free membership provided written permission to belong is given by their parent(s) or guardian(s).

Constitution It was

unanimously agreed that Item 2 of the Finance Section of the Constitution should be amended to read “The Funds of the Association will be maintained by the Hon. Treasurer and examined at the end of each financial year by an Authorised Independent Scrutineer appointed at the AGM”.

Future Programme and Targets for 2009.

Mike Handcock gave a talk on his trip to Kaniv in 2008 and his meetings with various people there. After discussion with the Mayor of Kaniv and representatives of KASA, Mike Handcock suggested that a good project for 2009 would be to give money for seeds, plants and tools to the Children of School No. 6 in order that they could make a garden on land between their school and the main road to Kaniv, close to the river Dneiper. This would improve the appearance of the approach to Kaniv and hopefully seed the idea of flower gardens.

 

Proposed date of next AGM - 10

th

February 2010