OBA Annual General Meeting Minutes - 3 October 2014

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The minutes of the Annual General Meeting held at the School on Friday 3 October, 2014

 

Members present: P. Lusted (in the chair), A. Snelling, D. Palmer, G. Barnes, B. Gilbert, K. Shea, P. Taylor, M. Pack, C. Laming

 

Apologies for absence: N. Hancock, K. Sears, T. Akehurst, D. Jarrett, S. Caveney

 

Minutes and matters arising: The minutes of the meeting held on Friday 4 October, 2013, were agreed and signed as a correct record.

The secretary was asked to re-confirm to the school that the Association would offer a £50 annual school prize, to be awarded in the field of information technology studies.

There were no other matters arising.

 

The 2014 officers and committee were elected as follows:

President: J. Hopkins

Vice-President: P. Lusted

Hon. Secretary: C. Laming

Hon. Treasurer: M. Pack

Membership secretary: K. Shea

Dinner Secretary: C. Laming

Website representative: D. Palmer

Website advertising: K. Shea

OBA governor: A. Wilson

Football rep: K. Shea

Hockey rep: D. Palmer

Committee: N. Hancock, P. Taylor, S. Caveney, T. Akehurst, G. Barnes, M. Stewart, D. Jarrett, B. Gilbert, K. Sears, A Snelling

Accounts examiner: P. Taylor

Neil Hancock stood down as Hon. Treasurer and was warmly thanked in his absence for his service in the role over the past 13 years. Mike Pack has agreed to succeed him. Dave Palmer volunteered to take over as hockey rep.

The election of officers and committee en bloc was unanimously approved, having been proposed by G. Barnes and seconded by B. Gilbert.

 

Constitutional changes: None

 

Correspondence: None.

 

Treasurer’s report: The treasurer had provided draft accounts and explanatory notes. These showed that for the year ended 31 July 2014 the association had made a loss of £4,683.03 taking into account donations of £8,500 to BGS, and other sundry items of expenditure including a loss on the dinner of £53.45, versus an income for the period of £4,209.59. However, the Association had £2,339.36 in the bank at the same date plus £228.80 from the sale of ties and a further £236 in the staff fund which the treasurer proposed should in future be added to the general fund.

The draft accounts would be checked by the accounts examiner and a meeting would be convened between the outgoing and incoming treasurers and the accounts examiner to effect a handover of the Association’s accounts. This would include arrangements for a new banking mandate. It was agreed the new signatories would be the treasurer, the secretary and the vice-president.

The accounts would need to be signed off at a later date to be advised, possibly by an extraordinary committee meeting at the end of January.

 

Membership report: Keith Shea reported: We have 408 ‘paid up’ members this year including 10 life members who do not pay an annual subscription.

On top of that we have 18 members who haven’t yet paid their subscriptions. 17 of those pay by standing order  which is not a good sign as the cancellation of a standing order is a predetermined  act rather than an oversight so it means that the standing order has been cancelled for a reason.

The table below breaks down our 398 members (excluding the 10 life members referred to above) into those who are i) Honorary members and not required to pay subscriptions (3 members); ii) Life Members who are scheduled to pay £5 (11) and iii) the rest of the membership (384).  The table shows the actual amount paid by these members.  You will see that a number of members pay more than the required £10, whilst others continue to pay an old rate.  Those shown below as paying nothing had in fact paid in advance in previous years and therefore nothing is due from them this year.

 

 

Subscription Due

 

Amount Paid

£0

£5

£10

Grand Total

£0.00

2

2

12

16

£1.00

   

1

1

£1.50

   

4

4

£5.00

 

9

39

48

£6.50

   

2

2

£10.00

1

 

309

310

£15.00

   

6

6

£20.00

   

7

7

£30.00

   

3

3

£11.50

   

1

1

Grand Total

3

11

384

398

 

We have so far received £3691.50 from these 398 members.

We continue to receive subscriptions for 7 members who have died and we should write to the families concerned to ensure that this is not an oversight on their part.

I will issue reminders over the next few weeks to those that haven’t renewed, but I do not expect to recover much from the members who had previously paid by standing order for the reason mentioned above.

The gradual decline in membership continues. Last year we lost 14 members who paid by standing order and this year it is likely that we will lose another 17. We do need to try to stem the tide and increase the membership to ensure the long term future of the Association. One idea that has been put forward is to make all Old Bordenians members of the Association and ask for donations rather than subscriptions. This may be too unwieldy and therefore difficult to administer, after all there have been 100 or so leavers each year since 1974 (that’s 4000 leavers) but this and any other ideas are worth consideration.

Progress has been made with capturing email addresses and we now have 212 addresses on the database for the 408 members. My thanks to Dave Palmer, Alan Snelling and Peter Lusted for updating the data base which I haven’t had the time to do because of work commitments.

 

AGM and Committee Meeting date:     Friday 2 October, 2015 at 7.00 pm

                                               

Annual dinner:                                     Saturday 7 March, 2015

 

There being no further business the meeting closed at 7.43 pm.