Minutes of the Annual General Meeting of the Loughborough and District Amateur Radio Club October 12th 2010
The Secretary opened the meeting at 2000
Present: G7BMM, G0LCU, M0GDW, G1KSC, G1ZAR, G7SEG, G3KWY, G1ETZ, M3AUC, G8BUB, 2E0MFT, G4JCH, G8SNF, G4EUF, G6IHU
Apologies: 2E0LEA, G4DZL
The minutes of the AGM 2009 were circulated and read. Proposed by G1KSC and seconded by G8BUB that the minutes were a true record of the meeting and should be accepted as such. There was a unanimous vote to accept the minutes.
Chairman's report(G8SNF)
It is a pleasure to see you all here tonight. I have been the Chairman for a few years now, something must be right. I look forward to every Tuesday night for several reasons, but I do not relish the AGM. I am not a good speaker with not a good voice, so bear with me. Tuesday nights give me nice company, interesting subjects that we get around to, not all radio and of course the main hobby of radio, but most of all the friendship.
Those are my reasons for coming along on Tuesdays. What are your reasons? Don't get bored as i have a little to say tonight. As members,I like to give you a picture as I see it, right or wrong. It is your club. Where do I begin? I could speak as usual at the AGM and go over the main points, past events and attendance etc. I could go ahead and thank all those involved for the magazine, programme etc. I could say very little. Some of you would be glad.
What I am going to say is purely a statement of facts as I see them. I, myself, have missed out on many good nights due to working away. We all have our lives to lead, our jobs to do, our homes and family to care for and our hobby is mainly done from home.Again my true intention is not to make nayone feel guilty. It is just a reflection of facts as i see them. After all, our time is valuable in whatever we do. I will begin by saying I am very proud of our club and it's membership that has stayed with us for a long time. Many friendships have been the result in my life, anyway.
All clubs are the same, usually with a core membership of helpers and a committee etc. We are no different. A few of our members have decorated the room, they have mostly provided the entertainment Lectures etc.) each week. They have put on outside events often to a very low turnout of members and often in their own time. I know they enjoy it, doing the hobby. We have had the odd outside speaker who was quite happy to travel, mostly for free or a pint in the pub. We have had some great evenings. We have tried to organise outings and subsidise events which we mostly have had to cancel due to lack of support over the last few years.
We do not want to lose members. With our small membership, the percentage of regular attendance is quite low. What can we do? The money in the tin, to help pay our way, does not always reflect those present. The foreign coins found does not help either. Now we will not be receiving the grant that was most useful to us. Although our situation is ok for now. With the general interest in the hobby slowing down due to changes in communications etc. we have to think of the future.
We over the years have tried everything to create and maintain interest in our club and the hobby. To attract members on our Tuesday nights. The main six doing most of the work. On a positive point, we are lucky to have such people who have the knowledge and are able to talk and demonstrate on so many aspects of radio etc. I would like to thank them x x x. With a new window in the room it is not as claustrophobic as it seemed to me to be. We have thanks to Chris and the Centre a nice room with a white wall for slides, videos etc., with new seats and tables. It can't be better except for the stairs. Thanks Chris, Art etc.
We need ideas for our programme We could do with a larger attendance at our meetings. We need the money in the tin. Or do we need to meet less often? Just a thought. We used to be the only club that met twice a week. Our circumstances have changed and will keep changing. We need to change. To keep our club on track we need your support and ideas. Thank you everyone.
Treasurer's report(G1ZAR):
The 2009/2010 period shows a membership of 27 as follows:
24 Full members
2 Associate members
0 Family memberships
1 Honorary member
This again shows a decrease of 3 from last year.
Two Affiliation Fees apply. One for the Glenmore Centre whose facilities we use and one for the Radio Society of Great Britain. A benefit of the RSGB affiliation is the provision of public liability insurance cover. They also provide a copy of the RSGB Yearbook.
Weekly room hire costs have stayed the same at £10.40 per night (as of March 2009). This continues to be a major part of our outgoing costs and is not guaranteed to remain the same. We had been claiming the Shire Community Grant, which paid for 50% of the room hire charges.
Unfortunately we were not successful in getting the grant this year. We can apply again next April.
Current reserves will cover another year at normal costs, but we should be aware that we are not guaranteed to get the Shire Grant next April, and there is also the possibility of future price increases in the room hire charge.
There are no reasons to increase subscriptions or nightly fees at present.
We hope that meetings on Tuesdays will be supported by more members.
Thanks to the committee and club members for their continued support.
Station Manager's report(G7SEG):
A successful year , on the whole, with few problems. I have not been present at all the events at most events, members tend to bring and use their own equipment However, the club's equipment is still used but is beginning to show it's age.
We have to consider that the youngest transceiver is now around 25 years old, but i do ot think we have to go out and spend on new equipment. The only
major problem we have at the moment is with the TS780, which is low on output power. With a little work and TLC, all the equipment can be rought back to full operatonal condition. Over the next year, all the major equipment needs to be run up and it's performance checked.
All current members of the committee have said that they are willing to be considered for re-election.
Position of Chairman
G8SNF was proposed by M3AUC and seconded by G0LCU.
There were no other proposals
G8SNF was unanimously elected.
Position of Secretary
G3KWY was proposed by G4JCH and seconded by G1KSC
There were no other proposals
G3KWY was unanimously elected
Position of Treasurer
G1ZAR was proposed by G4JCH and seconded by G8BUB
There were no other proposals
G1ZAR was unanimously elected
Position of Station Manager
G7SEG was proposed by G0LCU and seconded by G1KSC
There were no other proposals
G7SEG was unanimously elected
Position of Other member (Publicity)
G1ETZ was proposed by G8BUB and seconded by M3AUC
There were no other proposals
G1ETZ was unanimously elected
Position of Other Member
M0GDW was proposed by G4JCH and seconded by G4EUF
There were no other proposals
M0GDW was unanimously elected
Any other business:
1. G3KWY raised the question about club equipment. He stated that we seemed to have quite a lot of stuff that we never use. It was agreed to get rid of the surplus PC and any other items either to memebrs or at a junk sale or rally.
2. G0LCU who is the licence holder for G3RAL asked if the meeting was happy for him to continue in that role. It was agreed that there was no reason to change the licence holder and G0LCU was happy to continue.
3. The 5 year licence period will be up for most members in 2012. OfCom has indicated that, due to the 2012 Olympic Games being held in London, they expect to have a heavy workload with radio communications organisation during the runup to the games. They have recommended that amateurs re-register in 2011. It was suggested that we have a club night where members could re-register online.
There being no further business, the meeting was closed by the Chairman at 2030