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Minutes of the 32nd Annual General Meeting of the Spring Grove Morris Men and Off-Spring Morris
Monday 5th October at 8:30pm 2009
The Church of St John the Evangelist, Spring Grove, Kingston In attendance were: Sue Benson, Alan Bull, Simon Conner, John Curwood, Theresa Ellmers, Christine Fawcett, Ben Izard, Ian Kirkpatrick, Jenny Holden, Gerry McCann, Colin Messer, Steve Nash, David Seager, Glenis Ward, Kate Wood, (and arriving fashionably late was) Robert Muller. The meeting began at 20.40 chaired by Colin Messer, then stopped and restarted at 20.50 when it was chaired by the SGMM and OSM squire Robert Muller. 1. Apologies: Martin Milner, who enjoyed the year's events and wishes everyone the best for the future. 2. Items for consideration for AOB Robert was seeking the constitution to determine voting rights. We may have lost all copies of the constitution, Robert having never seen it and we couldn't find a copy. In the absence of the constitution Robert proposed that all at the meeting have voting rights, agreed by all. 3. Minutes of the last AGM Christine noted that she volunteered to act as Treasurer for Off-Spring, and subsequently took on Spring Grove. Corrected and signed by The Squire. 4. Matters arising from the minutes None 5. Reports and accounts 1. Squire's Report – Robert Muller An excellent year, see the emailed report for full details. 2. Bagman's Report – Colin Messer A full report was emailed, a summary is a follows: The 2009 season had 31 events, nearly double on previous few years. We received 59 invites, mostly by email. 50 page hits a day on the websites. The year the bagman maintained and distributed draft programme, emailed the Bagman's Update, maintained the websites programs and website content. It's proved too much work to both adequately prepare and teach an evening's dance and at the same time look after bagman's business. I suggest folk use the website more, update a draft program shared on-line and individuals own events. Ask for hard copies if web and email access isn't practical. 3. Treasurer's Report – Christine Fawcett See the circulated Treasurers reports for details. Christine had finalised the 2008 account and prepared those for 2009. Some income & expenditure from 2008 was brought to account 2009 as shown on the Account & Balance sheet. No Collections were made in 2008 but concerted efforts in 2009 raised over £1000 [cf £22.50 in 2006 and £2.00 in 2007].Our income from gig fees for 2009 almost doubled from that of the previous year. This should leave Off-Spring with a balance of about £1000 after anticipated expenditure. Spring Grove decided not to make a charity donation this year, to maintain their current balance of £314.24. Simon commented that all the money should go to charity rather than pay for hall rent. Steve reminded us that we had previously agreed to split the collection between the Kingston Can appeal and St Johns Church. The amount we pay for hire goes to Church Funds and so we collected honestly. We agreed to revisit how fees and collection are disposed under Charity Selection on the Agenda. We agreed the following:
Christine requested a volunteer to audit the accounts; Theresa volunteered Jim Beard who is a self employed accountant.
Steve mentioned that it would have been helpful to have had some outline or summary figures to include in the survey so members could make a more informed choice on charity donations and possible introduction of subscriptions.
4. Foreman's Report – Colin Messer
Continued improvement – well done! Thanks to musicians, especially Gerry and Sue. Fewer new dances, and 11 new people. There was a focus on Bampton and our Signature dance style Bidford. Great to see members dance in; I hope that the rest will dance in to either Nutting Girl or Bonnets so Blue. Ring O'Bells still settling in. Sword dance was fun, but needed more work. First 30 mins for new starters work well, but stopped the warm-up. The side is reminded that practice for beginners starts at 8.00 and for everybody else 8.30.
6. Election of officers
Steve suggested that as Robert took over OSM less than two years ago his second full year would be 2010, we agreed to suspend the rule for SGMM and allow Robert to serve for three years.
- Sue agreed to be central co-ordinator and to monitor email.
- Steve – Christmas dinner, Off-Spring Midsummer Morris and other special events
- Volunteers to organise pubs tours – one tour per person.
- Club members to take ownership of events
- Jenny – pro-active seeker of paid gigs and publicity
7. Survey 2009 season
Steve talked us though the 2009 survey.
8. Practice plan for season 2010
The practice structure and programme will be advised by the survey. Beginners start at 8.00 pm, everyone else at 8.30 pm, finishing at 10.00 pm
9. Charity for 2010
The collection to be split equally between two charities:
REACT and Born Too Soon will be front runners for next year.
10. Events for 2010
Events for 2010 to take account of the survey results, the top six being:
11. AOB
We agreed to re-instate a subsidy for chargeable Morris events, for example Yateley, of 50% back dated to this year's Yateley. Voting: was: Yes: 8, No: 2, Ab: 6
Membership Fee was put on ice for a year. The treasurer to produce a recommendation prior to the next AGM.
An award of Morris Person of the Year to be awarded at the Christmas Dinner.
No one was interested in supporting Youth Morris.
We discussed that without active work from a webmaster the OSM website was becoming stale. Consider taking the website back from Keith.
Missing paperwork
We ran out of time to discuss:
The Meeting ended abruptly at 10:50 and we sprinted to the Spring Grove Hotel just in time to share a quiet pint.
Colin Messer
Bagman
9-Oct-2009
*Note
Payment to St John's Church has been by donation at the end of each season. The last payment was £200 for 2008. The church terminated this arrangement and introduced a formal Hire Agreement from 1st January 2009 as follows
Staged hourly rates in £
Jan-April 7.50
May-August 10.00
Sep-Dec 12.50
Jan 2010 15.00 (subject to annual review) |
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