T
he Annual General Meeting of The Old Olavians’ Society
Wednesday 24 March 2021 – 19:30 Attending: President: Andrew Rees (Headteacher); OO Administrator: Veronica Andrews Committee Members: Chris Harris (1977 - Chairman), Paul Ouseley (1977 - Treasurer), Bill Prouse (1977 Secretary), Graham Milne (1963) Members: Graham Bennett (1977), John Brown (1955), Ben Falat (1971), Ian Giles (1966), Ron Gough (1956), Roger Hammond (1973), Alicia Harris (2015), Colin Jeynes (1955), Mike Nevin (1965), Richard Norman (1962), Keith Richards (1949), Andrew Sawczenko (1981), Clive Smith (1969), Nigel Smith (1968), George Snelgrove (1964), Richard White (1977), Howard Wilkie (1966), Howard Wiseman (1987), David Woodward (1972). Apologies: Dr Laurence Harris (1970), George Jellis (1958), Rajiv Purwar (1977), Mike Roberts (1965), Alvan Sherman (1948).
1. Chairman’s welcome 2. Apologies for absence (see above) 3. Minutes of Last Meeting The minutes were agreed to be a true reflection of last year’s AGM and were unanimously approved.
4. Matters arising The Chairman advised that the new website is proving to have much potential for engagement with the OOs, however, volunteers are needed to develop it further suggestions welcome. Any feedback that will improve its use by all members is also most welcome. Getting recent leavers to sign up to OOs Subscriptions continues to be a challenge. Last November, the School engaged a new Head of Finance, Lucy Crawford, and part of her remit is the development side and donor relations. The Chairman is due to meet with Ms Crawford imminently. Funds held on the accounts with our bankers continue to attract very low interest rates. The investigations conducted by the Chairman found that both the amounts were too low and the signing arrangements were not suitable for better returns.
5. Chairman’s Report Membership: There are 2724 names on the OO database. Names are removed if they have neither an email nor postal address, however, a complete record of names outside of the website is retained for cross-checking against future requests to join/rejoin. In the last 12 months, new members were registering at an average rate of about 4 per month. 2463 of those registered have a valid email address. This is an improvement on the number given two years ago and, whilst more email addresses have been removed as they were no longer valid and were bouncing back undelivered, we continue to try to make contact and find new email addresses. As at year end 30th September 2020, 330 members paid £20 or more entitling them to the magazine, and a further 183 paid something, giving a total of 513 paying £9,372. The above includes 12 paying sponsorship members, paying £1,025. However, it is a drop in subscriptions of £1,165 over the last two years. Actions to improve subscriptions:
1.
Where contact details are available, the Chairman is writing to all payers of £5, £10 and £13 per annum (these are the old subscription rates), to ask them to consider increasing their donation.
2.
All new members of the LinkedIn group are asked to register on the website and consider paying the subscription for the benefit of the School.
3.
Recent leavers from 2020 have not been asked to sign up to a subscription yet. As they collect their certificates (delayed due to Lockdown) they will be reminded to register. All those registering will be asked to consider paying the subscription. 30 have already registered and 4 of those have paid a subscription.
4.
Of the leavers from 2015 and 2016, only 8 are paying subscriptions. The Chairman has recently sent out 205 emails to these cohorts explaining how we rely on subs and what has been achieved in the last few years and suggesting upgrading their membership to a paid subscription.
S
ociety Admin: This continues to be managed entirely by the Chairman and Veronica Andrews, the School’s OO Administrator. The Chairman thanked Veronica for her efforts. Veronica’s role includes among other things, fielding enquiries from OOs as well as their families, who are looking for details regarding family histories. Olavian 2021 – Old Olavian – 111
