Annual General
15/07/2024
what happens at an agm ?
The aim of the Annual General Meeting (AGM) is for the charity trustees and officers to give an overview of the charity’s activities for that year and to provide the members of the charity with an opportunity to ask questions before voting on items on the agenda.
Members can vote for some things such as for trustees and trustee officers as well as changes to governance documents such as the constitution. It will be made clear which things are trustee votes and which are member votes.
You will be provided paper ballots at the beginning of to the meeting for both trustee/officer and constitutional amendments. There will be a chance to ask questions prior to voting.
Chair’s Report
1. Committee
We were delighted to be able to expand our committee this year to include the following roles:
• Volunteer Co-ordinator
• Health and Safety Co-ordinator
• Comms Co-ordinator
• Sponsorship Co-ordinator
• Fundraising Co-ordinator
• Phoenix Co-ordinator
• Marketplace Co-ordinator
• Safeguarding Officer
• GDPR Officer
• Treasurer
All of whom made creating a safe, well organised and enjoyable Exeter Pride possible. I’d like to extend my thanks for their hard work to all of them.
2. Stewards
This year also saw a huge increase in the number of volunteers supporting us on the day with around 80 stewards helping in the march, Northernhay Gardens and Exeter Phoenix. Feedback was generally positive from both from the organisers and stewards, though both reported that more detailed training would be beneficial as stewards didn’t always know what to do as part of their role.
3. Health and Safety
One of the major areas that led to the cancellation of Exeter Pride in 2023 was the demands of completing the necessary paperwork to satisfy the Safety Advisory Committee (made up of Highways Agency and members of the City Council, Police and Fire departments). Members of the committee (especially Kat our health and safety officer) put in a huge amount of time to bring our event plan and risk assessment up to a level SAG is happy with. I’d also like to thank our local Councillor for St David’s Diana Moore and other city council members who’ve provided their help in making this happen.
4. Fundraising
Whether it’s putting on a Rocky Horror Picture show sing-a-long at Little Drop of Poison or donating items for our raffles, our community have really shown up for us this year to help us fundraise. We’d like to particularly thank local drag queen extraordinaire Cleo Toris who always invites us to set our merch stall at Climax and also donated £500 in tickets sale. We’d also like to thank the 20 businesses and bars across the city hosting our collection tins, and the Turks Head who (with the help of our volunteer co-ordinator Annie) created a beer just for Exeter Pride called thirst trap.
5. Sponsorship
I’ll let our treasurer talk a bit more about sponsorship this year in his finance report, but we’ve been grateful this year to all of our sponsors who have between them donated £17,350 - a level not seen since before the pandemic. As well as our long term sponsors such as the fire service & Exeter University we’ve also had new sponsors including Great Western Railway, Aldi & Curry’s.
Following some feedback from pride attendees about ethical concerns regarding a few of our sponsors we are putting together a sponsorship policy prioritising what the local LGBTQ+ community feel are the most important ethical considerations for us to take into account when accepting money from businesses and organisations.
6. Rebrand
One of the major changes this year was a comms rebrand with the help of local graphics artists Lou and Sarah. It has moved generic to a distinctive aesthetic rooted in ou Our logo was redesigned to be more representa three towers in the Exeter coat of arms combi the pride flag. They also created a more cost Squarespace website. The rebrand has been us w rts a to
7. ‘fifteen Years of Exeter Pride’ Heritage Project
One of the personal highlights of this year was being involved in the National Lottery heritage project to celebrate our 15 year anniversary. We’ve created an audio visual archive about the history of Exeter Pride through publicly donated photos and film as well as newly recorded interviews with organisers and attendees . These were used to create the short film ‘15 Years of Protest’ which explores the history of Exeter Pride and shows why it it is just as vital today as when it first began. We were lucky enough to be able to premiere the film as part of the Come As You Festival at Exeter Phoenix this year, and also screen it at Exeter Pride. The audio-visual archive will be completed by October 2024 and along with the film will be available for free on our website.
8. March
When we had to cancel pride last year, people told us that the bit they missed most was the march, so we were delighted to be able to bring it back this year with even more community groups joining than in 2022. We had old favourites such as Great Western Morris and Roller Derby to entertain us, but a lot of peoples personal favourite was being able to have our drag queens dancing on the deck of the open top stagecoach bus!
9. Northernhay Gardens
Exeter Pride was not originally intended to be in Northernhay Gardens this year, as we had been initially planning to host it in the smaller Rougement Gardens. However some new council guidelines now restrict placing tent pegs and weights in areas less than 10 m from tree roots or trunks which reduced the number of stalls allowed in Rougement from over 27 to 8-10. So we decided to make the move to Northernhay to allow room for over 50 food and drink, community and small business stalls that made for a vibrant and diverse marketplace.
10. Exeter Phoenix
The majority of the workshops, entertainment and other areas were hosted in the Phoenix this year. There were collage, singing, dance and drawing workshops (all of which got good feedback from attendees) as well as a family zone and youth zone. The family zone (facilitated by local charity Intercom) was really popular and in the end our space wasn’t large enough for everyone who wanted to come! So we shall definitely be using a bigger space next year! We also had some amazing music (including from local LGBT+ choir Spectrum) but my personal highlight was the Drag Competition which involved amazing death drops and someone (fake!) stapling bank notes to their forehead!
12. Membership
We‘ve rolled out a more comprehensive membership package this year which includes a basic free membership for individuals and organisations. Members are able to vote for trustees, officers and changes to the constitution at the AGM. We‘ve also introduced a digital membership card for Enhanced members that gives a 15% off merchandise and discounts from our Exeter Pride 2025 partners.
13. What Next?
Obviously it’s up to the future committee and trustees to decide what Exeter Pride might look like in 2025, but the nature of pride means we begin planning next years pride almost as soon as the previous one ends!
We have certain constraints that will continue - Rougement will be difficult to use, especially as the door between Rougement and Northernhay is likely to continue to be closed due to safety reasons. We also know that we should hopefully (though I’ll leave it up to our treasurer who knows more about this!) be able to afford having a proper stage in Northernhay Gardens in a similar way to 2022.
But it’s the people that make pride what it is - everyone who joined as coordinators and in working groups, the businesses and organisations that donated through sponsorship and fundraising, and the stewards that volunteer on the day and I would like to extend my heartfelt thanks to each and everyone of them.
It all took us from the position we were last year where we weren’t being able to put on an event at all, to the hugely successful event we had this year. And with a similar level of support from our community I see no reason that Exeter 2025 can’t be just as successful!
proposed Changes to constitution
You will receive a a ballot paper when you arrive at the AGM. Please place a tick in the yes box if you agree or tick the no boxes if you disagree with the proposed amendments. There will be an opportunity to ask questions about the amendments prior to voting.
Number of trustee positions to elect at agm 1.
To remove:
13.4
Elections should be held for half of the vacant Trustee positions (and not more than 6) at each AGM. In the event that more than 6 trustees have retired in-year, 6 shall be elected for a two-year term, and the remainder for one year, to be decided by drawing lots.
This is to give trustees flexibility on how many trustee positions to advertise for depending on the needs of the charity at that time.
2. Notice for elections to committee
10.7
Nominations for election should be indicated in writing to the outgoing secretary to be received not less than 7 days before the General Meeting.
To be changed to 10.7
Nominations for election should be indicated in writing to the outgoing secretary to be received not less than 14 days before the General Meeting.
This is to enable there to be more time for Trustees to process committee applications and arrange interviews prior to the AGM.
3. inclusion of notice for trustee nominations
13.5
No-one may be elected a Trustee or an officer at any annual general meeting unless prior to the meeting the charity is given a notice that:
a) is signed by a member entitled to vote at the meeting;
b) states the member’s intention to propose the appointment of a person as a trustee or as an officer;
c) is signed by the person who is to be proposed to show their willingness to be appointed
To Add:
d) Nominations for election should be indicated in writing to the outgoing secretary to be received not less than 21 days before the General Meeting.
This is to enable there to be more time for Trustees to process trustee applications and arrange interviews prior to the AGM