Annual General Meeting

6th January 2020

The Annual General Meeting of the Society was held at ‘The Woolpack’, Almondbury, on Monday, 6th January 2020, at 7.30 pm.

Attendance

Walter Raleigh (chair)

Keith Crawshaw

Andrew Haigh

Apologies for Absence

Chris West

Richard Taylor

Roger Dowling, Edward Royle, Ian Rimmer, Peter Tracey, Peter Warry and Graeme Carby

The Minutes of the last Annual General Meeting

The minutes of the meeting held on held on Monday, 7th January 2019, were read and approved and there were no matters arising.

Chairman’s Report

Walter Raleigh thought that it had been another good year for the Society. Relations with the School are as good as they have been for many years and a number of initiatives have been completed.

The reintroduction of the Dartmouth Medal will take place in 2020 as part of the celebrations of the centenary of the Society, thanks to the hard work and tenacity of Roger Dowling and Christopher Mann.

We again opened the School for the Heritage Open Day, which was another resounding success, thanks to Abbi Terry and the Senior Students who showed people around. During that event, I spoke to the gentleman from the West Yorkshire Archive Service, who had brought the charter back for the day. This conversation resulted in an offer to catalogue the archives. This is expected to take up to three years, after which work on digitising the archive can begin.

Another way in which we have helped the School this year has been to promote reading through the provision of a leather bookmark for all students at the request of the English Department.

The Quiz Evening was another wonderful social event, for which we are grateful to Keith Crawshaw.

So, we have a good base on which to build as we look forward to celebrating the Society’s Centenary and explore different ways of celebrating it, not least at the Annual Dinner in November at which David Morphet has agreed to speak.

Treasurer’s Report

Keith Crawshaw presented the accounts for the financial year ended 31st August, 2019, noting that there has been a small fall in subscription income, which is happening every year. The cost of producing and distributing the magazine now accounts for 75% of subscription income, up from 70% in the previous year, but we are still striking a good balance. We have paid for items for the School totalling £1,078, resulting in an excess of income over expenditure for the year of 37p!

Richard Taylor proposed that the accounts were approved, and they were approved unanimously.

Membership Secretary’s Report

Andrew Haigh reported that, at the end of the last financial year, membership stood at 468. He noted that last year had been quite busy on the membership front, with five new members being recruited and another seven former members resubscribing. Sadly, these numbers had been offset by the deaths of thirteen longstanding members.

Subscription rate for the Financial Year commencing 1st September 2020

Following on from his Treasurer’s report, Keith Crawshaw said that he doesn’t want us to increase the subscription rate before we have to, and we are alright at the moment. However, he felt that the subscription rate for overseas members is an issue. The Secretary agreed, noting that the 5% of members who live abroad account for 23% of the postage costs for the magazine. Indeed, the postage cost of sending the magazine to Europe three times per year accounts for almost all of a member’s £10.00 subscription, whilst sending the magazine to other parts of the world three times per year costs significantly more than the £10.00 subscription rate, resulting in a loss to the Society. However, the Secretary was keen to point out that one member recognises this and voluntarily pays a subscription of £20.00 per year, whilst another takes the magazine by email. Indeed, there are UK members who also voluntarily pay a subscription rate higher than £10.00 per annum, or who have opted to receive the magazine by e-mail.

Keith Crawshaw proposed that the subscription rate remains at £10.00 per annum, with the Executive Committee being asked to contact the overseas members with the discretion to offer them the option of retaining their £10.00 subscription rate and receiving the magazine by email, or of moving to an overseas subscription rate of £20.00 to cover the cost of posting a hard copy. This was agreed unanimously.

Election of President

The Chairman proposed that the Principal should be invited to continue as President of the Society for 2020 and Ian Rimmer was duly re-elected.

President’s Remarks

Unfortunately, Ian Rimmer was unable to attend and had tendered his apologies, so there were no President’s Remarks.

Election of Executive Officers for 2020

Walter Raleigh agreed to continue as Chairman for 2020 and he was re-elected unanimously.

The other Officers were then elected as follows:

Vice-Chairman

Honorary Secretary

Honorary Treasurer

Media Editor

Ordinary Committee Members

Chris. West

Andrew Haigh

Keith Crawshaw

Roger Dowling

Graeme Carby

Martyn Hicks

Michael Powner

Simon Russell

Richard Teale

One vacancy

Chaplain

Vacant

Representative of the School Vacant

Keith Crawshaw said that he will be serving his forty-eighth year as Treasurer and noted that Andrew Haigh will be embarking on his thirtieth year as Secretary!

Any Other Business Executive Committee Meeting

The Secretary asked that the date and venue be fixed for the next meeting of the Executive Committee. The first Monday in February is the norm and Monday, 3rd February was agreed. It was further decided that we should continue to meet at the School in the ODH at 6.00 pm, for now.

Annual Quiz

Keith Crawshaw asked if we could set a date for the annual Quiz Evening. The Secretary said that it was moved to a later date last year, due to the late Easter holiday and a clash with the Champions League semi-finals, which are shown live in The Woolpack. He went to see the landlord to check the dates of the semi-finals this year, following which a date of Wednesday, 13th May was agreed for this year’s quiz.

The meeting closed at 9.20 pm.

(Signed)

A M Haigh P W Raleigh Secretary. Chairman.

Opposite: INCOME & EXPENDITURE ACCOUNT BALANCE SHEET

W Raleigh (Chairman)

K Crawshaw (Treasurer)

J A Swift (Independent Examiner)