Newsletter: 131 for July 2007 Minutes of the AGM 11th July 2007 Chairman, Dave Pattenden, opened the evening by welcoming all members to this year’s AGM. Apologies had been received from Reg Moores, David Croucher and Stuart Harley. He requested that people speak up during the meeting so they could be heard clearly. The Minutes of the last meeting were read out by the Secretary and it was agreed that they gave a true and accurate record. The only matter arising from those Minutes was the accounts to 31 July 2006. Stan Reynolds, Auditor for that year, had worked exceptionally hard to get these together with Patrick working on very limited information and Robin’s recollections and brief statement supplied to them via the President. Stan firstly highlighted his concerns that the EGM held at the beginning of the year had proved inconclusive and the committee agreed that without pressure from him, we may well have lost our way on the completion and subsequent preparation of these 2006 accounts. Stan had managed to generate accounts from information sent to him by Robin and these showed a balance bought forward of £966.85. The Committee extended it’s grateful thanks to Stan for the preparation of these figures under very difficult circumstances (ie. lack of information available from Robin) and his assistance to John and Patrick with preparing the accounts to 31 July 2007 in giving us an opening balance. The accounts to 31 July 2006 were presented to members and proposed as correct by Geoff Hunt and seconded by Brenda Trowell. The Chairman then gave his report and shared a brief review of the year (copies are available if required). He especially thanked those members who had taken part in meetings and shows and urged any members who haven’t yet, to give it a try. He thanked everyone who had helped with the running of the club behind the scenes including his wife Paula, Lynne Johnson, Jeanne Elvin and Doreen Bennett. He also gave a vote of thanks, of course, to Peggy for organising our refreshments every month. Dave pointed out that although we had done two shows in the year (one in Shoreham and one in Albourne) that members were slow to support us. The Shoreham show broke even with just 20 in the audience, primarily friends of his and Nicky’s and Reg Moores, and at Albourne the crowd consisted of those invited by Dave, and John Holden’s family. Geoff was organising a further event at Fairlight in October so please support him and the Society even if it is just putting up posters. If members want to keep subs at their current rate for the forthcoming year, it was important for the Society to organise more shows to generate income. Patrick Edmondson, as Treasurer, then gave a brief presentation about the accounts for the current year. It had been a very difficult job for Patrick to produce these with limited starting information available but with the support of both John Taylor (as Auditor) and Stan Reynolds, these were produced and handed to members to approve. We are currently very financially sound with a balance at the bank of over £800. Our biggest expense for the year was that paid out to Jon Allen, our cabaret at the annual dinner in November 2006. Jon’s fee was the largest we have ever paid and the cabaret the shortest we have ever seen. This year’s act was substantially cheaper and promised to be a lot longer. We all look forward to seeing Alex Lodge (some of you may have seen him recently on The Sorcerer’s Apprentice in BBC1) with his dove and illusion act. The accounts were proposed as correct by Stan Reynolds and seconded by Nicky Moon. Unfortunately due to the problems associated with this years accounts, Patrick announced that he had decided to stand down and the Chairman offered his sincere thanks for the hard work put in by him to produce these figures for us. A new Treasurer had been approached and would be voted onto the Committee later on during the meeting. The Committee suggested that since we were so in the black, we should pay the hall rent for the year now to save writing cheques on a monthly or quarterly basis. This suggestion was agreed to by the members. Patrick reminded members that subs for the forthcoming year are now due and should be paid as soon as possible. The next report was given by Nicky Moon, the Secretary. She started out by confirming that on average we had 13½ members join us each meeting during the year and that we had had two very good lectures from Trevor Duffy and Lynn Thomas (The Great Velcro). She then went through the proposed programme for the year and this was agreed by the members. We would be lucky to have Mark Leveridge join us in April with another lecture currently being lined up to participate within January’s meeting. The Committee had recently discussed the role of Welfare Officer within the Club and it was unanimously agreed by them that this should form part of the Secretaryship. This new part would deal with cards and flowers where necessary and emergencies and first aid during shows and monthly meetings. (The President was also a first aider and would assist as necessary). On receipt of annual subs, a welfare form would be handed out by the Treasurer and once this was received back, a certificate of membership would be presented (as suggested at the AGM in July 2006). It was agreed that the profits from the sale of ACES badges, the proceeds of Geoff’s show in October and £2 from each members subs this year would be a good start to the fund (originally started by Geoff many years ago). It was also confirmed that proceeds from monthly tea and coffee would be added into this fund to. The whole meeting agreed these points regarding the Welfare Officer role were good idea and it was voted unanimously for this to proceed. Details for the Annual Dinner had already been finalised with all members receiving information earlier in the year. Please ensure that cheques (made payable to ACES), menu requests were with Nicky as soon as possible – latest 5 September please - in order to prepare table plans, etc. and to inform the venue. Accommodation could be booked direct with the hotel. Please do not check the website as this shows “full”. We have made a group reservation of 10 rooms which will be available for us at a special ACES rate. Please remember to mention this rate when booking accommodation. Next year’s Tri-Wizard Tournament will be taking place at ACES on 11 June with invitations going out to the other two clubs in plenty of time for them to prepare acts. If anyone has suggestions for the three categories, please speak to Martin, Dave or Nicky. The current committee were re-elected en-bloc apart from Patrick Edmondson who had indicated his decision to pass the role over. John Holden had been approached and was happy to take up the position of Treasurer with John Taylor continuing as Auditor (a non-committee officer role) for the year. The committee would therefore be : President Martin Lewis Chairman Dave Pattenden Vice Chairman Mike Elvin Treasurer John Holden Secretary Nicky Moon This was proposed by John Taylor and seconded by Bob Rickard. A discussion took place regarding whether we require a Publicity Officer for the Society and it was felt by all that it would be better to have a Webmaster. A suggestion for Reg Moores to take this on was approved in Reg’s absence and Dave would make contact with him so he can speak to Stuart Harley to gain the relevant information concerning the running of our site. Suggestions for updating the site were discussed and these may well happen within the next few months. Any other business: There had been some correspondence received to the Secretary that newsletters were not regularly placed on the website and could these be prepared more promptly. Nicky said she took that on board and would try harder to keep these up to date although she had had some problems placing these on the site herself. For the time being, Dave was adding newsletters after she prepared them. A further comment had been made regarding people interrupting performers whilst setting up for shows or competitions. Please could everyone ensure that those taking part in these events are given space to set up and should only be interrupted once their set-up is completed. The Committee all agreed they were probably the most likely to do this but noted the comment and would try to adhere to this request. One comment was made that it would be helpful for the Secretary to have a list of effects performed so that the correct name was given. Please could everyone try to ensure they prepare this prior to the meeting please. It was also agreed that the Chairman and/or President should ensure that new faces are introduced formally to everyone to ensure they feel welcome. It was felt that although we tried to do this already, a more formalised introduction was necessary and would be helpful to all. Another member had asked why the bi-annual visit to and from Portsmouth & District Magic Circle had fallen by the wayside. It was agreed that the Secretary would make contact again to see if we can get this organised for the forthcoming year. There was a point raised that we should consider making Robin Toft an Honorary Life Member but the meeting felt this was too soon and still a little raw due to the problems of the accounts to July 2006. It was agreed this would be bought up again at the AGM in 2008. Finally a vote of thanks was passed to Caroline (Zac’s mum) who has supported Zac since he became a Junior Member of the Club. Now he is able to join as a Full Adult Member, we will see less of her and many agreed they will miss being able to use her as their glamorous assistant when required. Meeting closed 9.05pm. Written by: Nicky Lewis Back

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