Minutes of the A.G.M. 2007

Meeting held at the Riverside Centre on 12th May 2007 and chaired by the President, Mrs Janet Few.

Apologies :-
Jonyth Hill, Anne Barrett, Geoff Allan, Christine Broom

Minutes of the A.G.M. held on 6th May 2006
Minutes of the last A.G.M. Distributed to the members present. Accepted as a true record. Proposed by Betty Dhillon, seconded by Malcolm Tait. Signed by Janet Griffin.

Matters Arising.
none

Chairman's Report
This is my first report as Chairman. The membership of the Society continues to grow and attendance at meetings is still high.
We were sad to lose two of our active members during the last year, Ray Norman, who had been our Publicity Manager for many years and who died shortly after the last AGM, and Les Barrett who died only a few days ago. He was a regular volunteer, especially for the BMD indexing.
We were also sorry to lose Alec Soars and Mike Bull who were members of the committee for a short time but both had to retire because family commitments.
The Society has been pleased to accept donations of fiche and books for the Resource Rooms, particularly items relating to other counties which has boosted what we can offer members with interests away from the Island. We also had a donation from the estate of Don Riley of his records of his URRY family.
The Resource Rooms continue to be under used although visitor numbers have improved slightly.

Secretary's Report
We now have over a 1000 members. The Website is still receiving between 350 and 400 unique visitors per day. The BMD indexing project is very nearly completed and has been a great success in bringing many visiters to the Website and new members to the Society.
Dina Broughton (corrected to Janet Few) has offered to edit the November issue of the journal but that will be a one-off. After that there will be no editor.
Because I found it difficult to answer many of the enquiries I received, I attended Janet Few's course on 'Genealogy for Beginners' in the autumn. This has given me quite a lot of useful information but I still have to pass on some queries which I cannot answer.
There is a display in the Hunnyhill Room today.
This year's Summer Outing will be at Kings Manor Farm, Freshwater, on Monday 4th June, 2007, at 7 pm. It will consist of a guided tour of the museum which contains early tractors, a plane and car designed by Harry Ferguson. There will be light refreshments. The cost per person will be £5.

Treasurer's Report
These observations refer to the year ending 31st December 2006. A summary of the accounts as provided by the scrutineer are available on the back table as are the written documents from which these accouts were derived (in a big white folder on the back table).
On the revenue side, membership subscriptions and sales showed a healthy rise. We continue to be surprised, and delighted, by the magnitude of donations, and our thanks to donors is hearbye recorded. Revenue for monthly meetings, Resource Centre, One Day Conference and coach trips declined somewhat. It is perhaps no accident that these activities require the physical presence of members and suggests the way in which family history research might be going electronically or in a virtual world perhaps.
On the expenses side; production and distribution of the quarterly journal is still our biggest item but has been held within bounds. Coach hire unfortunately was not covered by the fares received - a matter which exercises the concern of the committee. The New Year Dinner was more elaborate than usual, celebrating as it did, the Society's 21st anniversary with some after dinner entertainment being charged to the Society.
In conclusion, while we do have concerns about those activities which depend on members' participation there is no concern about the financial health of the Society in general. Reserves remain healthy and we close the year with a modest operating surplus. I move for the adoption of these accounts.
A proposal was made for the acceptance of the accounts was made by Sally Watson and seconded by Dina Broughton. Accounts accepted by the meeting.
It was proposed by Malcolm Tait and seconded by Sally Watson that Elaine Cherry continue as the Financial Scrutineer. Accepted by the meeting.

Formal Motion to increase the annual subscription to the Society.
The Chairman, Janet Few informed the meeting that it was her understanding that the Constitution required that the precise wording of any motion must be circulated to members giving 56 days notice. Whilst a notice of an impending increase to the subscriptions in 2008 was published in the February 2007 journal, it did not specify the amount of the proposed increases. Therefore this increase in the annual subscription could not be discussed. An EGM will be arranged for 1st October 2007 to discuss this matter further after an announcement to that effect is published in the August journal.

Election of the Committee
A proposal was made and seconded to re-elect the committee. The proposal was passed by the meeting.
It was proposed and seconded that the committee be voted in en bloc. The proposal was passed by the meeting.

The meeting closed at 12.35