Chairman’s Thoughts on the AGM
On the Friday 23rd September we’ll be having the prizegiving for the 2015/16 Club League at the Green Hut on Beckwith Avenue, starting at 7pm. The prizegiving will be followed by our Annual General Meeting where we’ll have a number of quite significant items to discuss as well as the usual reports and election of officers.
We’ll be discussing the format of the Club League itself, for which a draft proposal has been issued with the agenda, but basically we’re suggesting that it is limited to Claro events only, but covering all of our Level C events (including night and urban events) as well as two of our spring evening events. That’s just seven rounds in total and we’d be thinking of counting the best five results. We also want to talk about the classes and awards.
We want to have a discussion at the AGM about the future of Clarion. It dates back to a pre-internet, pre-website, pre-Weekly, age and its production takes a disproportionate amount of volunteer time to produce material that is often duplicated elsewhere or is historic. We want to talk about alternative ways of keeping you all informed.
We expect to have a lively discussion about subscriptions this year but we have to recognise a difficulty of timing. Your subscription is made up of two components, a club element and a fee payable to British Orienteering; it’s all collected by BO as a single payment. However many of you will know that BO will not be deciding their component until they hold an Exceptional General Meeting at the end of October, their first proposal for a large increase having been tactically withdrawn earlier in the year in the face of fierce opposition from members. The signs are that BO will have a revised proposal but still seeking a marked uplift from its present figure. Claro committee is minded to use some of its reserves to mitigate the effect of that likely increase but we won’t be able to give precise figures at the time of the AGM, rather we’ll be seeking your support for a decision in principle so that committee can act very quickly once the BO figures are known.
At the AGM our treasurer, Linda, is likely to report a lot of good news in terms of healthy finances. I won’t steal her thunder but our current position should allow support for membership fees as well as a number of initiatives the committee has in mind. We intend to review some of our historically used venues, dropped in leaner financial times, to see if they could be resurrected and perhaps professionally remapped. We want to offer a more generous subsidy to club clothing, to revamp the trophies that we give for the Claro League and perhaps consider funding towards a group event such as the 2017 CompassSport Cup. Plenty there to talk about so please do come to the prizegiving and AGM; oh yes, there’s refreshments too.
The coming of the AGM means that it is likely to be my last as the club’s constitution limits the chairperson’s term to three years. I took on the post when I had only 18 month’s orienteering experience and I’ve learned a lot since – even if my navigation hasn’t got any better. My thanks to the officers and members of the committee who’ve supported me over the last three years and particularly to the club members out there for your enthusiasm and involvement. I hope to see many of you at the AGM, at Harlow Hill or at the Wednesday evening Autumn series of ‘LampO’ events.
Stan