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Minutes of the 21st Annual General Meeting
Held at Burleigh Court Loughborough
on Saturday 6th September 2014 at 1100hrs.
The meeting was
attended by 43 members and proceedings opened by our
Chairman Jim Husband who then introduced the members
of the committee. The Chairman read out the roll of
honour, this was followed by the Kohima Epitaph and a
minute’s silence, as the branch standard was lowered
by our standard bearer Tom Neal.
APOLOGIES: The
Secretary, Clive Sanders, read out the apologies of
those members who for various reasons were unable to
attend.
MINUTES OF 20th
AGM: The minutes of the 20th AGM having
previously been circulated on the branch website and
in the Listening Post were taken as read by the
meeting.
PRESIDENTS
ADDRESS: In the absence of our President, Major
General Peter Baldwin, our Vice President, Rodney
Goddard, Welcomed the members and thanked them for
making the effort to attend our 21st Reunion. Rodney
explained that he was standing in for our President,
who was very unwell and was thus unable to make the
trip this year and asked the floor to join him both in
thought and prayer for Peter and Gail at what was a
difficult time for them.
Rodney then gave a
very interesting talk on a series of events that had
occurred at Kimmel Park Camp during the First World
War, which resulted in five members of the Canadian
Expeditionary Force, whose deaths were commemorated by
5 cast-iron maple leaves marking the graves of these
soldiers.
TREASURERS REPORT: Gerry
Kane on behalf of our Treasurer, John Plaskitt, read
through a detailed report on the Branch's current
financial situation, which showed that for the year
2013, the branch finances continued to be in a very
healthy state. The branch started 2013 with an opening
balance of £4182.42 and at the end of 2013, the
closing balance stood at £4360.98.
SECRETARY’S
REPORT: The Branch Secretary, Clive Sanders,
started his report by thanking Dick Pickup for the
wonderful job he had done arranging this year's
reunion. He also thanked Ernie Callaghan for all the
help and advice he had given in Clive's first year as
secretary. He reported that the branch now consisted
of 448 members and asked the Chairman to welcome and
hand New Member's Packs to our latest new members,
Chris Jones and Mac Peden. Clive stressed that for the
branch to survive we need to recruit new members and
the attraction of having our Königslutter reunions
coincide with the town's Schützenfest, served a very
good incentive for new members to join the branch.
He thanked Marlene
Brooks, for the continuing excellent work she was
doing as editor of our branch magazine ,the Listening
Post. He stated that a letter had been sent to the CO
14 Signal Regiment, informing him of our branch and
inviting him to consider sending a marching party of
his young soldiers to join us at next year's
Königslutter reunion. Clive ended by saying that he
hoped everyone liked the Identity Badges he had made
for this year's reunion and asked everyone to hand
them back to him before they departed.
ELECTION OF
OFFICERS: The Vice President stated that the
branch needed two new officers to take on the duties
of Chairman and Treasurer. On the subject of the
vacancy for Chairman he stated that he believed that
the roles of Vice President and Chairman could easily
be combined and therefore he would gladly volunteer to
take on both posts. Clive Sanders thus proposed that
Rod Goddard should become Chairman and this was
seconded by Dennis Weir. John Rosson then offered to
take on the office of Treasurer and Rod Goddard
proposed and Clive Sanders seconded this proposal.
Both positions were subsequently endorsed by the
meeting.
ANY OTHER
BUSINESS: John Rosson asked the committee
members to approve an advance by the branch to the
Birgelen Veterans Association, with a view to
coordinating our reunions with their association, so
that people with membership of both organizations
would only have one venue to attend. He pointed out
that our President, Maj Gen Peter Baldwin, always
tried to attend the reunions of both organizations and
it would make it much easier for him if he only had
to make one trip. The motion was strongly debated and
finally Dennis Weir proposed that the secretary should
write to the BVA to liaise on a common date for the
reunions of both organizations. Ernie Callaghan
seconded this proposal and it was put to the vote,
which resulted in the proposal being rejected.
Stuart McCloud raised
issues with last year's Schützenfest in Königslutter.
He stated that people felt very crammed in and that
the food was abysmal. The secretary offered to contact
our Königslutter Reunion Organizer, John Richardson,
on this issue. Ernie Callaghan pointed out that most
people don't go to the Schützenfest for the food.
Robbie McCallum
proposed that the branch send flowers to Marlene
Brooks and Gail Baldwin as a gesture of support. Ernie
Callaghan seconded this motion and the committee
approved this proposal.
Horst Funke made a
short speech and presented the branch with a trophy in
German national colours.
Elona Hawxswell also
made a short speech of thanks to the committee and
pointed out that there were new places of interest
that could be visited during next year's Königslutter
reunion.
Jim Husband proposed
that next year's Königslutter reunion be moved back to
the May period, as it was a cheaper option. Ernie
Callaghan seconded this proposal, but when it came to
a vote the proposal was unanimously rejected by the
committee.
2015 REUNION: The
provisional dates for the 2015 reunion were agreed as
28th - 30th August 2015, but this was dependent on the
dates of the 2015 Königslutter Schützenfest.
The meeting closed
at 1235 hrs.
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