The Shipston Beekeepers Committee approach the Annual General Meeting with some trepidation. As a registered Charity (technically part of a CIO) that collects membership fees, and spends members’ monies, we do need to do some things ‘officially’, and keep proper records of certain decisions. Our annual challenge is to find ways to encourage members to attend, finding the right balance between keeping things interesting whilst making sure the formalities are done properly.
OK, well Julia’s buffet is certainly one way to encourage (entice?) members to attend! In fact we had around 30 members; we needed 16 to be ‘quorate’ and had 24 voting members. We also arrange a talk after the formal part of the AGM and buffet and this year David Blower MB was giving us a talk on ‘Pesticides and their impact on honey bees’ – and it was equally fascinating and worrying (more below)!
One way we keep the formalities as short as practical is to circulate in advance all the necessary documentation. This year we sent out a 22 page ‘members pack’ on 01 February that included the minutes of the 2024 AGM, Committee reports and details of all proposals. The idea is that we can, for example, simply ask members if they accept that the minutes of the 2024 AGM are an accurate record, having received them in advance, rather than having to read them out. The result is that we got through the formalities of the AGM in 40 minutes.
New Chair
Our Chair is in post for 2 years, and the AGM was Ray Pearce’s final act as Chair. Graham Franklin had previously indicated that he would volunteer to become Chair and he was duly nominated and was voted in as the new Shipston Beekeepers Chair. Graham thanked Ray for all his hard work as Chair over the last two yeas. He then outlined his thoughts and plans for the Branch over the next 2 years. Graham has been on the Committee for a few months and has been working hard to pull together an events calendar for the year. We handed out hard copies of this and Graham took the AGM through the events we have planned (to date!) for this year. It’s fair to say the audience reacted well to seeing a detailed, month-by-month plan for the year.
The final item on the AGM agenda is the award of honoraria to members who have contributed significantly to Shipston Beekeepers over the last year. In line with the Honoraria Policy the Committee was pleased to award honoraria to:
David Blower MB for his work on Training and managing the training apiary
Mike Clarke for his work as the training apiary ‘groundsman’.
Carolyn Kramer for her work as the 100 Club coordinator
David Jones for running Members Benefits
Chris Paxford for storage and distribution of members benefits purchases
Julia Neal for her work providing amazing food and drinks at various Branch meetings.
Each will receive a £25 John Lewis voucher.
Buffet and Talk
Once the AGM was over it was time to enjoy Julia’s amazing buffet, catch up with fellow beekeepers and have lots of bee chat.
The proper title of David’s talk was ‘Organophosphates, Pyrethroids and Neonicotinoids’. David took us through the history of pesticides and how and why they were developed; I for one did not know that Pyrethroids were developed from chemicals naturally found in some chrysanthemum flowers! Pesticides were of course developed to improve crop yields and it was some time before the negative effects on wildlife – and people – started to appear.
A summary of his talk might be ‘pesticides might be bad for honey bees, but ban the wrong ones and the result might be even more detrimental’. Thus David told us that as neonicotinoids are being banned they are being replaced by pyrethroids that are older pesticides and introduced when the testing regime was not as rigorous as it is now. The really scary bit was when David was describing some of the insecticides that are detrimental to honey bees yet are easily available to the general public in various forms. In particular he mentioned a commonly used dog flea treatment called Fipronil that is lethal to honey bees; it took me just a few moments searching to find an article ‘Fipronil pesticide as a suspect in historical mass mortalities of honey bees‘. It was indeed fascinating and we thank David for his effort and time in giving the talk.
100 Club draw and meeting close
It was then time for the 100 Club draws for January and February, a quick reminder about next month’s meeting, and the evening closed.
Feedback during and after the AGM does seem indicate that we did just about get the balance right and it seems some members actually enjoyed the evening (they probably managed to get double helpings of the buffet….)
A callout for….
Swarm Collectors: We do not have that many members volunteering to be swarm collectors this year. If you are prepared to be a swarm collector and have not yet told our swarms coordinator, David Murphy, please let us know by replying to this email and I can pass on your name to David.
100 Club: Carolyn Kramer has some tickets for this year’s 100 Club. If you have not yet bought a ticket they are only £12 for the year and each month there are two amazing cash prizes to be won. If you haven’t got a ticket but would like one (or two, or three…) you can contact Carolyn directly at 100club.shipston@wbka.org.uk
Photo Credits: Julia Neal, Gary Thomas