The AGM is of course one of the most important meetings of the year. Many key decisions are made, from agreeing what the membership rates should be for the coming year to, this year, agreeing a new honoraria policy.
A theme for our meetings in 2024 seems to be last minute changes of location! Due to circumstances beyond our control Brailes Village Hall was not available for the AGM but we were able to book Cherrington Village Hall, a very modern hall with rather excellent facilities – we may be back!
AGM
We aim to keep the AGM short but, as we are a charity, and handle not insignificant sums of monies on behalf of our members, we do need to follow certain formalities, the first of which is that with over 30 members present we were certainly quorate. The minutes of last year’s AGM have to be approved, reports presented and approved and the Committee appointed.
This year the AGM approved an honoraria policy. In previous years only the Chair, Secretary and Treasurer and Membership Secretary received an honoraria, and probably more because of convention than a specific policy. This made it difficult for us to recognise other members who contributed significantly to Shipston Beekeepers over the year. In the last couple of years we have done this through ‘ad hoc’ bottles of Prosecco. The new policy, that was approved at the AGM, now enables us to reward members appropriately.
We do have some vacancies that we need to fill. We have a vacancy for a second Trustee to join Ray Pearce (Chair) in representing us at Warwickshire Beekeepers. We also have a vacancy for Chair Elect, some one who will take over from Ray Pearce at the end of his second year. The idea of the role is that the person can shadow Ray for a year so that when they take over the role (which will be at the 2025 AGM) they have a pretty good idea of what is required.
Refreshments and Talk
We always arrange a talk to follow the AGM and this year David Blower MB managed to secure Clive de Bruyn.
But first we have the buffet, this year arranged and provided by Julia and Paul Neil; and pretty amazing it was too (I loved the Stilton cheese!). This is also an opportunity for members to catch up with one another especially as we always get a good turnout at the AGM
After the break for refreshments and catching up David Blower kicked off the second half of the meeting by introducing Clive.
Clive brings a lot of beekeeping items to illustrate his talk. He started by informing us that it was his 3rd talk to Shipston Beekeepers and indeed Clive started his beekeeping career in Shipston where he lived so has kept bees ‘locally’ to us. The theme was ‘Beekeeping Mistakes’ and Clive skilfully uses his talk to cover, in a very entertaining and informative way, many aspects of beekeeping from choosing a hive through pests and diseases, nutrition through to colony management. It was one of the most entertaining beekeeping talks I’ve attended.
100 Club
The 100 Club is a valuable source of income for Shipston Beekeepers. The 100 Club ‘year’ runs from Jan – Dec (unlike our financial year which is Dec – Nov; don’t ask!) so at the February (AGM) meeting we always draw the prizes for January and February.
Carolyn Kramer runs the 100 Club for us and we are most grateful to her for all her efforts in encouraging members to participate and managing the monthly draws and prizes.
