2016 AGM Minutes
The Annual General Meeting of the Burnham-on-sea Woodturning Club was held at the Community Centre on Tuesday 31st May at 19:00.
There were 20 members present and George Foweraker opened the meeting by confirming that the previous 12 months had seen no major changes in terms of net membership, meeting formats and net revenue, but warned that events needed to be well attended by club members in order to maintain the quality of demonstrators that the club is able to afford. The offsite all-day demonstrations that the club holds once or twice a year are in danger of running at a loss if we are unable to attract sufficient attendees from outside the club.
The situation is greatly assisted by the fact that George’s brother Chris, Bryan Milham, Ray Blake, and Mark Sanger (twice per year) perform demonstrations for free each year for which George thanked them, echoed by the club members present.
In summary the current membership is about 26 - ideally 30 would help with club funds whilst still maintaining the mutual co-operation and sociable atmosphere of the club, something not always achieved at the larger clubs. Club funds remained fairly static and sustainable.
As there were no new nominations for the committee, the current committee agreed to serve for the next year …
Chairman - George Foweraker
Secretary - Ray Blake (apologies received for not being able to attend)
Treasurer - Mike Dunn
Webmaster - David Langan
Sue Meads resigned from the committee during the last year as she is no longer actively involved in woodturning but has kindly agreed to help out on an ad hoc basis in the support of off-site demos and social activities e.g the cheese and wine for AGM! George thanked Sue for her many years of active participation in the club and in recognition of this it was agreed that Sue be made a life member of the club free of all membership subscriptions.
Thanks were also given, along with Sue, to Shirley, Carole and George’s wife Sue for their help on the catering front at club meetings.
Attendance at George’s quarterly “Drop-in” workshops had been a little disappointing in the first half of the last year and therefore it was agreed to reduce the hours from 10:00 until 16:00 to 10:00 until 13:00. However, an encouraging 12 members attended the May workshop and it is hoped that this increased support will continue over the next year. Thanks to George for giving up his time to facilitate these workshops which are an excellent way to get practical advice and assistance with woodturning issues.
Last July David Langan took over the club website from Mark Sanger (thanks to Mark for his support of the website over the past years). The website has been redesigned and now tracks usage statistics which should prove helpful in developing the website for the benefit of club members and as a promotional aid to attract new members. As well as basic club details, members’ galleries, events details, reviews of demonstrations, and a For Sale board have been incorporated. Members are encouraged to suggest additional facilities to David and also to submit quality photos of their work for the galleries and details of items for the For Sale board. See the contacts page for the club email address which is managed by David and also copied to George.
AOB
John Hamilton-Donovan thanked members for their support in providing items for sale at a recent charity event. It was agreed that any unsold items would be kept by John for sale at a similar Christmas event.
The quality of photos required for the galleries was discussed - George agreed to contact a person who does this professionally with a view to arranging an appropriate demonstration for a future club meeting.
Ways of attracting new members was discussed. Other than encouraging personal contacts it was suggested that we should attend local village fairs with a stall to highlight the art of woodturning, both to attract new people to woodturning but also current wood turners who are not affiliated to a club. It was recognised though that there may be a cost for this, dependent upon the event, and most importantly, club members would need to give up their time to prepare for and attend the event -other ideas from club members will be welcomed and the topic will be further discussed by the club committee.
The meeting was closed at 20:30.