Carlisle and District Rambling and Fellwalking Club Annual General Meeting

February 18^th 2022

Minutes Of the Meeting

34 members attended

Apologies received from Judy Cherry, Barbara Bell, Sue Greenwood David Forsyth

A minute’s silence was observed for club members who had passed away during the past 12 months: Tom Fortune and Bob Mclure

Both were long standing members of the club and are sorely missed.

Chairman’s Welcome:

John Mackay welcomed everyone to the meeting and reflected on what had been a difficult two years since the last AGM. He thanked all of the walk leaders as well as Graham and Barbara Bell for organising the club holidays again despite the difficulties imposed on the clubs activities due to the pandemic. Overall the club finances have remained sound and we were able to use some of the previous years surplus funding to help cover the losses made by the coach walks. Overall he felt there was support from the members to continue with coach walks, even though they had lost money although the committee had made the decision to reduce the frequency of coaches to once per month until after the Easter holidays. He acknowledged how important the club was to many members and especially so as we move back to something approaching normality. He also thanked the other committee members for their support and commitment to the club over the last two years.

Minutes Of 2020 AGM

Barbara Eden proposed that the Minutes of 2020 meeting were accepted as accurate and this was were approved by general consensus.

Reports from the Club Committee:

Treasurer

Barbara Eden presented the club accounts which have been audited by Roger Tringham.

The overall losses to the end of year 2021 was a little over £500 largely down to the coaches. In addition there was less income from the social evenings. Barbara reported back to the members that there had been an increase in transaction charges imposed by the HSBC which seems to be a trend for most of the other banks. The committee has started looking into alternative accounts provided by other banks.

Generally the clubs finances remained sound with a healthy reserve and hopefully the prospect of a return to more normal times.

The accounts were accepted

Membership Secretary

Stephen Parker reported to the meeting that membership had largely remained stable and the majority of members renewed their subs for 2021 He reminded everyone that the deadline for renewal was March 31^st and that if paying by BACS they should also let him know by email when they had paid. Members who did not pay before this date would have to rejoin and pay the additional £15 joining fee.

There was a question from the floor asking if it was still the case that new members are still allowed to do a couple of walks before committing to join. This was still the case.

Walk Secretary.

Ian Rowley thanked all the walk leaders who had volunteered over the past 2 years. In particular the take up of car walks had been good once the initial lockdown restrictions were lifted and it was evident there was still plenty of support for walks from members. The Wednesday walks remained popular and the innovation of Tuesday walks using public transport had met a need particularly for some of the older members who don’t drive.

Several new leaders have stepped forward but it remains the case that the club has to rely on a too small pool of regular walk leaders. The decision to make have a quarterly rather than bi annual programme he hoped might have encouraged more walk leaders to commit but it was becoming increasingly difficult to fill all of the walks in the programme inevitably leaving some gaps.

There were suggestions from the floor to offer more support for potential leaders such as map reading sessions. Also it was suggested that a session might be arranged to demonstrate the OS app which many of the walk leaders use both to plan routes and navigate walks. Both suggestions will be followed up. There was also a suggestion from the floor to offer shorter, easier “C” grade car walks on some Sundays to give more choice and perhaps encourage new walkers. Again the committee agreed that if anyone wanted to offer an additional Sunday car walk space would be found on the programme.

Webmasters Report

John Mackay fed back that he felt the website was still the most effective way of communicating with club members. He did make a request that walkers submitting photographs did so in standard formats. There was a request from the floor that walk description remain on the website until after the start time for the walk in case of late arrivals. It was also requested that walk leaders include a contact telephone no with their Walk Description so that walkers can double check the start points. Walkers were also reminded that if they did intend to make their way directly to the a walk starting point they should let the walk leader know in advance.

Donations and Subscriptions

The committee proposed to continue to make donations to the Air Ambulance, Mountain Rescue and Fix the Fells. Each organization would receive £150. It was also proposed to keep membership fees at the same level.

The committee proposed that coach fees for 2022 would remain at £8.00 although as discussed earlier the committee will continue to review the situation re numbers on coaches.

Election for positions on the committee

Bruce McMillan has decided to standing down leaving a vacancy for a safety officer. Pete Rutland offered to take up the role.

Barbara Eden has also decided to stand down and Christine Milton offered to take the role of Treasurer

Ian Rowley and Stephen Parker both offered to continue in their current roles.

This leaves a vacancy on the committee for a Social Secretary.

The committee chair offered his thanks on behalf of the committee and the club to Barbara and presented her with a life membership of the club.

Club President

A vote of thanks was made to Graham Bell for serving as Club president and it was proposed that Geoff Entwistle as a long standing club member be asked to serve as President. Jeff accepted this and the members agreed to the appointment.

Graham Bell proposed a vote of thanks to John Mackay and the committee for their hard work in keeping the club going over the past two years.

Any Other Business

There was a question from the floor an bout the policy of mask wearing on coach walks. Although it appears that Covid restrictions were in the process of being lifted it was felt that for the time being this would remain in place.

A club member and walk leader asked members to remember to carry id such as the club membership card with them on walks so that walk leaders new the names and contact details in case of an emergency or accident on a walk

Another club member asked that walk leaders’ contact details might be included on the website for all walks.

There was a request from the floor that social evening started at an earlier time. The consensus was for a 7pm start.

Meeting Closed

AGM Minutes

Carlisle & District Rambling & Fellwalking Club

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