News archive
June 2009
Friday, 5 June 2009
Group AGM Held 8th May 2009
(Members present 31)
1. APOLOGIES FOR ABSENCE: Wendy Barnes, Hugh Collings, Sid and Maureen Wharburton, Cherry and Brian Chadwick, Mary and Ron Rose, Pam and Tony Buckingham, Jan Olsen
2. MINUTES OF THE 34th AGM these had been circulated and were accepted, proposed Rob Watson, seconded Chris Woodward
3. GROUP LEADER'S REPORT - Janet Gilbert
The past year has gone smoothly enough without major dramas or insurmountable problems for that I thank the Committee for all their hard work and effort. Bill will shortly be delivering his report and I believe he will say our finances are quite sound at the moment. He became treasurer at the same time that I became Group Leader and I know that I can rely on him to handle our accounts with great care and diligence. Sheila will report on our membership for the last time as she is giving up the job of membership secretary and will be replaced by Hugh who has been understudying and assisting her for the past year. Thank you Sheila, you have done a great job and thank you also agreeing to stay on the committee, your input at our meetings is always appreciated. I am sure that Hugh will be a very good membership secretary. He is very enthusiastic and has lots of good ideas and I hope that he will serve on the committee for many years to come. Gillian has booked some really good speakers again this past year and our meetings have been well attended. I know that she is already working on next year's programme and that there are some good things in the pipeline so well done Gillian. Graham took over the web site a year ago and has done a very good job. He has now agreed to take over the role of Newsletter Editor from Clive and I am sure he will be very successful; he is a very competent person as well as a very reliable one. Clive will be staying on the committee, he feels he was getting a bit stale after editing the newsletter for so many years; I don't think he was getting stale, I think he did a very good job and would like to thank him for all his past efforts.
John and Angela Gibson have been a formidable partnership as publicity officers over the past few years and have really put the group on the local map with many mentions on local radio, lots of articles in local newspapers and countless posters placed all over the borough. However, John is not in very good health and the time has come when they feel that they must concentrate all their efforts on getting John better. We will really miss them. Since Janis and Chris gave up the sales at the last AGM our income has fallen and it is thanks to the efforts of Angela and John that we have had lots of visitors paying at the door of our indoor meetings, that we have been able to keep some funds coming in. If no one comes forward to take their place I can foresee problems ahead in the coming years. I don't want to return to the days when the group had to keep increasing membership fees just in order to fund our indoor meetings. Please will someone volunteer to take on the role of publicity officer? John and Angela are more than willing to show a new person what needs to be done and committee meetings are not too arduous and mainly involve eating lots of cake.
As mentioned before we still don't have a sales person and I think that we all miss our sales tables particularly at Christmas when we used to buy lots of cards and calendars. Fortunately Jane has stepped in to sell bird food. That is really important; you as customers get good value for money, the group makes a small profit and the birds get fed. Thank you for that Jane and please pass on our thanks to your husband David. He is not a member but I know how much help and support he has given you with this enterprise. You are both much appreciated. Thanks also to Margret who can always be relied on to help out. She was always there with Jane a few years ago when Jane was our sales person and was instantly keen to help again. People like Jane and Margret are what keep the group going. Incidentally the first batch of bird food they sold back in September was inherited from the late Bob Crouch. Jane asked the executors of his estate if she could have the bins that he stored his own bird food in and they agreed. The bins were still full and so Bob was still supporting us even after his death.
Maureen and Sid along with their helpers have continued to raise funds this year and even had a table at someone else's event in this hall earlier this year. Sid has not been very well of late and we wish him luck and hope he is better soon. They did not come to the April meeting and we all miss them.
As always I must say thank you to Geraldine for taking care of our refreshments, the size of the queue in the interval tells me that you are the most popular person at all of our meetings. Also thanks to Mike I am sure that he helps in his own way. But what about Sue and Don, they come all the way from Pembury in Kent to help with the refreshments. A commitment above and beyond the call of duty.
OUTDOOR MEETINGS REPORT; This report covers the period from 1st January to 31st December 2008.
Numbers seen were slightly up on 2007 at 174 species including Lapland Bunting, a first for the group. This species was seen on two separate occasions, first on Selsey beach and then again in Norfolk during the group weekend. Another first was a grey phalarope at Pagham in September. Our mid week walks were not popular and have been dropped. On one occasion I was the only person who turned up. By contrast our Sunday walks are usually well attended and I think greatly enjoyed. Unfortunately the weather did lead to a few cancellations in 2008. It would be nice to try new venues but that always leads to the difficult decision of what to leave out. Also new venues require reccies and risk assessment but I am always open to new ideas. Our group weekend to Hunstanton was very successful even though the weather threw just about everything at us. We saw stone curlews, tree sparrow, redpoll, barn owls, short eared owl and woodlark to name just a few. We watch Lapland and snow bunting with snow falling around us. Finally we finished the trip with a couple of firecrests. All in all a very good weekend.
4. TRAESURER's REPORT - Bill Vincent
Hopefully you will all have had a chance to look at this year's balance sheets. You will see that the copies have not been signed by the Auditor. This was due to the need to have the copies made, at no cost to the group, before the audit was complete. However, I assure you that the accounts have been audited and Janet now has a copy of the signed balance sheets. I am pleased to say that, despite the loss of income from sales, we have once again managed to make a substantial donation of £2,000 to the RSPB and have also been able to avoid any need to increase the cost of membership.
Once again Janet has made a significant contribution to the group funds raising £280 from giving talks to other organisations. We are also beginning to see the benefits of Jane's hard work selling seed and peanuts. Once again Geraldine and Sue have provided refreshments for the group at every meeting and in the process have raised £191 for group funds.
The committee has been exploring the possibility of arranging for some lasting tribute to Bob's love of birds and significant support for this group. To this end I have been in contact with the site manager of the RSPB reserve at Dungeness, one of his favourite reserves, with a view to providing the reserve with some equipment, a bench or information board in memory of Bob. The money for this would come from the money currently held in the No. 2 account and would not affect the overall cost of running the group.
The report and Accounts were accepted. Proposer Don Bottle, Seconded Ron and Doreen Powney.
There were no questions on the accounts but the point was raised from the floor that there might be a special collection from group members in memory of Bob. It was stated that this would be considered at the next committee meeting and that the members would be informed.
5. MEMBERSHIP SECRETARY'S REPORT - Sheila Lothian
Last year I reported the final tally of members at 150. Following another renewal period our numbers had dropped to 118 members. With the help of Clive this was boosted by a reminder letter going out last month and, as usual, this produced positive results with another ten renewals bringing our numbers up to 128. This figure includes eight new members, however overall we are down again on last year which seems to be the usual trend year on year. It has therefore been agreed by the committee that we should do another ambitious mailshot to local RSPB members after the summer break. We know from the RSPB records that there are a large number of Society members in the area we just need to encourage them to join our local group and hopefully participate more fully with RSPB activities this way.
I would like to express my thanks to the committee for their work in promoting the group but particularly to Janet for her tireless work in giving talks which must give a great boost to our group's image within the local community. We will all miss John and Angela's hard work looking after the publicity for the group and the meetings.
As I originally agreed to take over this role for one year and have now held it for twice as long I am pleased to say that Hugh Collings has agreed to take over from me. I am, however, very happy to continue to support him and the team for the next year hopefully enjoying a less demanding part of the committee.
6. PUBLICITY REPORT John and Angela Gibson
We would like to thank Gillian, Jenny, Anne Bollen, Mike and Geraldine, Sheila and Cherry who helped us during the year by arranging for our posters to be displayed.
We try to obtain maximum publicity for the RSPB and the group by encouraging a wider audience to attend our meetings and thereby giving the group a chance to sign up new members for the RSPB.
Publicity has four main facets, Pin badges, Posters and Laeflets, Media and Internet.
Pin badges have been placed in many retail outlets, restaurants and garden centres proving particularly successful. Pin badges are a lucrative source of income and publicity for the RSPB. £3,687 has been collected since placing our first box at the end of January 2008. Members of the public have been very generous and many of the badges have become collector's items with some of the older badges exchanging hands for several hundred pounds.
About 70 posters are placed around the borough before each meeting and can be seen in libraries, railway stations, local shops and on council notice boards. We are pleased that some libraries in Kingston and Sutton still show our posters while others also show our annual list of events. The Horton Park Rangers also show our posters at the information kiosk in Horton Country Park.
Media, Angela has broadcast some of the meetings on Surrey radio and radio Jackie also mentioning our meetings. Articles have been printed in local press and we write regular articles on birds in the Ewell Court Residents Association magazine, the Courtier. We keep local residents updated on the Big Garden Birdwatch each year in the magazine. The Kingston Informer, Times Illustrated and Surrey Comet are other advertising outlets for our meetings. We also mention our meetings in the Surrey Council's Walks and Events magazine.
Many visitors to our meetings have found out about us on the internet. This is an important method of publicity and because of our invaluable source of unpaid advertising we are very keen to utilise this.
We use the following websites: Radio Jackie, Birds of Britain, Bird guides, Surrey Online, Surrey Bird Club, Sutton Council, Kingston Council, Reigate and Banstead Council, Merton Council, Epsom Council, Surrey County Council, Mole Valley Council, Surrey Comet, Kingston Informer, The Guardian, Friends of Hogsmill. During the year we became community correspondents for the On-line Local Guardian.
Finally Angela and I will not be standing again for the post of publicity although for the time being we will continue the pin badge distribution. We would like to take the opportunity of thanking the committee for their help. We trust that someone will step forward and continue the publicity functions and Angela and I will ensure that assistance is given to ensure a smooth transfer.
7. WEBSITE REPORT - Graham Cole
The Epsom and Ewell Local Group is just one of the many local groups that operate a local group web site within the main RSPB web site. The structure is provided by the main RSPB web system and we publish information within the sections provided. www.rspb.org.uk/groups/epsom/
The structure is as follows:-
News
This area allows for the publication of any informative items. I have made an effort to load items raised by our speakers and anything announced by Janet at our meetings
Perhaps this section is the most difficult section to keep looking fresh. So I would be grateful to receive any ideas for inclusion throughout the year
Events
This section includes the calendar of speakers for the evening meetings and the schedule of outing venues
A new feature added this year is a link to google earth for each venue. This allows you to view aerial photos of the area.
Trip Reports
Here you will find a write up of the adventures on our programme of outings, including the birds seen.
I hope that the events calendar and the trip reports will generate interest in the group from new potential members
Places to See Birds
I have added the venues to which the group travels for our programme outings. This section also included the travel directions for anyone wishing to plan a visit or is unsure of the way.
We can add more if there are any suggestions
Links
I have added my own favourites and any provided by the speakers at our meetings
I would be interested to receive suggestions for additional links to interesting ornithological web sites to add the small collection entered to date.
Conclusion
Please let me know if there are any suggestions for how we should be using the site or any items that you can contribute. For the year ahead I will also be preparing the news letter and I will be looking at how we co-ordinate the two communication mediums for the best impact.
8 NEWSLETTER REPORT - Clive Gilbert
As in previous years my thanks go to all those who have provided input for the newsletter, without that there would be no newsletter. Now after eight or nine years I am handing over to Graham who has agreed to take over. So please support Graham and send him tons of bird related articles.
9 ELECTION OF OFFICERS
Apart from the Publicity Team of John and Angela all members of the committee were willing to stand although in some cases their roles had changed. Under these circumstances the Committee was re-elected 'en bloc' by the members. Proposed by Chris Woodward and Seconded by Ron Powney.
The Committee is now as follows:-
Group Leader Janet Glibert
Secretary Gilian Wooldridge
Treasurer Bill Vincent
Membership Secretary Hugh Collings
Website and Newsletter Graham Cole
Committee Members Clive Gilbert and Sheila Lothian
Positions still vacant Publicity
Sales
10. ANY OTHER BUSINESS
Chris Woodward thanked the committee on behalf of the Group for their continued work.
The meeting was closed and after refreshments there was a talk from Mike Grimshaw entitled 'BUGS' ( Biodiversity in urban Gardens)