009 Society AGM & Narrow Gauge Show Saturday 30th March 2019.

[cp.409067]

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Whilst delighted to know that Stan arranged a great exhibition and Mick enjoyed the cake, would it be possible for those of us who were not present to be provided with basic information about the AGM. May I therefore please ask two questions?

[1]   Who was elected as the Society Officers/Directors for the coming year?

[2]   Why (as a matter of course) has this information not already been provided as a courtesy to Members?


CP

[Hugh Norwood]

Well, I should imagine something along the lines of:

the formal route for notification would be the NEWS.

The NEWS being the only way to reach each and every member.

I only offer this as my opinion.

[cp.409067]

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The logic of that argument is ridiculous.

Had I been there I would know the answer.

What sort of control freakery prevents this information being made available on this the Society Forum?

Are those who were present under a vow of secrecy until the next issue of OO9 NEWS is published?


CP

[Stan Williams]

Thank you all for your very kind words, it was a pleasure to put on the show.

I must thank all our group members who helped on both Friday and Saturday, without their help it would not have been as successful as it was.

Yes there was not a lot of room at the AGM meeting, but has there ever been that number present over the last few years ?

A big thank you to all the layout operators and also the traders who came along to make it a great day.

Last but not least,  a big big thank you to all the ladies who kept the food and drink flowing it was superb.

When was the last time you have been to a model railway show and had waitresses attending on the tables ?

Onwards and upwards.

Stan.

[David Hennessey]

Photos now available on this thread: http://www.009society.com/forum/index.php?topic=4053.0

[JulienW]

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Whilst delighted to know that Stan arranged a great exhibition and Mick enjoyed the cake, would it be possible for those of us who were not present to be provided with basic information about the AGM. May I therefore please ask two questions?

[1]   Who was elected as the Society Officers/Directors for the coming year?

[2]   Why (as a matter of course) has this information not already been provided as a courtesy to Members?


CP

To answer your second question having worn the Secretarial hat (makes Chris' red top hat look tame) in my time there isn't any 'control freakery" going on, it's just that the committee is knackered by the work involved in sorting out all the reports, etc in the run up to the AGM and then the hassle of sorting out the meeting itself and would probably like chance to catch a breath and have a day off and maybe have the opportunity to indulge in some hobby time, or enjoy spending time with their families.

To answer the first questionas to who was elected I know that it wasn't me!

The committee continues as before, but as David announced he is standing down and as there was only one nomination - Julian Everson - he will be appointed as Chairman as ratified by a (unanimous?) vote of those members present at the meeting. As to the vacant directorship as Steven Fulljames has stepped down there were no nominations so once Julian is in post I suspect that a replacement for a Steven will be appointed with the board's choice to be ratified at the next AGM.

If it is that important to you to get a definitive answer or maybe a full set of minutes then the current secretary can be contacted via secretary@009society.com, but as he will need to be typing them up around his full time job and other commitments then I would not expect them to be available before the end of the week as that was about the time it took me to turn my shorthand notes into something legible...

I will also add that our secretary can furnish minutes of past AGMs and meetings of the board/committee on request to those members sufficiently interested, but in my time serving as Seceratry nobody ever was...

[cp.409067]

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I thank Julian Webb for his comments above. I respond as follows.

[1]  As I indicated in my first post on the subject it struck me as ironic that there was information about the exhibition and cake, but not the AGM. As I also made clear I was only hoping to be provided with the BASIC information as to the identity of the Officers/Directors for the coming year.

[2]  In asking for that I do not think I was imposing an onerous burden on anyone. Indeed I was expressing disappointment that on the official Society Forum such information was not provided as a matter of course.

[3]  I reacted to the comment by Hugh Norwood in what I feel is a perfectly appropriate manner. His suggestion - that anyone who was not present at the AGM would have to wait until the publication of the next issue of the NEWS - struck me as bizarre and provoked my reference to control freakery. I very much hope that (as Hugh said) his was a private opinion and is not indicative of the official mindset of the Society.

[4]  I am indebted for the information that Julian Everson was a candidate (in fact the only one) for the post of Chairman. Also that the role of Comms Officer remains vacant.

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There is in all this an intimation of the wider issue of communication between -

(i)   members of the Society, and

(ii)   the Society leadership and the members.

Prior to the AGM what were the members told? Answer

[JulienW]

Couple of points if I may Chris:

I've always spelt my name with an E (Julien) in the European fashion - I've always blamed my parents and my Belgian ancestry.  I think that now its even more important to differentiate between  ex-Secretary and West Mids Group co-ordinator Julien and New Chairman Julian despite what the Spool Chukka says, otherwise it's going to get very confusing (though perhaps not as bad as the time we had three Davids on the committee!).

The emphasis on cake I think is an indication that we try not to take things seriously. Perhaps given the mess that is the current political scene in the UK (and elsewhere?) this attitude is hardly surprising, but in my experience the membership seem to be fairly content as long as 009 News arrives on time without worrying about who is doing what job or how they got it!

The preferred method of official communication between the Committee and the Membership has always been 009 News.  The reason for this is not anything 'cloak and dagger' but just that 100% of the 009 Society membership receive 009 News so something put in there will reach 100% of the membership, wheras something posted here will only get to about 20% of them (400 out of 2000).  I can't see that changing any time soon.

As to why no one posted the information on here the answer to that is multi-faceted.

First (and this may surprise you) is that we don't take things that seriously (see cake comments above) and perhaps the fact that there was only one nomination for two committee posts is indicative of something - though what that might be is anyone's guess.

Changes at the top are not overly eventful unless there happens to be a contested post, so I suspect nobody posted anything because at the end of the day it will not effect how or what they model. Cake on the other hand, especially home made ones, is far more important as it is food and fuel that enable us to keep on modelling!

I suspect that none of the Committee posted anything for much the same reasons, but again I used to find that after an AGM I needed to take some time to decompress / catch up with both myself and my wife so was probably incognito for a few days post AGM and I suspect that the current crop are much the same.

As to the Wider Issues you mention Chris I'm not sure if there is a problem with inter-member communication in the Society, though if there is I may be missing it by being in this game far too long (35+ years unbroken membership!) and knowing and being known by lots of members (and at 6' 4" tall I find it hard to hide!), and that in this age of instant gratification via the interweby people have forgotten the art of writing a letter to the editor for publication and having to wait more than 5 minutes for a reply.

As to the future, well I suspect that The Committee could make improvements in communicating things to the Membership, and perhaps publication of things like the Agenda, Reports, Etc. as a suplement with 009 News prior to the AGM (as other Society's do) would be a step in the right direction, but I have a feeling that when this has been mooted in the past members felt that the cost of printing / distributing the material would be better used to improve / enlarge the modelling content in 009 News.  As we now have a new man at the helm I'm sure that he would be receptive to new ideas, but as I'm not sure if he is a member of this forum or not then it may be best to email him direct on chairman@009society.com as I'm sure that David Gander will forward anything on if the auto-redirect to Julian's address is not in place, or you could send it to Charlie Insley at secretary@009society.com for him to forward.


Finally the thing with communication is that it is a 2 way process.  In my time on Committee it wasn't the case that we did not want to communicate with the membership but that they didn't seem to want to communicate with us.  In my term in office I do not recall a request for a set of minutes for either a Committee meeting or AGM despite notifications that these were available from me electronically or in return for an SAE and very few matters were sent to me to raise at meetings (Committee or otherwise) after announcements of these events in 009 News with a call for matters to be raised.

Along the same line time and again there are complaints that Branchlines is taking up too much space and there are a number of groups who do not submit reports.  As this is the main organ through which members around the country get an idea of what other members are up to one is left wondering why a number of members feel that such 'communication' is unimportant / uncesseary / unwanted/ taking up space that could be better served if filled with articles about model trains, suggesting that Members are not too bothered about communicating with other members either.

You say that "Perhaps in future the said Board/Committee will be more forthcoming in communicating with the membership -  and that this creates the necessary interest." I think the answer to that is "We have tried and found that you can take a horse to water but you can't make it drink."

[MickT]

I have no part to play in the management of the Society and nor has Julien who has commented simply as a fellow member. No criticism of Julien here, I'm just reminding readers who may think they were getting the official response, due to his very comprehensive reply.

I will simply add for the benefit of those who were not present at the AGM for whatever reason: Geoff Bowyer explained that there had been a procedural error which did not comply with the Articles of Association that were produced when the Society voted to change to a Limited Company - bound by Articles of Association, therefore it was not possible to formally elect the new Chairman at the AGM as the nomination had not been revealed to the whole membership. However, as there was only one proposed applicant by the time of the published deadline, and therefore no electoral contest was required, it was allowable for the sitting Board to Appoint a new Director in the interim. This was unanimously accepted by the quorum of members present in the candidate's absence as he was actually in New Zealand at the time. I am confident that somebody on the Board will have already notified Julian that he is now the Chairman, if they haven't done, he will be in for a surprise when he gets back. I wonder if he knows he was put forward for the job anyway?.............

By the way. Julian's surname is Evison, not Everson. I'm sure that he will be in touch with the whole membership through 009 News at an early date.

Julien was quite correct in stating that if anyone wants an authoritative answer to the queries then, in the absence of anyone on the Board coming on here to answer, then the correct route should be to contact the Society Secretary and raise the queries/comments directly.

Mick (same with Julien, also an ex- Society Secretary, but I didn't last very long at all in the job!)

[MickT]

When was the last time you have been to a model railway show and had waitresses attending on the tables ?

Onwards and upwards.

Stan.

At the Wessex NGM Dorset open day Colehill 1 December actually. You need to get out and about a bit more Stan..............

Mick

[clayliner]

It's interesting that often after a show someone (often Mick!) is posting photos within days if not hours of the doors closing - indeed there is often a race to be the first to post pictures, despite the effort and time involved. Would it be so different / difficult just to inform members here about the main points of the AGM or at least the appointment (or non-appointment) of new members of our esteemed Committee?

It is perhaps misleading to suggest that the News is the only reliable way to reach all members. It is true that all members will receive it, but if they don't read it they will not get the information therein. In the same way the Society Forum is available to and easily accessible by every member, whether or not they choose to avail themselves of this channel of communication.

Finally, distributing minutes of Committee/Board meetings need not be expensive, laborious or - in this new digital age! - involve lots of paperwork. Would it not simply be possible in future, please, to post them, or at least a digest of the main points, on this forum for members to read?

David.

[JulienW]

It is perhaps misleading to suggest that the News is the only reliable way to reach all members. It is true that all members will receive it, but if they don't read it they will not get the information therein. In the same way the Society Forum is available to and easily accessible by every member, whether or not they choose to avail themselves of this channel of communication.

Whilst I have a poor grasp of mathematics (my degree and post-graduate qualifications are in Chemistry) I'd have thought that sending something 100% would be more effective than sending the same to only 20% even accounting for those who chose not to read things sent to them.

100% 009 Society members are in receipt of 009 News and in essence members pay their subscription in return for 12 monthly issues. Therefore something published in 009 News has been sent to all members as part of the 'contract' between the Society and each member - it is then each member's choice to read it or not.

Something posted on this forum can only be seen by 20% of the Society's members (again, that assumes they are interested enough to read it!) who are currently members of this forum, but this means that 80% of them are not able to see what has been published. I'd concede the point that being a member of this forum is a choice, but that choice not to participate 'electronically' may be due to inability to access the internet that may be beyond the control of individual members - a case of "I can not" rather than "I don't want to". Whilst the Society can do nothing about 'don't want to' members who chose not to participate, those who can not must not be disenfranchised.

Finally, distributing minutes of Committee/Board meetings need not be expensive, laborious or - in this new digital age! - involve lots of paperwork. Would it not simply be possible in future, please, to post them, or at least a digest of the main points, on this forum for members to read?

David.

That is a fine suggestion David - as I said in response to an earlier point though perhaps that suggestion would be better e-mailed directly to our new Chairman (Julian Evison - just to be clear!) to ensure that he has seen it.

However given the overwhelming interest I failed to see with respect to such matters in my time as Secretary I suspect that such posts on this forum will be just as much ignored as similar pieces in 009 News.

[cp.409067]

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[1]    I apologise to Julien for misspelling his name. I plead guilty to failing to notice the one letter. I fully understand how annoying it is to be addressed inappropriately. I will add in passing that I do not use the shortened version of my forename as would be evident to anyone noting how I sign my posts. (That said I do answer to

[JulienW]

My apologies Christopher. Like you I'm not a fan of having my name shortened.

[Hobby]

As one of the others who couldn't make it (my employers insisted I worked a train to the North East that day!) I wonder if anyone who attended the AGM could confirm whether the issue of allowing the News to be sent electronically to UK members had been raised/discussed? I thought I'd formally asked for it to be raised but couldn't find my email so wasn't sure whether it would have been...