Minutes of the Branch Meeting held at Chelford
on
2008 Draft Programme
The Chairman presented the proposed programme for 2008, a copy of which
had been circulated prior to the meeting.
He went through each event in detail, with the reasoning for the decisions
made by the committee. Particularly
noted was the inclusion of a social event; a Barndance in February which
Rosemary Spencer spoke briefly about. The Chairman
reminded the meeting that the aim of the quarter peal festival was to encourage
Branch members to take part and that if members wanted to try things that their
local tower might not ordinarily manage to ring then the Committee would make
an effort to put bands together to help. Clive
Calton spoke about the Branch Outing, suggesting North Derbyshire and
There was then the opportunity for comments on the proposed programme. Stephen Hughes objected strongly to the
programme on several levels. Firstly, he
was unhappy about the location of the towers to be visited in 2008. He felt that e.g. the north of the branch was
not served enough and wanted a better spread of venues. Trevor Marchbank asked for confirmation of
the number of towers in the branch. The reply was 35. Trevor pointed out that as we visit around
ten towers each year, this would mean visiting each tower approximately every
three years, which we seemed to be doing.
When Stephen Hughes said that we hadn’t visited Hayfield recently, Alan
McFall made the point that it was better to visit towers with strong membership
than those with no members of the CDG. The Chairman
said he was aware that Hayfield had not been visited in the last couple of
years but that this could be picked up in the 2009 programme of events. Carol
Marchbank made the suggestion that before drafting the 2009 programme we send
out a note to the towers asking which would like to host a branch event. This suggestion will be taken up. Stephen Hughes’s second main objection was
about the timing of the events. He felt
that the events were not spread evenly over the year and that there was a too
large gap over the summer. Clive Calton
suggested that as it was a little late to fundamentally alter the 2008
programme, branch members could send in suggestions for the 2009 programme
before the draft is made. Stephen Hughes
then wondered what the point of this meeting was, if changes could not be made
to the programme. Carol Marchbank said
that the meeting was a useful way of finding out about the planned events for
the forthcoming year and an opportunity to point out, for example, any
significant date clashes that the committee had accidentally overlooked.
A vote was then taken on the adoption of the draft 2008 programme:
22 in favour
1 abstention
1 against
The programme was therefore adopted.
Vice Chairman
The Chairman
reminded the Branch that a new Vice Chairman is required to stand at the
November 2007 AGM and that this person would take on the Chairmanship for the 3
years following November 2008. As an aside the Chairman mentioned that the
person in question would actually oversee the 2009 programme of events.
Vote of Thanks
The Chairman thanked Chelford for provision of tea, coffee and biscuits
and the use of the bells.
Election of New Members
The following were elected members of the Guild: Daniel Jones of
Prestbury, Cordelia Warr of Norbury and David W. Kipling of
Proposed en bloc by Alan
McFall and seconded by Trevor Marchbank.
The Chairman displayed a copy of the membership certificate.
Apologies for
Absence
Received from: Kevin Rogers, Andrew R Mays,
Anne Mayes, Jonathan Calvert and Tim Calvert.
24 Members signed the attendance book.
Ringing was then enjoyed on Chelford’s 6 for approximately an hour.