Minutes of meeting held on the 2nd April 2005
People in Attendance:-
| Simon Baker
Mark Beales Graham Burton Michael Daniel Ian Evans Tom France Brendan Fennell Paul Roberts Paul Robinson Marc Sassoon Mark Saunders Dave Standbridge Mark Sturman Matt Sturrock Neil Swidlehurst Ian Travena Justin Porter |
Peter Bennett
Tony Butcher Frankie Brannan John Doyle Mark Flook Richard French Simon Griffin Barry Hardwick Mike Head David Healey James Hewitt Kevin Hodgson Adam Hudspith David Wright Cobus Wassermann Pete Webber |
Ronald Bishop
Roger Bowdrey Peter Clarke Pete Draper Robert Ford Nigel Garretty Russell Kateley Martin Kitching Steve Lawtey Robert Livesey Jane Malpass Stephen Morgan Dave Naxton John New Steve Parkin Mark Pickering
|
- Welcome – Brendan (Chairman) welcomed everyone and called the 4th AGM to order.
Brendan then went on to introducing the committee members of 04/05.
Last years minutes were then reviewed and accepted.
- Chairman’s Report – Brendan talked about how well the club had grown over the past year and
the fact that we were even getting our cars featured in main line magazines.
Brendan then talked about the new club buys which included the following, a new Trailer, BBQ
He then thanked Mark Beales and Alison for organizing the Christmas meal which was a great
success.
- Treasurer’s Report – Simon reported on the clubs finances and membership.
GTO UK Accounts as of 31 March 2005
| Membership Subscription |
9761.99 |
Events |
4,575.10 |
|
| Interest |
3.24 |
Merchandise |
9,521.15 |
|
| Merchandise |
8618.21 |
Stationary |
967.69 |
|
| Japfest |
268.00 |
Web subscription |
612.80 |
|
| Trax |
230.00 |
Club Printer |
907.99 |
|
| JAPS |
83.00 |
Post Office Box |
106.00 |
|
| Gazebo |
710.95 |
|||
| Tables |
251.54 |
|||
| BBQ |
613.31 |
|||
| Flags |
379.94 |
|||
| Trailer |
1,454.39 |
|||
| Locks |
146.32 |
|||
| Membership refund |
10.00 |
|||
| Bank charges |
8.00 |
|||
| Patio Heaters |
194.00 |
|||
| Dance Mat |
15.00 |
|||
| CD Player |
99.99 |
|||
| Bank Balance |
0.00 |
|||
| Total Income |
18964.44 |
Total Expenditure |
20,574.17 |
|
| From reserves |
-1,609.73 |
|||
|
18964.44 |
18,964.44 |
|||
| b/f deposit account 2004 |
2563.07 |
|||
| Surplus added 2004 |
1,447.40 |
|||
| interest 2005 |
24.63 |
|||
| Uncleared cheque 2004 |
-17.86 |
|||
| Overspend 2005 |
-1,609.73 |
|||
| c/f deposit account |
2407.51 |
Simon then pointed out that the club needed to do the following, so that the club doesn’t over spend this coming year.
- Either the club increase the membership charge
- Reduce expenditure
- Encourage more members
Simon suggested that locking down the on-line forum would be a great way of encouraging new membership as the site currently has loads of free loaders, that the current full members are subsiding. The free info etc should be a perk of being a full member and not available to non-paying forum members.
Last years accounts were signed off and accepted by a show of hands from the members.
- Election of officers –
President: Paul Roberts
Vice-President: Mark Sturman
These two are Honorary Positions and as such not up for Election
The following positions were up for election and the following people were voted in by a show of hands.
| Chairman: | Brendan Fennell | Treasurer: | Simon Baker |
| Secretary: | Dave Naxton | Membership Secretary: | Pete Draper |
| Northern Area coordinator: | Mark Beales | Southern Area coordinator: | Robert Livesey |
| Events Coordinator : | Kevin Hodgson | Public Relations Officer: | Ian Trevena |
- Matters Arising –
5.1 Avatar Sizes and Signature Content
The current agreed sizes are as follows
Avatar images: Maximum 150 pixels wide
Signature images: Maximum 400 pixels wide
5.2 Board Users post limit before joining club.
To encourage more membership and provide more value to full members who have made the effort to join the club, it was agreed that the following restrictions would be put in place from 1st June 2005:
1) Non-members who register on the forum will be entitled to make 20 posts. After 20 posts have been made, no further posts will be possible. In order to allow more posts, non-members will have to join the club, whereupon access will be restored. Board users that are non-members and have already excessed 20 posts that wish to maintain posting rights, will have until 1st June to join the club.
5.3 International members and Associate members.
The club now offers an overseas or Associate membership. This will be available to the following people.
Overseas members that have either been, an associate member or full member, that are no longer uk based, or people that have contributed in a way that the committee, believe has helped the membership or forwarded the club in some way. These type of members will not have voting rights
Members can nominate people for this membership with the committee granting this, on a vote of over two-thirds of the whole committee.
5.4 Which sections should be members only.
The sections that non-members get access to will be restricted. For instance, the technical section contains lots of useful information contributed by full members and it was decided that this information should only be made available to full members. Non-members will not be able to access the technical sections at all. This change will also occur on 1st June 2005. Full members will not be affected (provided we have your correct forum name). Certain sections will still be available to non-members to aid those looking to buy a car (e.g. the buyers guides and several other sections).
5.5 Forum etiquette
The following points were raised
Being polite and considerate to other club members,
Don’t use the technical forum for ‘offline chat’ … it’s there for technical advice and the more ‘off topic’ posts that are in there, the more cumbersome and difficult to navigate it becomes.
Don’t respond to a post (in particular technical posts) with “Just a smiley face” – the person raising the post may have asked to be “notified on response” – they have a look at the response expecting a solution and see “nothing but a smiley face”.
Don’t keep adding something pointless to a post just to bring it back to the top of the list.
Members were asked to try and keep posts reasonably clean and inoffensive – there is a ‘word filter’ on the forums, but there are other ways to be offensive.
Try and keep an existing topic ‘on topic’ – it’s no good starting a thread on ‘how do I fit my brake pads’ which goes on to tell you about how to reduce your exhaust emissions.
Try to post in the right Forum
All images shall be of an appropriate nature, i.e. images you would be happy for your 10 year old son to see. Many people access this site from work, hence inappropriate images (e.g. parts of the female anatomy) can cause embarrassment. Members were asked to give careful consideration to the images they post, inappropriate posts will be deleted..
5.6 In what way can the members help with the running of the club and events
It was decided that a post would be placed on the board and the replies would then be
discussed openly amongst the committee and jobs given out accordingly..
5.7 Merchandise
The club was proud to display two new additions to their already large club merchandise collection. One being a GTOUK sew on badge and the other being a new range of ladies T-shirts.
There is still on going talks about a new club logo.
6.9 Change the Constitution
The Annual General Meeting of the club shall be held in the month of March instead of April, these changes will be reflected in the GTOUK constitution
This change will enable the club to do the accounts on the 31 March
- Any other business
The following question was asked.
Should the new letter be Bi-monthly or Quarterly?
This was put to the vote and a Quarterly newsletter was agreed on.
- Brendan called the meeting to a close and thanked all those who attended
