Our Annual General Meeting
We held our 32nd. Annual General Meeting as a hybrid in-person and Zoom
meeting on 10 June 2022, after a COVID-enforced break of two years. It was
wonderful to be back all together but also to offer the option of Zoom for our
members across the world.
Our AGM gives us, and our members, an opportunity to take stock of our
achievements over the last year, and we also recorded these in our first glossy
annual report. Despite 2021 being the second year of COVID, we achieved a
great deal and Bob, Peter and Chris gave overviews of how we performed, this
was followed by Eric, our president, proposing a standing ovation, which was
duly given.
As with each AGM, we have a number of trustees standing down and offering themselves for re-election, however this year was a bit different. Following a review of our structure, we’ve reduced the number of trustee roles from thirteen to ten, and therefore the following trustees offered their resignation; John Bryan, Brian Williams, Steve Webster and Stefan Szulc. Brian, Steve and Stefan will still very much be involved as officers of the Trust, but John has decided to stand down completely after a period of ill-health.
We thanked them all for their
contributions as Trustees, along with Dora Hancock, who had resigned earlier in
the year.
Colin Booker and Carole Mills were formally elected to the board having been
co-opted in the last few months, Colin as Company Secretary and Carole, who
will be taking on a special role of chair.
Our illustrious chair, Chris Bull, announced her retirement from the role of chair. She had originally agreed to take on the position for two years, but has now been in post for five and will hand over to Carole Mills. We presented her with a thank you present of a bottle of champagne signed by our vice-president David Suchet, a painting by Stuart Sampson and some flowers.
After our AGM, we had an exciting talk by Matt Whitehouse and Aoinne Conway from Balfour Beatty VINCI. They told us about how the Lichfield Canal will benefit from the HS2 work in the area, with Balfour Beatty VINCI building a section of the canal for us, due to the rerouting of Cappers Lane. It was a detailed presentation, including specifications and timescales. We hope to report more on this in the future.
Thank you to everyone who came along to the AGM, whether in person or on Zoom, we hope you found it useful. We can’t end without saying one more ‘thank you’; Huge thanks to Jon Wood (one of our members) for helping us with the technology. He arrived very early to set up all the technology for Zoom and the presentation, and monitored the proceedings throughout the meeting to make sure it all went smoothly. Thank you!
Chistine Howles
A special thanks is due to Christine Howles for preparing the printed Annual Report, the 2023 Calendar, and new items for the shop in time for this meeting in addition to her normal L&H workload, and family, and full-time employment. Thank you!
