Annual General Meeting 2023

Minutes of the Annual General Meeting 29 March 2023 Casa de Cultura, Javea

1. The first call was made at 10.30am but there were insufficient members to start.

The meeting started at 11am.

2. Welcome – The President welcomed 61 members to the meeting.
3. Apologies for absence were received from 60 members of whom 58 had cast their votes online.
4. Minutes of the last AGM on 30 March 2022 were published on the website and no comments were received. They were agreed as written at the time.
5. President’s Report
   

Claude thanked everyone for coming and supporting our U3A. He said, ‘you are the people who keep this wonderful organisation going’.

He mentioned that apart from the British, we had many nationalities represented amongst our members – Spanish, Dutch, French, Belgian, German, Danish – not to mention Swedish, Finnish, American, Swiss. He hoped he hadn’t left anyone out!

Claude went on to say he hoped this would be the last time he needed to mention Covid saying that his time last year we had 120,000 cases of covid a day – almost a million cases a week. Now we hardly talk about it. The World Health Organisation have said they will declare an end to the pandemic this year.

Finally, Claude said that our thoughts are with all those of our members, their family, and friends, who have lost loved ones during this time – many in horrendous circumstances.

He added that, partly in response to that, we recently launched a group for supporting members and we will be issuing an update on that in the next few days. This is essentially a Good Neighbour, Good Samaritan initiative. There will be more published on that in the coming weeks.

6. Reports by the Committee

• Vice President
First I want to take this opportunity to thank you all for your support during my first year. I think it went reasonably well as our members enjoyed the coffee mornings, tapas and wine at the Social Centre and the cheese and wine at Dance Café, Toscamar.

The September ball was very successful in many ways. We raised a good amount to add to our fund for Todos Juntos.

The success of the ball was due to the wonderful members that helped behind the scenes, and of course to all the members that attended. I thank you all, no need to mention names of those who helped, as you know who you are.

In October, we had a very interesting talk on the street artist Banksy, thank you Peter Atkinson, we look forward to hearing another of your talks again soon.

This year we are celebrating the Coronation of King Charles III at Restaurante Plaza 6 on Sunday the 7 May. The event is fully booked so I am sure this will be another very successful event.

We have several speakers lined up for this year, which will be announced on the website in due course.

• Secretary
As Secretary my main role is to keep the organisation legal with the Town Hall and the Registry of Associations in Alicante. I do this with the help of Laura Miralles of Impley legal team.

I also arrange and take minutes for 10 Committee meetings each year and assist with the organisation of 10 Monthly meetings. For 3 of those meetings, I take Minutes and publish them on the website.

My other duties are updating the website with articles and other information from groups about their activities and events. I thank Peter Bayliss the Webmaster whose job it is to keep the website up to date and running smoothly, without his knowledge and expertise we would not have such a good website.

I also manage the IT functions on the website creating and managing the various forms we ask members to complete and overseeing the card payment system.

We have recently upgraded the system to use a better interface with Sabadell Bank and this is just bedding in but still needs further work to ensure it’s operating as smoothly as possible for members, the Treasurer and Group Leaders who take payments through the system.

I am also responsible for ensuring all email addresses for members are correctly stored in our mailing system and that any changes and errors are dealt with. I know there are issues for some members which are mainly caused by the multiple gateways that all emails go through from sender to recipient over which we have no control.

For members with problems navigating the website, filling forms, receiving emails and other U3A related issues we have arranged with Javea Computer Club to allow attendance on a Tuesday for help. I will be organising some sessions for common topics to be addressed and will notify when these are taking place.

Outside of that any member with U3A related issues can contact me to arrange an appointment on a Tuesday to have a one-to-one session.

• Treasurer
Sally reported that at the end of last year, we discussed whether it would be necessary to charge a membership fee for 2023 as the bank balance looked quite healthy. However, she calculated the expenditure during the preceding year and found it to be about 10K Euros and stated that she felt it prudent to charge 5€ per member.

She said we have collected 4.5K Euros in membership fees so far but had we not done so the current bank balance would be down to 14K Euros. Dependent on expenditure throughout the rest of this year we could have found ourselves with a very low balance. Therefore, the decision was justified.

Going forward for 2023 we plan to use venues that do not charge (this being our major expenditure in the past) thus keeping expenditure to a minimum.

Sally appealed to everyone to please follow instructions closely when making payments by bank transfer or especially by card, to make identification of the monies being sent easy for her and the relevant group leaders.

• Membership Secretary
Henrik reported that we have 877 members renewed or recently joined at this point. Not everyone has renewed so far.

At the end of 2019 we had 1,152 members but of course we have lost members due to Brexit and the effects of Covid restrictions.

In 2022 we had 70 new members and so far in 2023 we have had 82, making a total of 152.

• Groups Coordinator
Claude gave Mike Frost’s report in his absence. He said it’s sad to report that prior to the pandemic we had over 60 groups and today there are only 35. The reason for this is that basically people do not volunteer. Even if members would like the group to carry on running it’s not sufficient to prompt them to put their hands up.

Nothing happens if people do not volunteer, we would not be talking to you now had we not volunteered.

The good news is that a few new groups started, the Puzzle Swap group, Philosophy group and Talking Art group, plus we formed new Walking groups which are going well

During the pandemic our only Travel Group leaders resigned and moved away. Luckily for us a member wrote in, very timidly, saying she would be willing to help collecting the money for Travel. Most of you now know her as Amanda Jordan who last year ran 6 trips and already has 4 in the bag for this year. She deserves a round of applause. (duly given)

In a meeting of the recently launched Members Support Network Group the question of loneliness came up, and Mike learned that, for example, many people visit the Charity Library to escape loneliness and to have another person to talk to.

Mike would like to explore the possibility of setting up regular coffee mornings in a cafe where people could turn up on an ‘ad hoc’ basis. If there is anyone out there willing to be part of this, they should contact the Groups Coordinator.

7. Annual Report of Activities 2022
   The report had been published on the website on 16 March and notified to members the same day.
   There were no questions raised. Approved Unanimously
8. Audited Accounts for 2022
   The Accounts had been published on the website on 16 March and notified to members the same day. There were no questions raised. Approved Unanimously

Members were asked to vote on the Committee’s decision to waive the joining fee of 10€. The decision had been taken because the balance in hand was healthy and we wanted to encourage new members. Approved Unanimously

9. Election of committee – voting overseen by Roger Barkley, Election Auditor
   The election for the Committee was taken ‘en bloc’ as there were no uncontested posts.

There were unanimous votes in the room, and majority votes online.

10. ‘New’ President
    Claude commented that more volunteers were needed to help run the Association and he asked everyone to think about how they could help, not necessarily on the Committee but with tasks that needed doing.
11. The meeting closed at 11.45am