Annual Secretaries Report February 15, 2010
Well, here we are again on the beginning of the 78th year of operations and to be honest things are not looking to good. It all has to do with membership, which continues to fall at a now alarming rate. Seven have gone since our last meeting in December. Moreover, in the past we used to have 12 committee members and look at us now. Those committee members who are continuing to give service have been sitting here for a long time. Most of us have run out of steam and badly need replacing. Myself, I have been here for more than ten years as Secretary and 16 years as a member. In those 16 years, I have missed just one meeting. Over those year’s I have kept us together through four different venues.
Now for some facts and figures. The total attendances for 2009 were 657 while the total for 2008 was 706, down 49 on the previous the year. I thank you the membership for your faithfulness to our club.
The highest turn-up was on three separate occasions when we had 31 persons attending. The worst was on August 24 when just 16 persons turned up. Our usual Christmas Lunch had the best attendance for the year with 36 taking part, four more than in 2008.
Regarding our membership, we had no new members for the year and we lost 20 members for the year (Seven on today’s notice) that passed away. Our current membership now stands at 224.
Mr Fitch who will be 100 in June this year is now our oldest member. Of those 224 members, 121 are over the age of 80 and 31 of those are over 90. That is half of our membership. Makes you think.
Lastly, I hope all of you will continue to support our Club in the coming year. This will be the 78th year since our Club was began in 1932 and it would seem a pity if it was to fold up now after such a lengthy time. As we have few speakers booked for this year, I will encourage you to come to the meetings, as we will endeavour to get speakers on an ongoing basis, which seems to be easier than booking speakers a long way ahead. That is getting speakers last November to come to us next June. That is to long ahead and many have no plans so far ahead. If any of you have photos or even movies on CD or DVD, we can arrange to show them to our members on the screen. Please let me know in advance so we can arrange a date.
If you have any questions about this report, I will try to answer them now?
Thank you
