Heather White

Apologies from:

Janet Lucas

Steve Brown

Aileen Brown

Sue Juon

Tony Hall

3 Matters Arising

Trading Shed Roofs
Nothing yet progressed with the shed roofs.  Other options should be pursued such as grant aid to replace the sheds.  Plans will need to be drawn up to get grant aid.

Parish Council Partnership Evening
Chris & Janet Lucas attended the parish Council Partnership event year.

Bank Account Signatures
We still only have two signatures,  however Janet will look into the feasibility of changing banks as the new setup in Basingstoke is a problem now as OBAGS has no bank card.

Trading
Saturdays will be discontinued this year as the experiment has not added any additional trading.  Opening hours will be extended during the busy season.

This is the end of my third year as Chairman of OBAGS

The toilet was opened at the beginning of April. Allotment holders appear to be making good use of this convenience.  Altogether the Allotment Toilet came in about £280 under the grant.

We managed to get representatives from OBAGS attending the council allotment inspections on two out of three occasions, this has proved very beneficial and the council is finding our presence a great help.   Thanks Jenny and Chris for their help in the inspections.

As usual, I would like to thank all volunteers who helped in the shop and for all who helped with the shed tidy weekend.   

We did not manage to organise any visits this year for some reason.  I hope to be able to address this issue later in the meeting.

Thanks as always to all who donated plants and helped with the plant sale this year.  It turned out to be a very cold day but all who shivered through it enjoyed themselves, (I hope).

Again this year we had a picnic in July, all who attended had a very pleasant afternoon.

Thanks to all committee members who have worked together to keep the society and the shop running so smoothly.   We have unfortunately had a few changes this year.

Tony Hall resigned from the committee early in the year for personal reasons.  Tony is still our webmaster and I would like to thank him for the very professional way that the new website has been set up with the new links to aid committee members in communicating with OBAGS members.

Russell took over from myself as Trading Secretary in July.  

The annual shop helpers dinner was held in early November, unfortunately five people who should have been there could not attend for different reasons.  
Due to this issue we will be asking for a deposit for all who attend next year’s dinner.

Very little correspondence received again this year as most correspondence is received now as e-mails. All correspondence has been passed on to the relevant committee member as required.  It was decided to abolish the position of secretary as so little correspondence is now received by post.

A total of 80 members joined or renewed for the 2014 season, up 3 from the 2013 membership and 7 from the 2013 membership. The 80 members included 12 who took advantage of our special deal and joined during September – December 2013. (8 have joined so far for the 2015 season since September 2014).  Reconciliation between the number of application forms filled in or updated and the number of membership cards showed a discrepancy of just 2 cards unaccounted for – 90 were printed and 8 remained at the end of the season. – Not bad at all.  Congratulations to all concerned!

It is important that shop volunteers remain vigilant in ensuring that customers hold a current membership card before finalising sales if we are to improve over our current membership levels.

Russell Pollard took over the Trading Secretary position in July 2014.  Russell told the committee that he was in the process of developing a new trading environment for the trading huts whereby all products that we regularly stock will have reference numbers.  All commonly sold products will also have a sales sheet detailing uses and precautions.

This should be up and running in the new year.

ProGrow has been an issue this year.  The invoice received was far greater than expected.  As we had not been officially notified of a price change we objected to this invoice and just paid the invoice that we expected to receive.  Nothing further has been received ref this invoice.  It is unlikely that we will be stocking ProGrow in the future.

Philip reported that the seed order went very smoothly again this year,  
The orders were again returned just in time for early November trading date.
The seed order made £122.43 profit this year.  
Philip offered his resignation as Seed Order Secretary at the meeting.

Shed Inspection  22 March
Shed Tidy Weekend  1 & 12 April
Plant Sale   17 May
Social Sunday   26 July
Harvest Home Dinner  7 November

Richard West agreed to continue as Chairman.
Tony Stoney was elected as Vice Chairman.
Janet Cloke agreed to stay on as Treasurer.
Tony Stoney will continue as Publicity Officer.
Chris Hall will continue as Membership Sec.
Russell Pollard agreed to stay on as Trading Sec.
Tony Hall agreed to stay on as WebMaster.
Edouard Juon was elected as Seed Sale Org.
Janet Lucas agreed to continue to be our Council representative.
Maurice Bates
Steve & Aileen Brown

The accounts for this year enlighten Society members of the historic discrepancies that have occurred over many years in stock values and disposal of stock unfit for sale that was not properly recorded and taken into account.

I will reiterate what I said in my statement last year that I (and previous treasurers) can only use the figures given.  A new Trading Hut sheet which is up to date with accurate pricing is needed and hopefully this will enable volunteers to record sales easier and more accurately.  Unfortunately some mistakes made have amounted to losses for the society, e.g. members charged wrongly for some items purchased.
A new system of recording stock/sales via computer records of weekly trading (Trading Secretary) thereby a more accurate stock level/income will hopefully be in place asap.

The plant sale,  considering the poor weather on the day was excellent and the money raised is invaluable to help with payments towards insurance/maintenance costs etc.

Insurance via the Societies membership with the RHS has saved the society £450.00 compared to other companies offering allotment insurance.  The Society has had insurance/affiliation with the RHS for the previous two years.  I would recommend this to continue.  Members should take advantage of the benefits.  I hold the discount card for RHS gardens and this can be pre-booked via e-mail.  The premium due for next year (2015) remains very good value at £180.00, an overall increase of £2.00 over the last two years.

Tony Stoney has again had great success getting copy into the Basinga every month.
We are also printed in Chineham Chat as well.

New Domain
With the agreement of the committee,  OBAGS website was relocated to a new domain, taking advantage of the shorter.uk top level domain series.  As promised, the migration to obags.uk was accomplished in time for the release of the 2015 membership cards on September 7th, which are printed with the www.obags.uk address.  The www.obags.co.uk site will be removed from the internet at the expiry of the hosting account on or about 7th December 2014.  There has been a forwarding address on the home page of the old site since the beginning of September.  Kevin Curtis,  webmaster at the Basinga website has been informed.

Global e-mail.
The new hosting account comes with a much more sophisticated email client than the old one had, that has resulted in the following changes.

There are four global e-mail lists currently set up:
‘Members’, comprising all members who have registered e-mail accounts. This group can be contacted by sending an e-mail to ‘members’ attached to @obags.uk .  The following officers, using their registered e-mail account can currently do this:  Chairman, Treasurer, Membership Secretary, Trading Secretary, Webmaster.

‘Seedcat’, comprising all members who have elected to receive a seed catalogue and who have registered e-mail accounts. This group can be contacted by sending an e-mail to ‘seedcat’ attached to @obags.uk.  The following officers, using their registered e-mail account can currently do this:  Chairman, Seed Order Secretary, Webmaster.

‘Volunteers’, comprising all members who are volunteers and have registered e-mail accounts. This group can be contacted by sending an e-mail to ‘volunteers’ attached to @obags.uk.  The following officers, using their registered e-mail account can currently do this:  Chairman, Trading Secretary, Webmaster.

‘Committee’, comprising committee members who have registered e-mail accounts. This group can be contacted by sending an e-mail to ‘committee’ attached to @obags.uk.  The following officers, using their registered e-mail account can currently do this:  All committee members.

Membership subs income was
Plant sale income was
Seed order income was
Shop gross loss was
Miscellaneous (donations etc)

AGM Notes for 2007 & 2008

AGM Notes for 2009

AGM Minutes for 2010

AGM Minutes for 2011

AGM Minutes for 2012

AGM Minutes for 2013

AGM Minutes for 2016

AGM Minutes for 2015

AGM Minutes for 2014