Minutes of the 19th (104th) Annual General Meeting

of the St. Beghian Society held in the Whitelaw Building

on Saturday 15th September 2012 at 10.30am.

Anthony Wills, the President of the Society, welcomed everybody to the 104th Annual General Meeting, but made reference to his disappointment at not being able to welcome ‘ladies’ as well as gentlemen. He went on to say that he was concerned about the relatively small number of female members who were actively involved with the Society and would welcome ideas of how to encourage more interest in the future.

Before starting the agenda, the President introduced James Davies, the new Head, and invited him to say a few words. James began by thanking Society members for all their support and referred to the Reunion Dinner the previous evening, which he felt had clearly shown the affection that people had for the school. He continued to say that St. Bees, along with many other schools in the north, was experiencing challenging times and that the support of the Society was very much needed. James mentioned the offer of assistance from Dacre Watson and other OSBs with regard to career advice and training opportunities for pupils, which he welcomed very much. He expressed his wish to do the best for each individual pupil, whatever their level and to celebrate all achievements. Important investment within the school was referred to, especially in respect of the improvements to Grindal House, the Golf Development Plan which had recently been accepted by the governing body and the move of the International Centre from Foundation to the Management Centre, which had been closed earlier in the year. The Head concluded by stressing his aim to encourage a new era of openness and honesty and asked that members pick up the phone and ring should they ever have any questions. James emphasised that he was very much looking forward to working with all Society members.

1. The Minutes of the 103rd Annual General Meeting held on Saturday, 10th September 2011 as published in the January 2012 Bulletin were approved and proposed by Mark Roberts and seconded by Richard Hall.
   It was agreed that Matters Arising would be dealt with under AOB.

2. The Election of Officers:
   a) Committee –R.P. Calvin, D.W. Davies, A.J. Haile and A.T. Johnston were due to retire this year. All four had expressed their willingness to continue. Their re-election was proposed by Bill Gough and seconded by Alec MacCaig.
   b) Secretary and Treasurer – David Lord advised that he was prepared to continue. He was proposed by Darryl Davies and seconded by James Brindle. Anthony Wills thanked David for all his hard work in ensuring that the Reunion Dinner was such a success. David added that many people had given him a great deal of support which had proved invaluable.
   c) Nominative Governors – Darryl Davies was due to retire this year but had indicated that he was willing to continue. As there were no other nominations, Darryl’s re-election was proposed by Donald Brownrigg and seconded by Richard Stout.
   d) Golfing Secretary – James Doggett was re-elected, being proposed by Alec MacCaig and seconded by Steve Crossley-Smith.
   e) Accounts Checker –Jason Spires, an old boy of the school, had checked the accounts for the Society for the last seven years and the Secretary advised that he was prepared to continue. In the past an offer of a small reward for his services had been made, but been refused by Jason. His re-election was proposed by Bill Gough and seconded by Mike Brandwood.
   f) President Elect for 2013-2015 – Anthony Wills indicated that he had some names in mind, but that he would report to the March committee meeting with a definite proposal.

3. Grant to Golfing Society – Historically, the Society has always helped towards competition expenses by way of an annual grant to the Golfing Society. Last year £600 was given and it was proposed that the same figure should be offered this year. However, the Secretary stated that should a request for further assistance be received, he hoped the Society committee would give favourable consideration. For 2012/13 the figure of £600 was proposed by Mark Roberts and seconded by Alastair Lord.

4. 200 Club Report and Draw – Darryl Davies reported that there were currently about 70 members but indicated that it would be good to reach 100. Darryl went on to mention the two donations which had recently been given to the school for the new climbing wall in the sports hall and the golf team jumpers, which left a total of £1600 currently in the bank. The Head had agreed to draw up some ideas for future projects.

The September draw had taken place during the committee meeting immediately prior to the AGM with the following winners:

PRIZE	No.	WINNER	PRIZE	No.	WINNER
£140	18	Sara Gough	£20	36	Darryl Davies
£40	24	Malcolm Dix	£20	40	Tim Brown
£40	53	Edward Thompson	£20	55	Michael Binns
£40	23	Bill Heslop	£20	32	Nigel Halfpenny
£40	5	Alastair Hayward	£10	60	Martyn Hart
£40	38	Philip Etchells	£10	12	Stan Holmes

Stan Holmes kindly offered to donate his prize to start off the next appeal. Darryl Davies and Martyn Hart also agreed to offer their winnings for this purpose.

5. Accounts – David Lord, Treasurer of the Society, presented the accounts which had been previously circulated and reported as follows:
   a) Old St. Beghians’ Club Guarantee Trust Fund – The fund continued to receive rent from the school for the use of the Lonsdale Terrace properties and after allowing for expenditure, primarily the mortgage repayments for No.8 Lonsdale, a small surplus was made. All the other Lonsdale properties were completely free of mortgage and were shown at cost in the Guarantee Trust Fund accounts. As mentioned in previous years there was a considerable hidden asset value in the terrace as a whole.
   The cash in hand, or at least a significant part of it, given Society approval, could be lent to the school to help cover any short term funding requirement.
   b) The St. Beghian Society General Account – The income and expenditure account showed a healthy surplus, which was due to some extent to the receipt of a generous donation from an old boy. Whilst postage rates had increased significantly, there had been an increase in the number of OSBs receiving mailings electronically, which had reduced the impact to some degree.
   c) The St. Beghian Society Scholarship Fund – The fund in 2010-2011 provided bursaries for the children of five former pupils and all, apart from one, had left school in July 2011. This clearly explained why the total of grants has fallen significantly. In the half yearly Society Bulletins mention has continued to be made of the availability of bursary funding to assist with the payment of fees. In this respect, the Bursar was also fully aware of the Society’s desire to help, whenever possible, the sons and daughters of old boys/old girls.
   The Deutsche Bank had recently been in touch and had suggested that the Society consider selling their investment with the Deutsche Bank and investing elsewhere. Our small investment was originally placed with Tilney & Co., which was taken over by Deutsche Bank in 2006, who now consider the St. Beghian Society’s portfolio to be too small to have on their books!
   Within the next few months the Treasurer advised that he would be undertaking a full review of all the Scholarship Fund’s investments and would put forward recommendations to the committee at the next meeting in March.
   d) The St. Beghian Society Trust Funds – Consolidated Trust Fund - This small fund continued to generate sufficient income to provide the school with an annual donation of £500 towards the cost of prizes awarded on Speech Day.
   
   Acceptance of the accounts was proposed by Mike Brandwood and seconded by Richard Hall.
   
6. Any other business
   i) Abbey Farm and the Restrictive Covenant
   Donald Brownrigg again raised the issue of Abbey Farm and the partial release of the restrictive covenant by the school governors. Since the committee meeting in March 2012, the President had written to the governors raising the concerns of Donald Brownrigg and Richard Stout. A copy of this letter, together with the reply from the school governors, was shown to DB and RS in the summer. Donald Brownrigg advised that both he and Richard Stout, notwithstanding the correspondence which had taken place, were still far from satisfied with the governors’ responses to some of the questions raised.
   There followed a heated debate, which concluded with the President advising DB and RS that if they wished to continue in their quest for further information, they must do so by dealing directly with the governing body. The President stated that he felt strongly that the Society needed to move on and to continue providing the school with the support it needed.
   
   
7. Date of AGM and Old St. Beghians’ Day 2013 – Saturday 14th September, 2013 (subject to confirmation).
   N.B. Since confirmed as Saturday 21st September, 2013.

The President closed the meeting at 11.35am and thanked people for their attendance.