LONG DISTANCE WALKERS ASSOCIATION
LTD
MINUTES of the 9th ANNUAL GENERAL
MEETING of LDWA Ltd
held at 10am on Sunday 9th March 2008
at the Forest Hills Hotel, Overton Hill, Frodsham, Cheshire
PRESENT
92 members whose names are recorded in the Attendance
Register and are listed, in alphabetical order, at the end of these Minutes.
Notice of Meeting
The formal notice convening the meeting was read by
the General Secretary.
1. Apologies for absence
Apologies for absence were received from Chris Brown,
Alan Greenwood, Howard Hopkins, Kathy Johnson, Les Maple, Tom Sinclair, Lesley
Sparshatt, Avril Stapleton and Margaret Steer.
2. Minutes of the 8th Annual General
Meeting of LDWA Ltd held on 11th March 2007.
The Minutes of the meeting were contained in the AGM
booklet which had been supplied to those attending the AGM.
It was proposed by Geoff Saunders, seconded by Keith
Chesterton that the minutes be accepted as a true record and this was AGREED.
3. Matters arising
There were no matters arising.
4. Accounts
The accounts for the period ended 30th September 2007
and the reports of the Directors and Auditors had been supplied to those attending
the AGM. The full Directors' Report and Accounts and the Report of the Auditors
were incorporated in the AGM booklet.
John Sparshatt said he had nothing to add to his
report but would take questions.
Keith Chesterton said that our good position could in
part be attributed to the fact that the editor took no hororarium and we did
not attend the Outdoors Show – was this to be regular. John Sparshatt
said it was unfair to single out the editor as no one on the committee had any
honoraria in the previous year but we would be asking for approval for
provision to pay someone in the future if necessary. As far as the Outdoors
Show was concerned, we would be looking at various shows and deciding on
attendance if it was thought appropriate.
It was proposed by Ed Dalton, seconded by Barbara
Blatchford that the accounts should be accepted and this was AGREED.
5. Auditors
John Sparshatt said that as LDWA Ltd came under the
Small Companies Audit Exemption and providing Agenda Item 8 was agreed it would
not be necessary to have our accounts fully audited in future. This decision
could be reversed in future should members wish. We would still be using R. F.
Miller & Co. to check our accounts.
It was proposed by John Sparshatt, seconded by Tony
Willey and AGREED that R. F.
Miller, Chartered Accountants and Registered Auditors, Bellevue, Princes
Street, Ulverston, Cumbria LA12 7NB, be appointed Auditors for the year ending
30th September 2008 and that the Executive Committee be authorised to fix the
remuneration of the Auditors.
6. Annual Reports
The reports listed below had been supplied to those
attending the meeting. Tony Willey, from the Chair, proposed and it was AGREED that the reports be taken as read and that each of
the committee members should introduce their reports in turn followed by
questions, if any, on each report.
6a) Chair − Tony Willey
Tony had nothing to add to his report.
Peter Grayson said he was surprised at the statement
"unsurprisingly the renewal rate is significantly lower than in past years".
Tony said many joined by the internet and were not
committed walkers, resulting in a high drop out rate of 50%, whereas 90% of
people paying by direct debit remained as members. This was a reason to
incentivise people to pay by direct debit.
6b) General Secretary − Edith Moran
Edith had nothing to add to her report and there were
no questions.
6c) Membership Secretary − Peter Haslam
Peter said membership numbers changed daily and the
latest were – Individual 4669, Family 809, Affiliated 27. He had sent out
974 reminders in mid February which had resulted in 184 renewals. The cost of
printing/postage was £300 and as only 25 renewals were needed to recoup this,
it was a cost effective method. He would be sending out the mailing list for
Strider next week and those who had not renewed would not get Strider. Peter
re-iterated the hope that those not already paying by Direct Debit would
consider changing over to this method. Processing 1,688 cheques was very time
consuming.
Roger Michell said the renewal rate of 50% was very
good compared to other organisations he belonged to where the drop out rate was
usually 75%.
Tony wished to add his personal thanks to Peter for
his efforts with membership. It now ran like clockwork due to Peter's hard
work.
6d) Editor − Ken Falconer
Ken said April Strider should be in the post before
Easter. Strider depended on members for contributions. He was not short of long
reports of foreign holidays but other snippets in the form of walking tips,
anecdotes, recipes etc would be most welcome.
6e) Local Groups – Paul Hatcher
Paul Hatcher had nothing further to add to his
report. He was handing over to Nicky Wood and he hoped she would get as much
enjoyment from the job as he had.
6f) Group Programmes Co-ordinator for
Strider − Eva Bowes
Eva had nothing further to add to her report other
than asking members to keep sending in their walks early.
6g) Internet – Reg Chapman
Reg had demonstrated the new website over the weekend
and it was hoped this would go live within the next two to three weeks. It was
the members' site and he welcomed any further ideas for improvement.
Tony thanked Reg who along with Peter was getting us
back on an even keel. Reg was working well with MKH. Exciting things were happening
with the website and it was a good advert for new members.
6h) Events − Fiona Cameron
Fiona had nothing to add to her report.
Les Hewitt from Wessex Group said there was a problem
of events being on the same day and there was a lack of regional co-operation
and advance planning. Fiona said that she received notification of events after
everything had been booked. She got some queries, mainly from Independents checking
on the availability of dates but the onus was on event organisers to contact
local organisers of events in their area. This year being a Leap Year may have
caused some events to move by a week and it had also to be remembered that some
events were biennial.
Paul Hatcher said it was necessary to ring local
groups to check if there was a clash.
Madeleine Hemsley suggested that organisers could
post provisional bookings on the website but it was still better to phone, or
use the Forum. It was difficult starting from scratch with a new event.
Keith Chesterton raised the matter of using public
transport to events which had been mentioned in the report. It was generally
felt that very few events were accessible by public transport and entries would
slump if events were moved from attractive, but inaccessible by public
transport, parts of the country. It was up to event organisers to sort out
transport and give details where applicable.
6i) 100s Sub Committee – Paul Hatcher
Paul confirmed that the National Committee had
approved the application by Marches Group to stage the 2011 hundred which would
be called the Housman 100.
Terry Bound raised the question of finances and asked
that we should try and get back to how things used to be when any surplus was
passed on to local groups who had assisted. Was the point to make profits for
the groups or to hand over to local charitable organisations.
John Sparshatt said that in both previous hundreds he
had organised any surplus had been distributed to local groups who put in such
an big effort, and any surplus from merchandising was retained by the group. He
said any surplus from the Yoredale would go to local groups who helped, but he
could not speak for other organisers.
6j) Environment – John Stewart
John said he had nothing to add to his report. He had
been very inactive during the past year due to ill health.
Keith Chesterton questioned John's statement that we
could network with computers but seemed unable to interface in person with
other organisations. John said this was a personal opinion and if he had been
in better health he would have liked to go to meetings with environmental
organisations and perhaps go down to Dartmoor and help with their Green Gym,
hard work removing bracken.
6k) LDPs – Paul Lawrence
Paul had little to add to his report. Trading links
with Amazon gave commission to the association and so far this year £1000 had
been spent in two months so usage was picking up. He said it was an effective
service, only 2 items had been sent back and he urged members to use it.
Non-LDP books were being added and any other ideas would be welcome.
There was to be a workshop after the meeting and
anyone interested was invited to attend. Thanks mainly to John Sparshatt nearly
all the LDPs were available online and we were thinking of doing another book.
Tony proposed a vote of thanks to Paul for his
efforts with the LDPs site. He had done a superb job and no-one else had anything
approaching our site.
6l) Merchandise – Tim Glenn
Tim reported that we had 23 new items and samples
were on display. He apologised that they were not priced but if anyone needed
any information he would be available after the meeting. There was still some
old merchandise which was good and cheap, everything must go.
Hilary Scott thought it was the right way forward
with merchandise and the £5 gift voucher was a good idea, but she was concerned
that the returns policy was not defined on the order form. Tim said he had
never thought of putting it on, space was limited but we would look into this.
Hilary also said we should be able to see what we
were buying. John Sparshatt apologised for not doing this before but thanks to
models who had agreed to display the merchandise, photos would be available on
the web next week.
6m) Publicity – Catharine Gregory
Catharine had nothing to add to her report. She had
been co-opted to the committee and was doing an excellent job.
Tony thanked the four members of the committee who
were retiring – Edith Moran, Paul Hatcher, Paul Lawrence and John
Stewart. Although they were leaving the committee they would all be helping in
the background in various ways. Tony felt there was great benefit in having to
replace committee members every five years which brought in new people with new
ideas.
7. Election of Officers
At this point Sir John Johnson took the chair. A
nomination for Chair, Tony Willey proposed by Dennis Allport, and seconded by
Richard Measures had been received. There being no other nominations Sir John
declared that Tony had been duly appointed Chair of the Executive Committee and
of LDWA Ltd.
Single nominations had been received for the
positions of General Secretary, Treasurer, Editor, Membership Secretary,
Internet Officer and five nominations had been received for the other six
Executive Committee positions by the due date. It was suggested from the Chair
that the nominations be taken en bloc. This was proposed by Hazel Bound,
seconded by Les Hewitt and AGREED
unanimously and accordingly the following persons were declared to have been
appointed to the positions shown and consequently as Directors of LDWA Ltd.:
General Secretary Katie
Hunt, proposed by Geoffrey Sproson, seconded by Edith Moran
Treasurer John
Sparshatt, proposed by Dennis Allport, seconded by Richard Measures
Membership Secretary Peter Haslam, proposed by
Hilary Scott, second by Hilary Farren
Editor Ken
Falconer, proposed by Eva Bowes, seconded by Noel Gould
Internet Officer Reg Chapman, proposed by Molly Groundsell, seconded
by Elizabeth Bryan
Executive Committee Members
Eva Bowes Proposed
by Dennis Allport, seconded by John Marshall
Fiona Cameron Proposed
by Don Bolton, seconded by Sylvia Nagarkar
Tim Glenn Proposed
by Michael Varley, seconded by Jane Varley
Catharine Gregory Proposed
by Jill Wilkins, seconded by Ken Falconer
Nicky Wood Proposed
by Ron Smith, seconded by Paul Hatcher
The two new members, Katie Hunt and Nicky Wood were
introduced to members and welcomed to the committee. Katie had attended the
last committee meeting and Nicky had attended a handover meeting with Paul
Hatcher. As would be seen, there was a vacancy on the committee and anyone keen
to join should see Tony or contact any other committee members.
7. Subscriptions for the Membership
Year 2009
There were no proposals to change the rate of
subscription and it was expected that the current rate would remain for a few
years.
7a. Honoraria
No members of the committee had been paid honoraria
and it was not expected to do so in the future but nevertheless we sought
permission from members to do this if and when necessary. This was proposed by
Janet Chapman, seconded by Madeleine Hemsley and unanimously AGREED.
8. The Companies Act 1985 (Accounts of
Small and Medium Sized-Enterprises and Audit Exemption) (Amendment) Regulations
2004.
As a small company Long Distance Walkers Association
Ltd was no longer required to have a full audit of the accounts. This would
reduce annual costs and our auditors had recommended this. The committee sought
approval for this course of action. A letter from R. F. Miller & Co.,
Accountants, in support of this had been circulated with the AGM booklet.
John Sparshatt said that we would still have an
examination of our accounts. In the past our largest exposure was merchandise
stocks but as they were now virtually nil this was not a problem. There was no
legal requirement for us to have a full audit and our accountants were willing
to sign off as at present but without the cost of the full audit.
It was proposed by Geoff Saunders, seconded by Roger
Michel and unanimously AGREED
that we adopt this course of action.
The Chairman declared the
formal business of the meeting closed at 11am
9. Open Forum and Discussion
9.1 Future Hundreds
Janet Chapman, who would be in charge of the food for
the Wessex 100, appealed for helpers, in particular for the breakfast stop.
Roger Michell said Marches Group had just been given
permission to stage the 2011 hundred to be based in Ludlow which was within a
reasonable distance of a railway station. It would go through Herefordshire,
South Shropshire and the Cluns area and would be known as The Housman 100. This
was just to give an idea of the location but there were no details as yet.
Nearer the time Marches Group would be asking for assistance.
John Sparshatt said that Skipton, which was the
headquarters of the Yoredale 100, was within walking distance of a very
frequent rail service.
John Stewart said that Scotland was accessible by
stagecoach, with an annual train. The 2010 event would be called Heart of
Scotland and based at Dunkeld which had a railway station and was just 1 mile
off the main A9 road. Paul Hatcher said he was in charge of manning and had
already had a good response. There had been concern about the distance involved
in travelling to Scotland but within 24 hours Devon and Cornwall Group had come
back with a positive response to both help and take part. Hazel Bound said this
was not just her decision, she had e-mailed the group and that was their
response.
Hazel appealed to organising groups to consider
carefully what to do with any surplus monies. Think of the distances travelled
by willing groups who year on year helped. If they had to be paid full expenses
the events would not take place, but they would appreciate some contribution to
their costs, don't give it all to charities.
9.2 On-line Entry
Sportident is an on-line entry system which is
already developed and was used by the Lakeland 100. It was recently used by
John Sparshatt on the Trollers Trot event and attracted 66 on-line entries with
virtually no publicity. It worked well and, as organiser, John was very happy.
Three LDWA Groups had now signed up to use it on their events (Wycoller Hoof,
The Three Rings of Shap and The Moors the Merrier) and it was recommended
others should have a look and see how it worked. It was being developed all the
time and a new edition had been launched ten days ago.
It was part owned by Mark Hawker of MKH who had
developed our website. There were some dangers but we should proceed positively.
We could ultimately develop our own system, but we should in the meantime use
this and let Tony know of any feedback as he was co-ordinating this.
In response to a query from Les Hewitt, John said he
had made enquires about using the system on 31st January, next day it was set
up and within hours he had received his first entry. Payment was by BACS
transfer. The cost was £1 per entry which could be passed on to entrants in
lieu of the expense of envelopes and stamps.
Carol Engel was firmly of the opinion that we should
set up our own system immediately. Reg said it was a question of time. There
were lots of other things to be done, we had a system now so should use it.
There was concern that if we used Sportident LDWA would become redundant, and
what control would we have if they decided to put up the fees. Our own system
would involve extra work for the Treasurer and admin costs needed to be
considered. It had not been costed out yet.
Another aspect was something brought up at the Local
Groups Meeting where concern was expressed at falling entries on events. We
were asked to make things easier for people to enter and this was proving to be
of benefit.
9.3 Scarborough Rock
Alan Rodda had reported that the Scarborough Rock
would be back next year.
9.4 Local Groups Websites
Nicky Wood noticed that a number of local group websites
were not developed yet and she would like to help those concerned to move on.
She had recently done the website for Westmorland and North Lancs Group which
was now up and running and would like to help to create a home page for those
which currently were shown as "under development". If there was anyone in the
groups who could supply the details she would be happy to do the rest and asked
anyone present to take this message back to their group.
9.5 Events
Fiona recommended using the website for early
information for events. Just the date and name of event could be put on twelve
to eighteen months ahead, two years for a biennial event. This would be helpful
for others trying to find a suitable date. There was now the facility on the
website to have details for two Striders and this could be used as publicity
with details to follow when known.
9.6 Life Membership
We had been asked by a member about Life Membership
as most other organisations had this category. Shortly before becoming Chairman
Tony had produced some figures in response to another query and calculated that
an individual member would need to pay £325, with the figure for over 60s being
£160. Although it was believed this would reduce administration, in fact it
would mean more work for the Membership Secretary. On a show of hands none of
those present were in favour of the introduction of Life Membership. Geoff
Saunders asked that if we did introduce it, could it be retrospective.
9.7 Anglesey
Ed Dalton wished to promote the Anglesey Coast Path.
It was a great coast line and a good 125 mile walk, not just on the flat. There
was a proposal to make it a National Trail.
9.8 Event Entries
Tony Willey said that in the north there had been a
resurgence on events with several full before the closing date and the Yoredale
100 was full. He wondered if this was happening nationwide and was reassured to
find that this was the case. After the pessimism of last year this was encouraging.
There were more runners on events. The South Shropshire had been full 3-4 weeks
earlier than in the past and an analysis of post codes had shown that more
people from the immediate vicinity had entered, possibly as a result of the
increasing cost of petrol. Ken Falconer viewed the figures with slight caution
and would be more interested to see what it was like in the next month when
there were many more events to choose from.
10. President's Address
Sir John reported that DEFRA was very short of money
this year, still suffering from the results of foot and mouth disease. He was
to meet the new Minister for Rural Affairs shortly as he was attending a
meeting in the Chilterns.
It was hoped the Public Enquiry on the South Downs
National Park would produce the right result and agree to include the Western
Weald. Consultations were on hold with regard to the land in between the Lake
District and the Yorkshire Dales National Parks. It had been felt by many that
the Howgills should have been included in the original plans.
The results of a consultation in 2004 on National
Trails usage had put the South West Coast Path as the most popular, being used
by 5.5 million people. Thames Path was 2nd, Pennine Way 3rd and Hadrian's Wall,
which was popular with people abroad, was 4th. These figures were based on
economic value to the region, daily spend etc. Very few users completed the
whole routes but at least they were being used. The bad news was that it was
unlikely there would be any new National Trails in the future. The Anglesey
Coast Path may well be all right because it was in Wales.
In conclusion Sir John thanked the organisers for a
great weekend.
Janet Chapman thanked Geoff Saunders and all the walk
leaders for some brilliant walks.
The meeting closed at 11.38am.
The following members signed the Attendance
Register:-
Chris Bancroft Paul
Blackburn Barbara
Blatchford Jean Bobker Peter
Bostock
Hazel Bound Terry
Bound Albert
Bowes Eva
Bowes Fiona Cameron
David Cashmore Marjorie
Cashmore Helen Cavanagh Janet
Chapman Reg Chapman
Keith Chesterton Linda
Connor Ed
Dalton Richard
Denby Denis Doyle
Carol Engel Isabel
Falconer Ken Falconer John
Fleming Tim Glenn
Michael Godfrey Richard
W Gore T. Radford Gore Peter
Grayson Julia Greenwood
Catharine Gregory Tim
Griggs Peter
Hands Peter
Haslam Mary Hatcher
Paul Hatcher Graham
Hemsley Madeleine Hemsley Les
Hewitt J.
Holmes
Katie Hunt John
Johnson Katharine
Kent Reg Kingston Paul
Lawrence
Vivien Lee Melvyn
Long Tom
Lyons Kelly
Measures Roger Michell
Bob Mills Joy
Mills Edith
Moran Rob
Myers Alex
Pember
Brian Pitts Adrian
Rayner Tony Rowley Gordon
Rushton Sandra Rushton
Peter Russell Brenda
Ryan Pat
Ryan Geoff
Saunders Ann Sayer
Hilary Scott Ian
Scott Chris
Seddon Ann
Smith Geoff
Smith
Neil Smith Ron
Smith John
Sparshatt John M Stewart Norman
Thomas
Jane Varley Mary
Varley Mike
Varley Margaret
Waller Robert Waller
Ray Watson Wendy
Watson Nigel West John
Widdowson Susan Widdowson
Jill Wilkins Mac
Wilkins Susan
Wilkinson Tony Willey Dave
Williams
Anne Wood Nicky
Wood
