Wakefield & District MAG

Minutes of the 15th ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING

Held at 8:00pm on Wednesday 11th January 2017, at the Grey Horse, Kirkgate, Wakefield

1) Welcome by chair and introduction of Yorkshire Region / National Observer

Steve Travis, Branch Chairman & Rep opened the meeting at 20:15 hrs. Oliver Rose, Yorkshire Regional Rep in attendance as Region observer.

All members in the branch area had previously been notified via email, the December 2016 mailshot, of the date, time, venue and agenda for the 2016 AGM. The details of the AGM were also publicised in The Road magazine, on the branch website (wakefield.mag-uk.org) and the MAG website (www.mag-uk.org).

2) Apologies

Apologies received from Sam Allen (MAP Rep) & Mick Culpan (Rideout Coordinator) for non-attendance at the AGM

3) Minutes of previous AGM and matters arising

The minutes of the previous AGM (for the 2015 year), held on Wednesday 13th January 2016 were circulated. These minutes were also published on the branch website following the 2015 AGM. The minutes were Proposed (Justine Travis) and Seconded (Chas Milner) and voted on by all meeting attendees as being a true and accurate account of that meetings proceedings.

No Matters Arising

4) Committee Reports

Reps Annual Report for 2016

FINANCIAL

Covered in Finance Officers Report

RALLIES & OTHER SOCIAL EVENTS

POLITICAL

MEMBERSHIP

OTHER ACTIVITY

ACHIEVEMENTS AGAINST 2015 PLAN

SUMMARY

We now celebrate 15 consecutive years as an active MAG Branch (and in those 15 years, we haven't had to reform / re-launch to keep going). The Membership trend is slightly downwards although we have increased member retention (a repeating trend over the last couple of years). Meeting attendance has remained very strong throughout the year and the majority of meetings have around 15-20 members in attendance (circa. 23% of MAG Members in the area attend their branch meetings - Nationally, 10% is the 'best' average). We have been successful again in our fund raising for the MAG fighting fund, matching the 2015 target. We have remained very active, and packed an awful lot of activities into the year and laid on some very successful events. We now have EIGHT annual events in our 'portfolio':

We have increased our support of charities (Kidaware was a new charity we supported in 2016), but without diverting any funds away from the MAG Fighting Fund !!!

All in all, another highly successful year for the branch. A huge thanks to all our meeting regulars and all those who have supported the branch in all our activities. Hip Hip .. Hooray.

Steve Travis
Branch Rep
97513

Finance Officer Report - Financial Report & Audited Accounts for 2016

Income £1842 - significant decrease against £2011 prior year

End of year balance £432.92 - allowed to hold £250 so need to donate post-auction

MonthEvent20162015
JanuaryAuction£438£400
FebruaryBingoNil£195
MarchPartyNil£94
April - DonationsNABD
Wakefield Hospice
Air Ambulance		£50
£50
£50		£50
£50
£50
MayBike Show£219£180
JuneTent & Helmet Sale£75
July
August
SeptemberTreasure HuntNil£12
OctoberMAG Donation
Bingo		£1500
£300		£1800
£164
NovemberRemembrance
Quiz		£25
£97 (minus £20 cost)		£20
£173
December
Product Sales£73£92
Raffle
Ave £58 pm		£690£647

Events raised over £1060 this year (£1200 in 2015) - extra bingo night held in 2015

Room for improvement on bingo as we could have raised more if we had run the raffle differently - lesson learned; More attendees at the Quiz would have raised more funds through more admission fees and additional raffle tickets sold

Raffle £640 averaging £54 pm and increased due to successful event and rideout raffles

Donation of £1500 made to Yorkshire Region so a decrease of £300 but £100 was diverted to the Johnson's flood collection via Yorkshire MAG.

Donation to Yorkshire Region to be agreed after Auction, but anticipate Auction income plus £250 from funds.

Justine Travis, Finance Officer - 97513

Auditors concurred - Ian Whittaker - 115847, Martin Burgess - 126979

Deputy Rep Report

Chas Milner, Vice-Rep - 126291

Clubs Liaison

Eddie Johnson, Clubs Liaison Officer not in attendance and no report submitted

Press Officer

Contacted Wakefield Express via e-mail for the following events:

The auction, bingo night and quiz night always have a good turn out, but I think that is through word of mouth and Facebook rather than the Express advertisement, I don't know if any of them have even appeared in the Express. We have had a few extra attending some of our ride outs, these have either seen it on he MAG site, Facebook, word of mouth or even just come across us on the road.

Sharon Scott, Press Officer - 132886

Political Officer

This last year has seen a continuation of the work with the West Yorkshire Combined Authority (WYCA), concentrating on ensuring motorcycles are included in any future transport planning. This work has been carried out jointly with the Leeds and Huddersfield branches.

Key areas have been:

Progress is being made with a liaison officer appointed for Wakefield. Meetings arranged for engineering improvements and Wakefield now has its first designated Motorcycle access to a bus lane on Dewsbury road leading in to Wakefield.

think the joint approach with Huddersfield and Leeds branches has helped significantly in achieving our aims and plan to continue with this approach.

Although progress has and is still being made I donit think we should become complacent as I believe the progress to date would not have been achieved without maintaining pressure on the local authorities/combined authority. In light of recent events with the injunction now in place in leeds we must be vigilant to ensure the anti-motorcycle stance adopted by Leeds City Council does not spread out across West Yorks.

Ian Whittaker, Political Officer - 115847

Products Officer

Product sales have been steady and pretty much in line with previous years. Full breakdown provided at the meeting of all product sales and income together with an up to date stock list.

3 We haven't sold loads of stuff but we have made a small profit on sales and haven't a great deal of surplus stock, although we still have 2 XL jackets we could do with shifting plus 3 Surplus bags.

If anyone wants to take over the products I'm happy to relinquish the roll, if no one wants the job I'll continue with products and am open to new ideas .... although I do not want tons of stock in my spare room.

Finally a thank you to everyone who purchased products in 2016 and supported MAG and the Wakefield Branch.

Martin Burgess, Products Officer - 126979

Rideout Coordinator's Reports

Martin Burgess, Mick Culpan and Terry Scott, Rideout Coordinators

Social Committee

Lorna Jaques - 120474 & Sharon Scott - 132886, Social Committee

MAP Consultative Committee Representative

No Report submitted and not in attendance

Sam Allen, MAP Consultative Committee Representative

Fund Raising Officer

Chas Milner, Fund Raising Officer - 126291

Membership Secretary

Covered in Reps Report

Webmaster

Covered in Reps Report. Kept updated throughout the year and tracker code and hit counter show it is well used.

5) Election / Re-election of branch officers for 2017

The following officers were elected / re-elected onto the 2017 branch committee, unanimously in all cases:

6) Motions

Monthly Social

My suggestion is that once a month one of our meetings is an informal 'social' night .... I know SHOCK HORROR, we'd be changing the format!!!

My thinking is:

  1. Huddersfield alternate every week with official/social meetings.
  2. Leeds meet twice a month.
  3. They both seem to manage with MAG press releases, forthcoming event etc....pretty much the same stuff we mull over.
  4. We meet weekly and sometimes (particularly out of season) our meetings are repetitive; we can discuss 90% of what we discussed the week before.
  5. Social evenings would punctuate this and hopefully keep things 'fun'.
  6. I realise from time to time we may have to adjust things, typically close to Rallies etc and we will also have to come up with ideas to entertain ourselves .... I'm thinking along the lines of a picture quiz, maybe music intro quiz or a 'Crazy Raffle' (I can explain later)
  7. I've thought this through and it'll only mean adding a few 'social' evenings as our 2-3 Bingo nights, annual Quiz, Auction etc would already use some of the dates, and we'd only be adding a few more.
  8. Who knows, we may even attract new members .... Point number 8 reminds me when I spoke to Tom and Laura who came to a few meeting/ride outs a couple of years ago .... I bumped into them after they stopped coming and asked why they'd not been. Tom's words, not mine 'they don't cater for the younger member and I can't do with all that political shite'. I know we all understand the 'political shite' is necessary and is what MAG is all about but they never will if they/new members don't come along for long enough for the penny to drop.

Discussion points: Huddersfield have 1st Wednesday as business and rest are social. Leeds alternate business and social. Andy Foody shared Huddersfields approach but that forthcoming events are still raised every week. Clare agreed with Martin that she can find business each week a trial. Steve as Rep gave his opinion that he believed in weekly meetings and understood the view but younger appeal would still not happen. Tracy shared that as a renewing member one reason was for the social side, rideouts and political angle and we are very welcoming and it could work if the formal side was slim and kept to essentials for the social week. Social committee would need to organise the social night quizzes etc. Due to existing events we would only need to find 8 for the year.

Proposed: Martin Burgess, Seconded: Ian Whittaker
Vote taken and Motion Carried

Christmas Meetings

Make it a permanent fixture that no meetings are held around the Christmas period. Usually when they fall too close to Christmas day / NY day and we haven't held meetings , but in 2016 we did as it was a few days either side of the bank holidays. However, these were poorly attended, it was difficult to come up with a decent agenda to cover (as national / regional political activity slows right down around this time; and locally not much happening) & for the few that did attend, at least one commented they wished they hadn't bothered as there was so little on the agenda. Therefore, for 2017 and beyond, I propose the branch has a meetings holiday of at least one week minimum (between Christmas & NY), and potentially 2 weeks depending on the days Christmas & NY fall.

Proposed: Steve Travis, Seconded: Martin Burgess
Vote taken and Motion Carried

7) Objectives and branch development plan for the forthcoming year (2017)

Steve as Re-Elected Rep presented the 2017 Branch Development Plan which was discussed and agreed, as follows:

8) Presentation to Branch Heroes

Awards were presented for the branch heroes of 2016, based on points accumulated by members for attendance/participation in MAG/Branch events over the course of the year.

Our branch heroes for 2016 were:

9) Any other business

Option to accept contributions over the year towards the next years MAG membership - suggested by Lorna Jaques. Agreed we could do that and how it would be organised would be looked at over the next few weeks.

10) Date of Next AGM

The date of the next AGM was set for Wednesday 10th January 2017.

The meeting closed at 22:25 hrs.

Oliver Rose at Regional Observer stated he had found it a professional meeting with a nice social element.

Steve Travis
Wakefield MAG Rep
97513