June 11th. 2012.

Next club meeting Monday 2^nd July 2012.

• The Inimitable Banknote By Pam West

Meetings are held at the Abbey Baptist Church, Abbey Square, commencing at 7.00 p.m.

June Meeting

As usual, the June meeting was the club’s Annual General Meeting. Twenty-eight members attended, and we had a fantastic seven entries for the Display Competition. The various committee reports were provided to you prior to the AGM, and as such I will focus on the discussion rather than the content.

As per usual, we began with the approval of the minutes for the 2011 AGM – this was received with no issues arising. This was followed by the Chairman’s report discussion. The key points covered were the prospect of attracting new (and younger!) members, lack of volunteers for the committee, the skittles evening and our 50^th year celebrations.

• Attraction of new members is key to a successful club – members who regularly attend fairs/bourses etc were asked if they could take club leaflets to advertise.
• Having a working committee is probably even more important than new blood. As has been said many times before in this newsletter, no committee means no club! We are currently running one man short, however this is being managed. Come the time when one (or more) of the present incumbent choose to stand down, the club may struggle with limited time for handovers.
• Attendance of the Skittles evening has been on a steady decline for several years. It was discussed that this should be removed from the diary in the short-term – the committee will confirm its decision in due course.
• It has been touted for a number of years (first mentioned in the AGM of June ’09) that we might like to host the BANS conference to coincide with our 50^th year (2014). A show of hands supporting this idea was requested, and there a deathly silence fell over the meeting! As such, we will likely hold a rather more low-key affair (a dinner for example) – details will be communicated in due course.

Peter’s Treasurer’s report followed, announcing a profit for the year 2011/12 of £0.67. Maintained membership numbers, self-balancing social events and minimal sundry expenditure means that the membership fee will remain at £14 with an optional £2 for tea/coffee/biscuits for yet another year! The issue of Public Liability Insurance for the club was raised again. The committee has done a little research into this, and quotes are in the region of £400 per annum – this approximately equals our current takings in subscription and as such was deemed unviable by the committee and membership.

The Secretary’s report, given by James, requested again that any members currently receiving a paper (posted) newsletter, but who has an email address please provide this to the Secretary – especially with the recent 28% increase in the price of a 2^nd class stamp! Steps have been taken to limit the club’s exposure to this (namely bulk-buying pre-increase!) but at the new prices, the annual cost member is approaching £10 – the cost per email member is zero! Further discussion was around a re-vamp of the newsletter – ideas will be considered and built in over the next few months! Additionally, we are working on hosting a newsletter ‘archive’ on the not-so-new-anymore website as there was on the old website. As soon as this is complete, you will be notified! Finally, members were notified that the Secretary will be taking steps to complete the clubs membership records so that we have a contact address, phone and email (where applicable) for all members. This will be done in the next couple of months on a member by member basis.

The Programme for 2012/13 was amongst the reports provided pre-AGM, and ideas are requested for 2013/14.

The Library and Publicity Secretary’s report followed a recent full audit of the library and suggested that the level of borrowing did not warrant a large-scale programme of spending on updating books. It was acknowledged that the library was used in situ and as such appropriate purchases that can be justified will be sanctioned. The membership was then asked to suggest any ‘What’s On’ type pages in local newspapers – please let us know if you think of any!

Following this, the re-election of the incumbent committee was proposed by Michael and seconded by Graham without opposition. Disappointingly no nominations were received to join the committee and as such, we will continue at 80% man-power. This situation will be monitored by the chairman accordingly.

The new committee then elected Gavin as President, Frank as Vice President and Neil as the Honourary Auditor.

Finally, Graham proposed a vote of thanks for the committee’s work over the year.

This closed the formal AGM, and we moved onto the Display competition. The entrants as follow:

• The Heads have it – effigies on coins & medals
• Coins & medallions showing the many faces of Queen Victoria
• Olympic coins and paranumismatica
• Various coins with Olympic torches & games
• Tokens of Plymouth Docks to Devonport
• A collection of George III and IIII Shillings
• Emergency money of Charles

A fantastic turn-out and the winner was our Chairman Mick for his display on Queen Victoria who takes home the Michael Broome Memorial Cup.

Future Events will return next month!

Past Events – June is historically the AGM Meeting

Club Secretary.