Minutes of 2013 AGM
Border Model Aircraft Club AGM
2nd December 2013 at Grayshott Village Hall
7:30 pm
Minutes of Meeting
Members present
There were 32 members present
Apologies for absence:
Apologies were received from: Bill Briggs; Stephen Wyatt, Bob Hopkins, John Heslop, Christophe Malcuit, Kevin Dance, Roberto Scuro, James Sanford, Richard Weeks and Joe Homes.
Before opening the meeting, the Chairman wished to record the loss of Mike Chittenden who died in November following an operation to remove a benign brain tumour. Mike had been a member of the club for many years and his dry wit will be missed by all who knew him.
Mike's family will probably scatter his ashes on the Pit's slope at Hankley.
Welcome address by the Chairman
1 The chairman thanked the members for attending.
2 The Chairman outlined the agenda for the meeting as follows:
Approval of the minutes of the 2012 AGM
The Chairman’s Report
The Treasurer’s report and proposal for 2014 fees – Mike Dunkley
Membership report – Brian Fuller
Bramshott – Bill Silk
Hankley common – Nick Tyson
Election of Committee
Any other business
Collection of fees for 2014 will follow the meeting
3 Minutes of 2012 AGM – The chairman said that the minutes of the 2012 meeting had been circulated by email to reduce printing costs. All comments received had been included in the final version of the minutes.
The chairman asked for the approval of the minutes by a show of hands.
The meeting approved the minutes.
4 Chairman’s Report
General
To keep printing costs and paper usage to a minimum, the committee has adopted a policy of using email wherever possible. Where members do not have internet connections we will send critical correspondence by post. Weekly flying availability is now only given on the club website with the exception of very late changes. I have on one occasion sent out a last minute reminder by email due to helicopter activity.
Please ensure that Brian has your latest email address and that it's written clearly. Any member without an email address should make this clear to Brian.
a Safety - Fortunately this year we have had no personal injury accident of which I am aware, other than minor cuts and bruises.
I would again remind members that models can be dangerous, and that if you do have an accident when flying alone, even applying a sticking plaster can be difficult.
Moral of the story is not to fly alone. I would remind you that any accident which requires medical attention should be reported to the committee.
I would also remind members that as part of our health and safety review to the MOD, we state that first aid is available.
To obtain our licence for 2014, I have used the same risk assessment as last year which runs to 9 pages. This will form part of the club rules. To keep printing costs to a minimum, I will circulate the risk assessment and the rules for 2014 by email.
b Membership numbers
Brian will give a report on membership numbers.
The committee recommends that the membership be limited to 80 active members for 2014, Again as in previous years, Martinique is the only site which has come close to being overloaded. We have found that Bramshott has not had much use and as such hasn't effectively increased capacity even with the use of professional mowing.
We will take a vote on the maximum member limit in Brian's section.
c Noise - We have had no formal complaint about noise this year, however, I still get regular reminders about keeping within the specified limits from Landmarc.
The licence sets out the limit of the flying area as does the BMFA rules in relation to proximity of houses. Last year we drew your attention to the permitted flying area at Martinique. This is still valid.
Just to remind you again, the standard is 82 dbA at 7m in any direction with the meter set to “slow”. Please ensure that your model is tested before flying, particularly if it appears noisy.
d Licence - The licence is renewable every year in November. This year, the MOD has held the licence fee to £2450.
We now have the licence for next year, qualified only by the usual statement that we may be restricted from using any of the sites if our “events” clash with MOD use.
The logging in process appears to be working well. We have had no complaints from the MOD.
e BMFA We have had regular contact with BMFA.
f Club Fees – Mike Dunkley will go through the accounts, which show that we have made a profit of about £800 this year. The committee has decided to propose that the fees remain the same as last year. The BMFA fees remain the same as last year.
g Committee resignations – The committee have agreed if elected to retain their positions as for 2013.
h 35mhz operating Channels – As last year, all channels are available at all sites with the exception of channel 55 at Martinique where we have agreed to allocate this channel to an ex member who flies about half a mile from the site. Can you please ensure that you let Brian have a complete (realistic) list of channels which you want to use?
i Website - We have had no adverse comments regarding the website, so I assume that it's working satisfactorily. It attracted one unusual contact. This lady wanted to come and interview some of our members and video the models in flight. Unfortunately as visitors and particularly those wishing to make video require approval from the MOD, I reluctantly had to turn her down.
j Grass Cutting Last year we decided that the club mowers were not suitable for the heavy work involved in keeping Martinique and Bramshott in good condition. We have employed and external/internal contractor to cut the grass. The extra cost of this was reflected in last year's fees.
This seems to be working well, but unfortunately hasn't stopped the bike riders.
Mike Dunkley - Treasurer’s report
Mike took the meeting through the accounts.
These are attached as Appendix 1
A show of hands confirmed acceptance of the accounts
Mike Dunkley - Proposal for new fee structure
Mike proposed that as the club had made a profit of £808.72 against a loss of over £900 last year the committee proposed to keep the club fees as last year. The BMFA element remains unchanged. The saving was mainly the result of the number of grass cuts being less than predicted.
The following fees were proposed:
New member/Lapsed member joining fee £10
Senior member (including BMFA) £82
Junior member (including BMFA) £17
Senior member (already a BMFA member) £50
Junior member (already a BMFA member) Free
Social member Non Flying £17
A show of hands confirmed acceptance of the new fee structure
Brian Fuller - Membership Report
Brian said that membership this year had reached 76 paying members. We hadn't needed to use the Hankley and Bramshott only rule for new members joining after the limit of 80 had been reached. Brian asked if there were any objections to keeping the limit of membership numbers at 80 and allowing additional members in as "Hankley and Bramshott only" as last year?
A show of hands confirmed acceptance of the existing arrangement.
Bill Silk – Bramshot
Bill confirmed that there had been little activity at Bramshott but no problems had been noted. Bill stressed that he was no longer the Bramshott representative.
Nicholas Tyson – Hankley common
Things have gone quite well at Hankley this year. We did have some worry about the access to the car park, but this does not now appear to be a problem. Hopefully, this situation will remain as it is.
Also, the gate to the military area is generally closed when we arrive for flying. We still have to phone the DZ huts, but usually there's no reply. The rule still stands, so we mustn't get complacent.
Noise:- We are keeping an eye on noise and trying to keep the level as low as possible so that we don't get any complaints from other users at Hankley (dog walkers etc.)
THIS YEAR:-
Attendance - good attendance, especially on Sunday mornings helped by the fact that we have some new members at Hankley. One is Gavin Clark. I saw him flying a Super Kinetic the other day. It is small and fast! Maybe a little too fast for me but it's cheap so it might suit our Chairman, Tony!!!
We've had a Walrus invasion! NOT the fish-eating type but an electric powered glider from Hobby City. The numbers seem to be increasing at an alarming rate. Yes, I've got one!
One thing we must do next year is to clear some trees from the flying site, but we wouldn't do this without getting permission from Landmarc and the MOD.
Looking forward to some good flying in 2014.
Election of Committee
The committee have agreed to stand for the next year.
The chairman asked for proposals for new committee members.
The chairman called for a show of hands for those agreeing to the existing committee remaining on seats
The meeting recorded a 100% vote in favour of the existing committee to remain in place.
Any other business
The following items were raised in Any Other Business and action points produced:
1 Stuart Risby asked if it would be possible to have an evening workshop for newcomers to learn from the more experienced members.
Action: Stuart to talk to Jim Ayling, and to visit Martinique where these things are discussed regularly.
2 Stephen Wyatt (in absentia) asked if we could arrange for access to the Martinique site via the original gate on the A 325 as the bridge had been repaired.
Action: The Chairman to discuss this with Landmark/MOD
3 Peter Cabrol asked if we could approach the MOD to fill in pot holes on the site access roads.
Action: The Chairman to discuss this with Landmark/MOD
4 Richard Marker, seconded by Pete Godfrey asked if the club could return to the original pit location at Martinique and fly facing West to avoid having to face the sun when flying in the mornings.
Other members pointed out that the problem of the sun would then occur in the evenings.
Richard and Pete still considered that the change was worthy of further examination.
The Chairman pointed out that it was a condition of the licence that flying met with the terms of the formal Risk Analysis and the conditions of the licence which set out in detail the position of the pits, the flying areas and the proximity of houses in the area. If the club decided that it wanted to make changes to the mode of flying, these documents would have to be revised to suit and submitted to Landmarc for approval.
Action: Richard Marker and Pete Godfrey to study the existing documentation and then submit a detailed proposal to the committee covering any changes which they considered appropriate.
Chairman’s cup
The Chairman said:
"In making the decision as to whom I should award the Chairman’s Cup, I have tried as always to treat all members as equal.
Again I've tried to be serious when looking for someone who stands out as having made a real and non frivolous contribution to the sport of model aircraft flying.
Last year I made the award to James Sanford, a condition of the award was that he produced at least 4 videos for the club website using his up market iPhone 5. We haven't seen any videos by him. However we do have a regular presentation of the latest photographs of his new baby. This weekly update is now reaching the point where we've made it clear to him that he will be allowed 2 minutes per week in which to show us the photographs after which either he switches the phone off or we walk away.
So this year, I looked for someone with an interest in developing the sport - again I stress in a non frivolous way - the non frivolous element was the difficult part.
In the end, I decided that one of the members who had contributed much to the sport of model building and flying (I don't know why he has a fixation with Polish aircraft) was Jim Ayling, so this year I make the award of Chairman's cup to Jim."
At this point Jim modestly protested and said that he had received the award in the past.
The Chairman made it clear that as this was the Chairman's Cup, the Chairman was allowed to make and break the rules as he wished.
The meeting closed at 8:45.
Appendix 1
Accounts for 2013
is on
the next page