AGM and Committee Meeting - 11th October 2024

Our most recent committee meeting was combined with our AGM which, although never a major affair, is an important milestone in the year as we ensure we are complying with the requirements of the Charity Commission in the conduct of our business. Our annual accounts have already appeared here on the website and will now be joined by a set of the AGM minutes containing the Chairman and Treasurer’s updates, along with formal adoption of the accounts and appointment of our Officers (the Chairman, Treasurer and Secretary) and re-appointment of some of our Trustees. The accounts and Chairman’s report will also be submitted to the Charity Commission to retain our unbroken line of timely annual returns.

In real terms, the most significant event since our last committee meeting has been taking down the banners at the end of September. We were lucky that the appointed day was dry and bright after some torrential rain in the previous week, though many of the wooden poles were still very wet and needed some persuasion to part from the brackets. Once the banners had fully dried, they were inspected and those needing repair or replacement set aside for attention by our team of banner painters. It’s been quite a hard year, so quite a few will need touching up and eight to ten replacing. Our aim is to produce some new designs from the banner book and retire some of the duplicates, keeping our display fresh. Speaking of the banner book, sales have taken off recently after the book was featured in a YouTube video about banner heraldry, with copies winging their way worldwide. Another worthwhile project has been a partnership with Tewkesbury Abbey to produce printed versions of six of the most significant banners for sale in the Abbey shop.

Work on the Queen Margaret of Anjou statue we aim to erect in the Abbey groundscontinues, with our focus now on the permissions we need from Historic England given thatthe site is within the grounds of a scheduled ancient monument. We’re confident that we can make a good case, which will mean that the last (hopefully) administrative hurdle is overcome and we can turn our thoughts to bringing the project to life.

We’ve one more Committee meeting to go before the end of the year, and two more of our regular monthly Sunday walks. As always, if you’d like to play an active role in our activities, whether it be banner painting on a Monday afternoon, helping with the walks or bringing some fresh expertise and perspective, we’d love to hear from you.

A reminder, the minutes of our AGM are available for all to read.

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AGM: Change of Venue