Minutes of Rotary Club of Gloucester’s Council meeting on Monday, March 21st 2016
Club number 19313 | Charity number 274097
1. PRESENT
Ian Stuart (president), John Smith, David Seed, Sue Smith, Jan Layton-Smith, Martin Henshaw, John Weygang and John Lovell
2. APOLOGIES
Amanada Chamberlayne, Jeremy Keck and Clive Hannis
3. MINUTES
Minutes of the February meeting were signed without amendment
4. MATTERS ARISING
There were no items under this heading which were not covered elsewhere on the agenda.
5. PRESIDENT’S REPORT
- Area meeting:- Ian said he had been asked by district officer Paul Kerrod if the club could host an area meeting at the end of April/beginning of May. It was agreed that Martin as President elect, Sue as junior vice and Ian would liaise over dates and offer the availability of these to Paul.
- District Assembly:- Since neither Martin nor Sue was available to attend the assembly on April 23rd, the president said he would raise it at a club meeting in the event that any other member might like to attend.
6. IMMEDIATE PAST PRESIDENT
No report
7. PRESIDENT ELECT’S REPORT
Martin circulated proposed committee membership details for his year in office and invited comments. Later in the meeting it was agreed that Jan L-S should join membership as secretary to the proposed chairman Peter Nesbitt and that Ian S should become a member of the same committee.
8. JUNIOR VICE-PRESIDENT’S REPORT
Nothing to report
9. SECRETARY’S REPORT
Nothing to report
10. TREASURER’S REPORT
Martin reported that all accounts were working within the agreed budget and forecasts and the council then agreed to provide up to £5,000 for the Rotary Community Awards Scheme this year.
11. COMMITTEE REPORTS
MEMBERSHIP
Members expressed continuing concern at the length of time taken between prospective members visiting the club, receiving a nomination form and the being interviewed and inducted. In order to hasten the process it was suggested that the onus for providing a nomination form should rest with a prospective member’s proposer and that the membership committee be strengthened (see above under SVP report). John S said that his guest John Stubbings had shown interest in joining. Meanwhile Frank Lloyd Murray’s application for membership was outstanding. Council was still awaiting the deliberations of membership on the Friends document drawn up by Martin H and on the proposed list of honorary members.
FELLOWSHIP AND HOUSE
Jan L-S asked that the tremendous help given to her committee by Colin Rogers following her recent operation be recorded.
INTERNATIONAL/FOUNDATION
John S reported (a) that £240 of equipment had been provided by the club to help the recently arrived Syrian refugees (b) that the next tranche of aquaboxes were nearly ready for packing and that (c) there had been an extremely favourable response from Peter Drysdale who was heading up the Rotahomes project in Fiji to a suggestion that the memorial money for Colin Eynon be spent there (John S having exhausted efforts to find a project with the George club in South Africa). Peter would be getting back to our club with a suitable project in memory of a ‘great friend’. John said that on past experience Peter’s project would be exceptionally well defined, have a clear budget and he was very hopeful of success. Colin’s widow had been kept abreast of developments.
COMMUNITY/YOUTH
David gave an update on the Rotary Community Awards Scheme and said that he had now received 17 ‘very positive’ responses from last year’s recipients. Many recipients had used the money on schemes which, in turn, had elicited help from other communities and volunteers in the city – thus proving that little sums of cash could make a big difference. He then outlined revised arrangements for the smooth running of this year’s scheme. This involved a dedicated e-mail address and a dedicated mobile number so that prospective applicants could contact him or download an application form. Applications must be returned by Thursday, April 29th after which David S, Ian S and John S would adjudicate and the awards event would be on June 17th. It was agreed that every application would be decided on its merits whether or not the applicant had received an award last year. David was thanked by council for his continuing work on this project.
David then reported on points raised at a recent Regional Assembly he had attended. The event had been wide ranging and thought provoking and it was agreed by council that David also highlights those matters relevant to our club at the next business meeting on April 1st.
SPORTS/SOCIAL
Sue S said that this year’s meeting with Rodez would be taking place in Barcelona between Friday, May 20th and Tuesday May 24th and that a group of 10 would be attending from Gloucester. An added dimension to this year’s gathering was that Gloucester and Rodez would be meeting two Spanish Rotary clubs, one of whom would be entertaining Dutch Rotarians during the same weekend – thus making it a four nations meeting. Ian expressed his thanks to Sue for all her efforts to arrange this.
COMMUNICATIONS
In his absence the secretary read a report from Jeremy K in which he said that the website was currently undergoing a period of integration with the RI website in order that all memberhsip details are on one database as opposed to two databases as at present. The secretary said that he had also been asked to provide details and hoped that his initial action in this respect had been successful.
Jeremy also said that this year’s Old Folks’ Party was probably going to be a smaller gathering depending on the Gloucester Charities Trust. Since Rotary driver availability is limited this year, Jeremy had asked that guests from GCT get themselves to the party. In past years they have used their own minibuses but it seems they don’t have Sunday working drivers any more and the Trust won’t allow Rotarians to drive their vehicles. Otherwise all other arrangements were progressing well.
ANY OTHER BUSINESS
John W spoke about the ongoing problem of car parking at Imperial where cars parked by Rotarians had attracted car parking fines from Traffic Wardens. These had been paid by the club but John was now trying to shed light on how and why these fines had been imposed. After discussion it was agreed that we ask club member Lise Noakes (also a serving city councillor) to intervene with council leader Paul James to see if the issue could be resolved informally.
The next council meeting will take place on Monday April 18th – same venue, same time.