Minutes of The General Meeting of The Lyme Regis Branch. Held at The Woodmead Halls, Lyme Regis, Thursday The 14th Of May 2015 at 19:00 Hours.

MINUTES OF THE GENERAL MEETING OF THE LYME REGIS BRANCH.HELD AT THE WOODMEAD HALLS, LYME REGIS,

THURSDAY THE 14th OF MAY 2015 AT 19:00 HOURS.

Exhortation:

The Chairman.

Present:
	Mr David Manners	Chairman
	Mr David Humphrey	Vice Chairman/Membership Secretary
	Mr Tony Smith	Honorary Secretary
	Mr Martin Jones	Honorary Treasurer
	Mrs Ania Driver	Welfare Representative
	Mr Kevin Taylor	Parade Marshal
	Mr Jon Hunt	Standard Bearer
	Mrs Angela Manners.	Member
Apologies:
	Mr Cecil Quick	President
	Mrs Jacqueline Ward	Poppy Appeal Organiser
	Mrs Sylvia Marler	Member
	Mr Peter Ward	Member

Minutes of the Last Meeting:

The Minutes of the last Meeting held on the 5th of March 2015 were agreed as a true record and signed by The Chairman; [who also signed The Minutes of the GM of the 8th of January, passed at the last GM].

Proposed: Kevin Taylor

Seconded: Ania Driver

Carried: Unanimously.

Matters Arising:

None.

Additions to the Agenda.

None.

Chairman.

• A very big thank you to our Vice Chairman for his hard work in organising the Dinner at The Golf Club. It was a really good evening. A letter of thanks has been sent to The Chairman of The Club. Next year’s Dinner will be held, again at The Golf Club, on Saturday the 23 April.
• Thank you to those of you who turned out for The Blessing of The Boats last Sunday and in particular to Jon, our Standard Bearer. Keeping ourselves in the public eye is so important. There are some good photographs in today’s View From Lyme.
• The Quiz: is next Wednesday evening, the 20th at The Nag’s head. Everything is in hand. Raffle prizes would be welcome from those attending. I have posters here for distribution; it is not advertised in The Lyme News but is in The View From Lyme.
• The Fun Run: It was decided that The Fun Run, planned for Armed Forces Day, would be postponed until next year. In future, for any large event, especially those involving outside organisations and agencies, a Sub-Committee would be formed to share responsibilities throughout The Committee.
• Armed Forces Day. Nothing else is planned for Armed Forces Day.
• VJ Day. After some discussion, a provisional programme was agreed for Sat 5 Sep 15
• ·         14:00 hours   Parade along the Marine Parade to The Shelters.
• ·         Parade composition as per Remembrance Day.
• ·         14:10 hours   Short service and Mayoral Address.
• ·         15:30 hours   Tea and Buns in Woodmead Halls.
• ·         17:00 hours   Bands set up.
• ·         18:00 hours   Entertainment.
• Flags and collection boxes may be available from VE Day.
• County Funding for £500 will be requested.
• Facebook. 106 people are followers. The Quiz is advertised on there as is every event we do.
• The Plaque and Certificate: will be mounted on the wall here tomorrow.
• News from County. 43 emails have been received. Important topics:
• A new Membership Database; many emails about County involvement with VE Day; our County has been awarded The Certificate of Merit as runner-up in The Downing Shield, (for recruitment and membership), at The RBL National Conference and The County Chairman will receive it this weekend: we should thank our Vice Chairman for his contribution to this award; new MS4 Forms for membership Applications have been issued; training events for this year,(Ania and Jacqui are attending The BM Course in July, and Jon is doing Standard Bearer training); various messages about Branch Association Fees; two examples of Branch Newsletters – but these only work by email so cannot be done by us.
• New Branch President. A nomination could not be made by our current President due to ill health. The Vice Chairman was concerned that the current Vice President was also in poor health, but felt he should be involved in the procedure out of courtesy. 
• No specific candidates will be discussed by The Committee until protocol has been observed.

Vice Chairman.

NTR.

Honorary Secretary.

When I received apologies from Jacqui and Sylvia they mentioned that the raffle at The Dinner had raised £200.

Honorary Treasurer.

		Last Report 05 Mar 2015	This Report 14 May 2015
The Branch holds	Current Account	£389.95	£672.38
	Branch Funds at Head Office	£11,658.06	£11,715.13
	Total	£12,048.01	£12,387.51

Notes:

Following e-mails from County suggesting that branches had not made proper arrangements for the payment of annual subscriptions to head office, I sought to explain that this branch had been fully compliant with all the procedures.

Prior to this meeting, I had circulated to The Chairman, Vice Chairman and Secretary, copies of HO instructions, our signed mandate and the letter of apology from The Deputy Director General of the Legion, John Graham.

Our enduring mandate has been in place since April 2010 and it was merely a glitch in HO Membership Department procedures that caused a problem in 2013; all is now under control.

Welfare Representative.

Visits continue. I have Report Forms in a new format which I do not understand. David is going through them with me after this meeting.

Poppy Appeal Organiser. 

Not present.

Membership Secretary.

The membership now stands at 156, an increase of three from my last report on membership in March.

·         113 Members pay by Direct Debit.

·         39 Pay by the Cash method.

·         2 are Youth members, a one off payment of £5:00.

·         2 are Life Members.

The cash paying side of the membership is slowly dropping in accordance with RBL policy. In fact, the latest membership application form MS4/0415 no longer has any mention of receiving cash from a prospective member. The only methods of payment now are by Direct Debit, Cheque, or postal order.

Parade Marshal. 

On the 21st of June there will be a Weymouth Veterans’ Parade. This is not a RBL parade but standards, including ours, will take part.

County Standard Bearer training will be held in The Memorial Hall, Bovington on Sundays the 6th of September and the 4th of October. County Competition on the 10th of October.

Standard Bearer.

Training with The County Standard Bearer at Crewkerne on the 22nd and 29th of May.

Future Meetings:

The next meeting will be an EGM concerning VJ Day on Thursday the 11th of June 2015. Venue and timings to follow.

Next GM:

Thursday the 2nd of July, Woodmead Halls, 19:00 hours.

Meeting Closed: at

20:15 hours.