2015 NOPS annual general meeting

Last night saw the 2015 Nottingham Outlaws AGM held in the meeting room at the Richard Herrod Leisure Centre with some big changes to the club for 2016.

The meeting commenced at just past 8pm with the chairman, George Reilly, addressing the attendees and giving his report for the year in which he praised and thanked committee members for their efforts over the past twelve months as well as the attendees representing members for their continued support of the club. George also added during his address that he felt the club has overcame potential difficulties at the beginning of the year and as a result are facing a positive future which, with various changes going forward, would be evident in 2016.

The reports of other committee members followed, highlights of which saw the treasurer confirm financial stability which is expected to continue with clubroom changes, the programme secretary stating that the calendar is complete for the coming year and will be a lot more fluid to allow changes at any given time and the competition secretary highlighting the successes of external competitions throughout the year.

 

Next up on the agenda was the election of committee members for the next term which saw the continuation of some in their roles along with a few changes both to personnel and structure.

George Reilly announced his intention to continue for a third and final year as club chairman which was agreed unopposed as were the re-elections of Lois Webb, Rob Haywood, Tom Cross and Phil Hodgkinson in their roles of general secretary, Treasurer, programme secretary and media secretary respectively. John Young was also re-elected as competition secretary but a change in the structure has divided the role into internal competition secretary and external competition secretary of which John will take the internal role.

Rick Martindale (by proxy) and Paul Broom stood down from their roles as vice chairman and membership secretary and George Reilly thanked them for the efforts for the club during their tenure, leaving their committee positions, along with the newly created external competition secretary to be filled.

The first position to be filled was the role of vice chairman and George Reilly nominated honorary and founder member Steve Roper for the role which was quickly seconded. Steve will bring a lot of experience to the position along with his obvious long history and love for the club. After already taking on the role of assistant programme secretary alongside Tom Cross, John Hodgkinson expressed his interest in taking the responsibility of membership secretary which was nominated and seconded as he was welcomed to the 2016 committee. Finally Lester Woodward agreed a return to the Nottingham Outlaws committee, this time in the role of external competition secretary which was created to reduce the workload of running the competitions over the year. Welcome back Lester.

 

A potential change of location to the Outlaws clubroom has been a discussion point for many a committee meeting where solutions have been seeded for balancing the membership level, the space for events and the cost both to members and the club. During these meetings a couple of alternatives were established, one away from the Richard Herrod centre in a church hall and another in a former club room within the centre. A vote was cast on these alternatives along with remaining in the room we currently occupy which resulted in a unanimous vote for the former club room. The change will see us returning to the clubroom above and behind the bowls green after a successful negotiation with the bowling centre manager and will also see a reduction in the weekly entrance fee, full details of this change will follow.

 

During the meeting several side discussions took place around the agenda items including suggestions from members for the programme which were most welcomed by Tom Cross who continuously seeks feedback on the programme and ideas going forward both directly and via the open thread on the members forum within the members area of the Nottingham Outlaws website. An interesting and popular talking point regarding the programme was the potential for a few more social events within the clubroom which allowed for chatting and socialising among members as it was felt that the 15 minute break in events simply did not allow enough time for getting to know fellow members and general photography chat, George Reilly pointed out that he has never attended an event where he did not either learn something or catch up with a fellow member through socialising.

A way to discuss the awareness of, and arrangement of, the annual ‘Kit-Kat’ along with arranging other social outings outside the club programme among members was also raised with the members forum being pointed out as the ideal means for this. As mentioned above, the members forum can be found within the members area of the Nottingham Outlaws website and has sections covering help and advice on various genres of photography as well as ‘The Outlaws Cafe’ which is a social outlet intended to provide members with an area to discuss and arrange any aspect of social meetings and gatherings of Outlaws members along with general chat. The Outlaws forum is a members only feature of which all members have unique password protected access ensuring privacy within the confines of club membership.

 

I would like to thank all attendees for a constructive and productive AGM and I look forward positively and with anticipation to 2016 at the Nottingham Outlaws, a feeling I am sure that is shared with those in attendance.

 

-Phil Hodgkinson,

Media Secretary.