Chairman's Report 2010-2011 To The SCoM AGM

Reporter: Ian Harford

Welcome to the 2011 Ski Club AGM. Most of us have been watching this week another AGM Conference in central Manchester. It's been hard to miss with all the TV and newspaper coverage; and nice to have the city in the news for something other than football or riots.

I liked best the story about the cat, whose feline charms swayed the immigration judge! Never mind that the Home Secretary got it a bit wrong.

But after all you heard there, maybe you are wondering what policy changes, floated in the last Ski Club Newsletter, will be thrown out tonight and replaced with something else!!

Well, rest assured - we promise never to even mention paying off your credit card debts; and tonight we will still just be asking you to agree a modest rise in subscription rates for next year.

I want to turn now to our activities over the last 12 months. It's been another good year and membership is almost 300 now, up from only 200 a few years ago. We must be getting something right! Let me give you a few examples.

Our mainstream programme included:

• Two holidays run in Les Arcs & Tignes with over 80 members
• Regular ski programme with trainers at CF twice monthly all year
• Special events included Skiathlon for disabled skiers & Sept Coaching clinics
• Keep Fit has continued though it may now have to be discontinued

The Talks programme involved three sessions on the Edale Mountain Rescue Team, Cycling in Africa (Chris Evans) and Antarctic Research (David Harrison)

The Walking programme has run over the 6 months' summer period in:
The Lakes, Manchester, Rochdale and Derbyshire

The Social programme
This has included an End of season party (Organisers: Dave and Vanessa Miller), the July BBQ (Organisers: Caroline and Alan Brown), a Golf Day (Jane Fairclough), a Mountain biking Day (Monica Boland) and a Christmas meal.

The details of all these have been included in the newsletters & website, but I would like to describe what has been done by the Committee and members to support this progamme and publicise SCoM over the year. Here are examples:

• Regular meetings held for review, budgets, action and financial planning
• Special Away Day in July run for strategic planning & Blue Sky thinking
• New Buddying system with volunteers set up for all new members
• More collaboration with other bodies like SSE and Chill Factore
• Maintenance of a strong web presence - a key information source for the public
• Publication of regular newsletters 8x pa
• Attending conferences, training events, meetings, making bids for grants
• Running a Beginners' Course run for Trafford parents - to extend membership

Five years ago at the AGM I asked 3 questions:
Are we supporting existing activities as much as poss?
Are we making use of our members" talents?
Are we making sure other people know about SCoM?

This year we have made positive progress on all these fronts, though we should not be complacent. We would still like more support for all our activities, but if one activity proves to be not wanted, it will eventually drop off the list.

More members are getting involved in organizing and volunteering their time, which is good news and we've attracted more members. Let's see if we can reach 330 in 2012! We've had successes this year but we can always do more!

I want to end by thanking all those, who have made a big contribution to our work this last year through giving their time and support:
Dave Shepherd and John Weatherell for the Holiday programme
Janet Winstanley for excellent work on the budget & finances
Carol Sencicle, now retiring, for all the work on the Newsletter
Jane Fairclough for getting speakers for events and meetings
Barry Lewis for legal and other work in support of the programme
Steve Wardle for maintaining a great website & Yahoo mailing Group
Wendy Barlow & Lindsay Harford for organising the Buddying scheme
John Weatherell for all the work supporting the CF programme & training
Alan Brown for the huge workload he does as SCoM Secretary
David Hodgkinson and Peter Fairclough, our auditors

Finally thanks must go to all the SCoM members who have helped with walks, events, socials and buddying and with generally supporting the programme.