Founded 1957 MSA recognised No. 120522 British Motorsports Marshals’ Club THE marshals’ club Website: www.marshals.co.uk BRITISH MOTORSPORTS MARSHALS’ CLUB LIMITED Minutes of 56th AGM – 8th December 2013 at Donington Park Present Council Members Chris Hobson; Chris Whitlock; George Copeland; Mike Cadwallader; John Watson; Mike Grantham; Paul Harris; Neil Stretton; Roy Bowman; Jon Cordery; Eric Ridler; Paul Sutcliffe; Colin Barnes; Steve Malec; Andy Holley; Chris Allsopp; Peter Wilson; Lynne Kendal; Di Hardy Members Ben Harris; Bill Turnbull; Malcolm Flippance; June Copeland; Steve Angel; Ian Berry; Mike Blacklock; Noreen Ward; Alan Ward; Stephanie Harding; Matt Hunter; Richard Sneader; John Jones; Derek Machin Apologies Wendi Batteson; John Cunningham; Mike Shorley; Stephen Green; David Owen; Steve Hill; Julie Hill; Dave Eley; Eddie Brammer; Philip Parkes; Margaret Parkes; Peter Roberts; John Roberts; Caroline Murphy; Kathleen Thurman; Dave Middleton; John Jefferys; Chris Hall; Shelagh Scott; Bob Rae; Maggie O’Malley Previous Minutes The minutes of the 55th AGM of BMRMC Ltd held on 9th December 2012 were accepted as a true record of the meeting. Proposed: John Watson Seconded: Peter Wilson Matters Arising There were no matters arising. Chairman’s Report 1. Another very successful year with membership still over 2,200. Many thanks to Paul Sutcliffe for his Membership Secretary duties, where he has been joined by his son as a very useful assistant. 2. On a very sad note a valued member of Council, Sue Whitlock, lost her battle against cancer. She had put up a fantastic fight – an inspiration to all, and she continued to act as our bookkeeper and conscience right to the very end. Our condolences went out to Chris who soldiered on magnificently and has done a superb job as secretary. His attention to detail is fantastic and he keeps us very much within our rules and regulations. Highly unusually Council took the decision to award the marshal of the year trophy early this year and I am pleased to say it goes jointly to Chris and Sue Whitlock. 3. A professional bookkeeper is now in place (part time) to manager our accounts, whilst I am pleased to say Colin Barnes from North Region has taken on the task of managing our ever increasing members who use direct debits as their mechanism for paying their membership fees. 4. Our financial situation continues to be good – as George Copeland will report. George has once again worked tirelessly to ensure we remain solvent and have the best possible value for money arrangements with our insurers. We had some difficulty in overcoming an historical accounting problem with our Northern Ireland Rescue Vehicle account, but I am happy to say that has been overcome and we have, once again, a very healthy set of accounts. 5. Stephen Green has decided that he needs more time to concentrate on the development of his own business and has, reluctantly, resigned from his post as PRO. Over his years in office he has raised our profile within and without the sport and has sought and managed sponsors for the club. Chris Allsop from Midland region has volunteered to take over the duties and is now in post. 6. My thanks also to Peter Wilson for continuing the BTCC recruitment campaign and for coordinating the volunteering for taster days. As you will hear, Peter is reducing his involvement in 2013 and we will need to take up any slack so caused. I hope everyone will help your regional officers in this matter. 7. Once again we are indebted to Jonathan Palmer for his support and I thank him for his generous contribution of a day out at Bedford Autodrome for the Annual Membership Renewal Prize Draw, the Marshals Trackdays at MSV Circuits and his continued support of all marshals. Unfortunately it is unlikely this will be repeated in 2014, so we are looking to provide an incentive prize ourselves. 8. Our sponsor initiatives continue to ensure our members can replace their overalls at nominal cost once every three years and we also have replaced on a one-off basis quite a few overalls that have been damaged whilst marshals were carrying out their duties. We are considering extending this scheme to waterproof clothing and other marshalling items. 9. I once again collected a cheque for £2,500 from the Kop Hill hillclimb organisers and we made a profit on out sprints at Curborough. My thanks for these generous contributions and continued support of the Marshals’ Club. 10. We have good representation on the various MSA committees and working groups.. I sit on Race Committee, Chair the Marshals Working Group, which gives me a seat on the Volunteer Officials Advisory Panel and guest status on the Training Working Group ( where we have produced the vast majority of all the training modules so far) and also the Drag Race sub-committee. George Copeland sits as the Marshals Representative on the Association of British Motor Racing Clubs Mike Shorley sits on the Speed and Hillclimb sub-committee Jon Cordery sits on Rallies Committee and Volunteer Officials Advisory Panel Andy Holley is about to join the Training Working Group. Between us we push the marshals’ points of view. We are often outvoted but we continue to try to improve all marshals working conditions and recognition. We continue to lead improvements in the grading scheme where some still think it is our scheme not the MSA’s. 11. I am very pleased to report the Club still leads with the delivery of training days, not only with our own training days but with Club members delivering training for other clubs. 12. We look forward to the start of the new training season with much more defined agenda for all MSA subsidised days. 13. As is usual, we hope to be at the Autosports and the Race Retro shows. 14. Of course everyone else on our National Council and in our regional committees has also provided excellent service to our members and we must thank them all in exactly the same manner. The enormous amount of effort they have put into running this club is a direct contribution to our continued growth in members and influence. It is true to say we are the only club run by marshals for marshals – and long may it continue. 15. I must not miss out our BRMC members. The Rally Marshals Club is still at the forefront of improving the standard of rally marshalling and provides a fantastic service to the organising clubs. They continue to be an integral and important part of our club. Their AGM will follow ours and I would ask you to give them your support. 16. As we move into 2014 I can assure everyone we will continue to pursue the cause of all marshals, whether they are members of our club or not. 17. On a personal note I have decided to retire from full time employment as of this December. I hope that moving to a part time role I will be able to free up more time to devote to the club and my chairman’s role. 18. I will finish by thanking those who have worked for the club over the past 12 months in any way what so ever. It is a fantastic club! I have been a member now for some 44 years and hope to continue that membership for many years to come. Chris Hobson National Chairman Secretary’s Report 1. A Difficult Year Personally this has been a difficult year. Aware that Sue’s health was failing the first part of the year was spent planning and managing the handover of her responsibilities. Time was of the essence; we were all too aware that Sue’s oncologist had not expected her to survive past Christmas 2012; she was on borrowed time. There were a host of issues to overcome. The transfer of responsibility for overall subsidies to Eric Ridler passed smoothly and I thank Eric for his help in this. However, there were problems finding a successor to take on responsibility for the administration of Direct Debit payments. Colin Barnes eventually stepped forward to take on the role. Unfortunately, Sue passed away before the handover was fully completed and there was a bit of a hiatus while HSBC and BACS got to grips with the situation and completed technical transfers and training. My thanks to Colin for his help and perseverance. We also had to introduce new financial procedures for authorising the payment of bills and expenses by our new Bookkeeper, a contracted service. Luckily most issues had been addressed and Sue was due to complete the handover a day after she passed away. Her advice and experience is sadly missing but we have managed to muddle through, though HSBC still insist on sending invoices to my address. 2. Council Business This year we dispensed with the Virtual Council Meeting in June and resorted to four face to face meetings. Of the three meetings to date the July Council was the best attended with only 5 non attendees despite it clashing with the Classic at Silverstone. The September meeting suffered the worst attendance with 9 absentees and that was because it clashed with the Goodwood Revival. We hope to avoid those dates next year. Summaries of Council meetings have been posted on the website. There have been a number of improvements to the website including the introduction of a search engine, privacy statement etc. We are in the process of inviting tenders for the revision of our national Membership and Grading Database. We are also in the process of rolling out an E-mail/Newsletter distribution system that will enable improved communication with members and make Newsletters exclusive to members.