| Secretaries Report 2005 |
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Annual Secretaries Report February 7, 2005 Well, another year has gone by and yet again I have been talked into staying on in this job. Despite all our efforts to find a replacement no one has come forward willing to volunteer. This will be my seventh year. And I believe it is about time for a new Secretary. I will be turning 77 this year and would like to slow down a bit as I have a few health problems. Anyone thinking about it will be given any help needed and I am still willing to do the paperwork and look after our Internet site. Sort of like an assistant secretary. I know I said this last year but I would very much like to be relieved of the main secretary responsibility especially the continual hunt for speakers. The past year has been a sort of ordinary year. We had 21 meetings here in this Hall, a lunch at SkyCity, plus 4 Day-Tours, an extended tour and a Christmas lunch making a total of 27 events. We had 776 attendances at those 27 events for an average of 29 per event. I must hereby thank those faithful members who so regularly attend. Only one person attended all 27 events (Secretary) while another 2 attended 26 events (Venning / Stroud). 21 persons attended only 1 event for the whole year. Regarding the membership, this now stands at 324, down 17 from last years 341. We had just 2 new members for the year while 19 members passed away during the year. With this falling membership I like to again stress the importance of obtaining new members. After all, as we still have several rail systems working in this State there has be a continuous flow of persons retiring. Regarding the years activities, the highest attended meeting was not our Christmas Lunch as usual but the October 25 meeting when Cliff Olds was the speaker when 39 persons turned up. Our Christmas Lunch was second with 38 attending. And as usual our Christmas Lunch would have to be the highlight of the year. I believe the food and service was excellent with the expense of free drinks turning out to be very reasonable. The lowest attendance was on August 16 when just 21 persons turned up to hear John Gawen from Community Fire Safe talk about “How to identify Fire Hazards”. This is very regretful as his topics are very interesting. Out of the total membership of 324, 62 full members attended one or more meetings and 16 members wives. We also had 5 friend members attending. That is a total of 83. Wouldn’t it be nice to see all those at one meeting at the same time? Our extended tour to Dubbo was enjoyed by those taking part despite only 16 members present. We had a total of 27 travellers on the coach; the extra 11 came c/o the coach company. In an attempt to get more of our members attending I have again been busy sending out 53 programs plus a little newsletter to existing members who have not attended for a while in the hope that some will turn up again. Another 4 have gone out via e-mail. Anyone with an e-mail address please let me know, as it is a lot cheaper than postage. Has anyone any questions about this report? Thank you all. |