Connecting Country’s AGM and Annual Report
Posted on 26 September, 2013 by Connecting Country
On Tuesday 24 September 2013, more than 50 members and other supporters attended Connecting Country’s Annual General Meeting. The special resolution to adopt a new constitution for Connecting Country was endorsed unanimously. Eight nominations filled the eight positions on the Committee of Management, and therefore no election was needed.
Newly elected president Brendan Sydes thanked departing committee members Geoff Park and Elvyne Hogan for their considerable contributions, and also welcomed new committee members Ann-Marie Monda and Lynne Josephs. Brendan also paid particular tribute to Marie Jones, who has taken on the role of vice president after many years as an outstanding and hard-working president of Connecting Country. The complete minutes of the AGM will be available on the Connecting Country website soon.
Marie Jones (left), former President and now Vice President and Lynne Josephs (right), a new Committee member, who has taken on the role of Secretary. (Anne-Marie Monda, the other new Committee member, was not able to attend the AGM.)
Connecting Country’s second Annual Report was also launched at the AGM. An electronic PDF copy of this Annual Report, which covers our achievements for the 2012-13 year is available by clicking here (1.9 MB). Please let us know if you have any problems downloading it, or if you’d like to discuss any aspect of its contents.
Following the formalities of the AGM, there were some entertaining and inspirational talks.
First, Geoff Park described the long term plan that Connecting Country has developed to assist woodland birds in the local area. Parts of this plan have already been used in an application through the Communities for Nature grant process (fingers crossed!).
Chris Timewell (CC Director) and Ern Perkins (representing the Castlemaine Field Naturalists Club) then presented a complete set of hard-copy archive-quality photos from the Photopoint project to Carol Dorman of the Castlemaine Historical Society. As guest speaker, Ern proceeded to presented an amazing talk about the Photopoint Project and the database that has been developed by him and Connecting Country volunteer Cara Byrt to display the photos. (NB: There’ll be more information on the Photopoint Project database and DVD in a subsequent blog). He also spoke about some interesting aspects of the vegetation monitoring that the Field Nats have been undertaking over recent years.
Thanks to everyone who attended and contributed to the evening.
People enjoying a chat and refreshments at the conclusion of the meeting.
Hello all. I know I don’t attend any of your events except the occasional’ tree planting when I am able, but do you need to send so many emails?
Perhaps a once weekly one would do, if you are well organised.
Best wishes and thanks for everything that you are doing. It is really fantastic.
Hi Grace, Thanks for your feedback.
It’s tricky to get the balance right. We aim not to send out any more than 3 emails in any one week, and to have an average of no more than 2 per week. Its been busier than usual over the past 3-4 weeks because there has been so many exciting and relevant events happening across the local area.
We are looking into the feasibility of email subscribers having an option where they only receive one email per week, which is a summary of all our website blogs from the past week. I’ll let you know if we are able to arrange this.
Yours,
Chris