News & Information (General)

Your committee proposes the attached amendment to our constitution to bring us up to date with digital age. This will be submitted to the AGM on 18th November.

ITEM 7 FINANCES. After " these shall be signed by any TWO of the Signatories or through recognised internet" Add " or telephone banking procedure"

ITEM 8. "Given the need for the Society to hold AGM and/or Executive Committee Meetings despite COVID restrictions on physical meetings, the Executive Committee resolve that in order to comply with good governance it will hold the next AGM and future Executive Committee meetings online virtually or as hybrid meetings despite the lack of authority to do so in the constitution. Persons who register to join the meeting online in accordance with the information supplied by the Society will be taken to be present and count as part of the quorum and be entitled to join and participate in the relevant meeting as if they were physically present"

ITEM 9. VOTING delete "by closed ballot" and insert "by show of hands"

The reasons for the amendments are as follows:

ITEM 7. Modern technology allows for both electronic means of making transactions. The safe guard will be that there are still 2 persons to authorise the transaction.

ITEM 8. Dispensation was granted to permit organisations to hold meetings of members (AGMs & GMs), committee meetings and regular meetings of members "virtually" despite the lack of authority to do so in the constitutions. The Corporate Insolvency & Governance Act 2020 (CIGA) permitted this and the dispensation was supported by the Charity Commission who adopted a pragmatic approach permitting delayed meetings and for them to be held virtually rather than face to face. Many societies took up the dispensation and indeed found it helpful to hold virtual meetings.

This dispensation ended on 30th March. COVID restrictions will no doubt vary over time but the above amendments should enable continued good governance of your Society.

Brian Airey

Secretary

We have been contacted by a person who has a fiche reader to give away. If anyone is interested please contact me

Brian Airey

Secretary

Results of Post COVID questionnaire

May I give a big thank you to all 82 of you who responded to my questionnaire. That is an impressive 30% of our members and responses came from all round the world. The responses resulted in a committee meeting that was twice our normal length!

Of course, this survey was anonymous which means that I must ask those people who said they were willing to do things to get in touch with us. I will mention those as I precis the results.

We had four replies from Australasia and one from North America. 50% of replies came from within our area but that means that 50% replied from other parts.

It is obvious that we are an ageing group. The vast majority are aged between 60 and 79 (72%), 17% are over 80 and 11% are aged 40-59. There were no responses from people under 40. Of these people 94% are retired.

Seven people stated they would be able to give talks. Please get in touch with our chairman.

Two people would like to join the committee. Let us know who you are.

Two people said they could help with organising the library. Please get in touch with Brian Airey.

One person has said they can host Zoom meetings. YES PLEASE. After our technical difficulties on Thursday that help would be much appreciated.

With regards to Zoom workshops we’ll let you know when these will begin. Zoom workshops are so much easier to arrange than physical ones but bear with us while we organise them.

A staggering 26 of you said they would be willing to write articles for Buckets and Spades. Please send Sue Maguire your articles.

With regards to the website, the overall impression was that you are mostly pleased with it. We are continually looking at ways to improve it.

Going forward we asked whether you would prefer Face to Face meetings, Zoom meetings or option of both. Obviously, this question was aimed at those who came to our meetings.

28% would prefer Face to Face

15% would prefer Zoom

57% would prefer the option of both.

It has therefore been decided that when we can meet Face to Face again, we will hopefully livestream them over Zoom and they will then be available on the website.

With regards to future meetings, there are doubts over Vintage Church, and so we are in the process of negotiating a new venue at Our Lady of Lourdes Church Hall in Baytree Road, Milton. We are also considering having meetings in the afternoons rather than in the evenings. Once again, we are still in discussions regarding this.

Thank you all for the extra comments at the end of the survey. 34 of you responded and be assured every one has or will be discussed.

Hi I am an amateur genealogist and aviation researcher with a specific interest in the Dambusters Raid of World War 2. Jack Liddell was the youngest of the Dambusters to die on that raid. I am looking to get him an appropriate memorial such as a blue plaque. I have done some research but not come up with much. I wondered if any of you had any information.

I can be contacted on Amarkham7@aol.com

The latest issue of Family Tree magazine (Sept) features our Society in their 'Spotlight on...' feature.  Great pictures and text put together by our vice chairman Peter de Dulin.