Annual General Meeting 2024
The Group held its AGM on 15th July, as a virtual (Zoom) meeting. The AGM is the forum in which the group’s trustees report to the Group Scout Council, to whom they are accountable for ensuring that the scout group, a registered charity, is properly run and managed. The Group Scout Council is made up of all our adult volunteers, the parents of all our young members, and some of the young members themselves – our Explorer Scouts and the Patrol Leaders from the Scouts section.
At this year’s meeting, we reappointed seven existing trustees to serve for a further year. These included Nigel Harris who continues as group chair, and Andy Panayides who continues as group treasurer. Nick Fisk also automatically continues as a trustee in his role as group lead volunteer. In accordance with new advice from the Scout Association, Hannah Yeomanson, who formerly served as group secretary, ended her term as a trustee, but will continue in the role of secretary to the trustee board, arranging and documenting our meetings.
The trustees proposed a small increase in termly subscription fees, from £45 per term to £49 per term, to be reviewed annually with the intention of ensuring that subscriptions cover the normal running costs of the group, including rental of meeting venues and storage space, routine meeting expenses, badges, insurance, training, and the per-capita fees that we pay to fund scouting at district, county and national level. When we run off-site camps and events, we charge fees sufficient to cover their costs. Other major expenses, such as vehicle purchasing and maintenance, camping equipment, etc. are met through our annual fundraising, the January curbside Christmas tree collection. The AGM considered and accepted the fee increase proposal.
The meeting heard from Nick Fisk, who reviewed some of the highlights of the past year and thanked his team of adult volunteers who work so hard throughout the year to create a fantastic programme of meetings, activities, events, and camps for our young members. We also heard from Andy Panayides, who gave us a run-down of the group’s financial position. The trustees’ annual report to the Charity Commission, together with our financial statement for the year ended 2024 can be viewed here: TAR and Accounts 2024.
Finally, we heard from visiting representatives from Esher district scouts. David Vorbrich (district chair) remarked how pleased he was to see the group thriving, having pulled through a difficult period, with many changes in leadership roles. Tom Wilkinson (district commissioner team) told us about his recent experience of having worked directly with some of our explorer scouts (14 to 17-year olds) on their Duke of Edinburgh award scheme, and what a testament to the group these competent young people were.
In closing, Nigel Harris, who chaired the meeting, thanked everyone who gives up their time to help the group. He reminded us that everyone in the group is a volunteer, and that all contributions are highly valued, from the uniformed leaders who devote huge amounts of time and energy and do such a fantastic job for our young people, to the people who work behind the scenes, but help the group with essential admin.
