Tuesday 28 April 2015

29th AGM on Monday 27th April 2015

We held our AGM last night in the meeting room at Norcliffe Chapel, Styal.  13 members attended plus Styal ranger Simon Hiley.

The formal business was completed in an hour:

Approval of the minutes of the 2014 AGM
Chairman’s Report for 2014/15
Treasurer’s Report for 2014/15
Election of committee for 2015/16 (Adrian, Ally, Daniel, Denise, Matt, Sue, Tim)
AOB

Denise Clark, Kate Bass and Sarah Bujac received their 5-year badges from Simon (long overdue - they have each done 7 or 8 years!)



After refreshments of tea/coffee and homebaked chocolate cake and banana & choc chip muffins we had an excellent and fascinating talk by Alex Dawson (a founding father) about MNTV's foundation and early years.

Alex had travelled all the way from Kirkby Lonsdale in the Lake District to be with us.  He told us the group had its inaugural meeting on 21 April 1986 in Altrincham library.  35 people joined that night! (and we have 35 members now!)  There are many similarities between the group’s activities then and now, notably the worktasks, some worksites, the enjoyment we get from our work and of course all the fun!  Workdays then (9am to 4pm) were a little longer than today, there were fewer of them (two every three weeks) but to a lot more worksites (including ones we don't visit today like Erddig and the Long Mynd), there were more weekends away (six a year) and MNTV organised an annual multi-group Megabash (with on one occasion 500-600 volunteers!!)  In the early years the newsletters were written on a typewriter.  Alex brought along copies of issues 1-18 for the group to keep.  Daniel will digitise some and email them to members.  At the end of the evening Alex took home an MNTV mug as a memento of his visit!

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