MADGamers (Maidenhead and District Gamers)

Chairman: Tony Baker, Treasurer: Keith Shutler, Secretary: Francis Jose, President: Russ Sandy, Public Relations Officer: Mark Curran, Games Master: Rupert Oldcorn, members and guests

Russ proposed and Tony accepted that the minutes presented were an accurate account of the previous AGM.

The other day while I was up in my loft I came across a small stack of papers and found the original rules and regulations and an application form to join a new Club in Maidenhead and immediately went into a bit of a nostalgia trip. I was given this and the rest of a stack by Clint who said “pass them on and come with me next week to the first committee meeting”. Little knowing what I was getting into I went the following week and found Mark Foulds, Mike, Chris Davison and Chris Evans, Clint who came with me and Denis who like me was meeting the group for the first time. In no time I found myself drafted as the Social sec a post I held for a few years. The club was an instant hit, some nights at the football club we even ran out of table space.

I’ve watched this club in its highs and lows and have had a lot to be proud of over the years, our efforts with the MAD games, highs and lows with the bootcamp and mad days and you silly buggers turning up week in week out to push your toys about. I’ve had some good games as well and most o you have played Rapid Fire with me at some point or other, and of course I’ve made some lasting friends.

Last year I said that I wouldn’t be standing for the committee after this year, couple of reasons for that, I need a break from it and I think we have some good lads here that can and will carry the club forward which to be honest is what the club needs. I think its great that we have new people taking on Core committee posts and I’m confident that they are the right people for the posts. So well done lads and try not to take it too seriously.

We are in Credit, but we have taken a loss this year in our Finances.

We lost 2 days this year due to double booking in the club.
We have made a little extra money from the Thursday nights this year.
There will be no changes to the current subs and membership.

We have purchased the following: assorted Tape measures, 1 new centre piece of scenery, Roads, which can be cut to different configurations, and the Space Marine Battlebox. which still needs to be painted.

We have seen an increase in members, approx 4-5 new people this year, and a slight drop off in attendance from existing members. But our new members are currently outweighing the attrition.

MadDays
We have made a loss of £150 from these days,
2 reasons, firstly was the change to the cost of the Hall, a change from £10 an hour to £11 an hour.
And also not enough attendees, the last one had no kids in attendance, and 2 others we didn’t make enough money. I am proposing to stop these Days as we cannot afford to make this sort of loss again.

On a final note, there are certain people who have given to this club over the years and got little in return. To acknowledge this I am today saying thank you to Denis Jackman, who is our Webmaster, he keeps our website and Forums alive and keeps under control the spambots, he also runs games for the kids at Mad Days and is at the heart of these days. However, as a member he has not had much time to enjoy this passion, due to Work and Family commitments, so this year I am going to waive his membership fee as acknowledgement of the work he has done for us.

We have improved on previous years work to get the club’s name known with our efforts within American Civil War, Science Fiction and World War Two promotions. This means we have gained some discounts from traders for example Westwind. Relations with the GCN still presents some issues as their database seems to be faulty perhaps due to their recent divorce from Games Workshop, they appear to be communicating from outdated records, we may need to consider whether we continue working with them over the course of this year.

During the course of the year we’ve picked up a few members but we’ve also lost a few potential members despite our best efforts. We really need to think about what we’re going to do with the impending closure of the Bridge Street Social Club and we need to make sure that everything stays on track with the Wes Trophy preparations. We need to take a serious look at the MAD Days and decide whether we still want to continue them and we should recognise that if we do not continue them we risk losing access to the Scout Hut. We also need to ensure that we finish the MAD Game. We’ve had some magazine recognition and the forums have been pretty active which is pretty positive. Having been on the committee for about 4 years and Tony for seemingly ever I feel the club is well established and therefore it’s a good time to hand over the reins to someone else.

Invested some time in publicising the big MAD Days in Games Workshop, but it was difficult to see if this really helped promote any extra activity. 4 people have joined the club in the year, however, we really need to try and publicise the MAD Days more if we want to continue running them as it stands.

It’s been a strange year for me as I applied for a generic club position by proxy and when I returned from university in September found I’d been made the Games Master, a role I was perhaps not best suited for. Thankfully Francis made sure the Wes Trophy went off hassle free and since then I’ve taken over the handling of contacting the parents ahead of MAD Days, this has largely resulted in reliable turnout from the parents, when they respond to communications. Preparations for the Wes Trophy are on track and should see involvement of between 12 and 16 participants.

Chairman – Francis and Keith standing

A ballot was arranged and by a result of 10 to 6 Keith was elected Chairman

Treasurer – Mark Curran

Secretary – Rupert Oldcorn

Denis proposed that both candidates be elected as one and both were elected unanimously

It was decided that the honorary position of President would remain vacant this year.

The Chairman stated that due to our current financial problems we need to decide whether we continue hosting these in their current format. It was pointed out that the people who want to run them need to commit to helping them run successfully. The Chairman offered an alternative, to perhaps instead play a big game of ‘something’, or perhaps change them to ‘Open Days’ keeping the ‘you Play you Pay’ concept. Rob’s opinion that the MAD Days should be refocused for our adult members rather than our junior members was well received. It was agreed that the junior members would still be invited to attend but the point would be to make sure that the adult membership enjoyed the day. As a way of achieving this it was decided that MAD Days would now occur on a more Ad Hoc fashion and it was accepted that this may hinder the reservation of specific dates using the Scout Hut venue but it would ensure interest remained high within the membership. Russ stated that as our weekly venue will likely change in the future we have left the option open for the Scout Hut to not necessarily be used permanently. Denis confirmed that there has not yet been any confirmed changing of rates for reserving the Scout Hut and so the club will continue to use it whilst also promoting upcoming MAD Days on other gaming forums wherever possible to improve exposure.

The Chairman reminded the club of discussions that have been held on the forums about a disparity over amendments to the Club’s Constitution. The following amendments have now been enshrined in the Constitution:

Changes to the age restriction of Club attendees to read: “Age limit will be as defined by the premises in which the Club meeting is taking place”

Club year now starts with the AGM

The positions of ‘Junior Representative, RPG Representative, Social Secretary, Quartermaster, Games Master and Public Relations Officers’ are no longer eligible for election

Changes made to the role of the President and the Club Secretary were voided.

Francis questioned whether the President could technically have the ability to run MAD Days legally; Denis confirmed that this was the case. Russ proposed a vote as to if a strict replacement for the Chairman was required to already be lined up, it received no votes in favour.

Denis reminded the Club that in order to utilise the Scout Hut the club requires Public Liability Insurance, and a number of CRB Checks for the Committee, it was questioned whether simply having members with CRB checks would be enough? Any conclusion has been postponed until more information can be found.

The Secretary proposed that the requirements stated within the Constitution for the creation of a Club Almanac and a Quarterly Newsletter be reinstated into club policy.

Francis reminded members that in order to comply with the terms of the BSSC, members are reminded to clear away any foreign objects that they bring into the premises.

MAD Gamers’ Annual General Meeting

19/06/2008