Hello to all,

Our next meeting on Wed 13 July, 7pm is our 27th AGM. The main purpose is to elect 7 committee members for the 2022-2023 financial year. 

We anticipate the usual good attendance (65 last yr) at our AGM to pay tribute to Life Members, Members of the year and Michael Andrews award winners. Note the varied time of 7pm – 8pm for those wishing to watch State of Origin in the bar with PMEA drinks tab, supper and multiple TV screens. Others can enjoy the casual ambiance with fellow enthusiasts.

Nominees for committee positions require a proposer and seconder and should contact Secretary Gavin Rea – email secretarypmea@outlook.com.au by 5pm 6th July.

Nominations can only be accepted from the floor at the meeting if there is no prior nominee.

Voting only occurs when there is more than one nominee for a position. 

If there is only one nominee for a position, that person is duly declared elected. 

Only financial members can vote. Voting is by show of hands unless a secret ballot is requested.

Office bearer positions are:

• President
• Vice President & events
• Secretary
• Treasurer

Three committee positions are;

• Assistant secretary (minutes)
• Membership secretary
• Magazine editor

We have 439 members now. More than half have joined in the last 5 years. Approx 90% have renewed on time! 

Membership - NB Dave Coupland is also retiring after 6 years as Membership secretary and committee member. We need a replacement with some spreadsheet skill and ability to deal with new membership applicants. Dave has established a spreadsheet template which simply requires entries – all columns and rows are sorted. Dave is happy to provide tuition and assistance.  The job involves attendance at general meetings and 4 or 5 committee meetings pa.

I am also retiring as President after 7yrs on committee but will continue my membership from the backbenches. 

The last year has been difficult to administer due to covid effects – meetings & events from July to October were cancelled, then we had varied Tues/Wed meeting nights as the RMYC struggled and had to close Mon & Tues nights. Attendances were down on pre covid times and we bought a QR code reader to record attendances for contact tracing. We've organised our bbq locations to three venues keeping numbers below 50 at each – this way we had 85 people in total participate – all within the rules!

We wore masks and sanitised our hands when needed. We paid RMYC $150 per meeting to set spaced and sanitised seating for your safety. We were safe in 2021 but in 2022 covid has run amuck although the vaccinations have minimised the effects.

Hopefully we have mostly come to terms with covid but now there are other dangers of a different kind lurking in international politics and there are no vaccinations for that.  

Regards,
Kerry Benson - President