Report on the 74th Annual General Meeting, June 11th 2016

On Saturday 11th June 2016, 50 Members and Associate Members of the Association met at the Friends' Meeting House, Manchester, for the Annual General Meeting. Arrangements for the meeting and subsequent Mass at St. Mary's (the Hidden Gem) had been made by the Manchester and North Cheshire Circle.

Harcourt Concannon, Chairman of the Manchester and North Cheshire Circle, at the invitation of the President, Gerald Williams, welcomed everyone to the meeting. He spoke warmly of the long secular and Christian history of Manchester, and the city's involvement in key events in UK social history. The Friends' Meeting House had, indeed, been used to treat the wounded after the Peterloo Massacre.

The formal business of the day included reports from the President, Acting Secretary, and Treasurer, and the election of new Officers of the Association and of Council members.

The elections were uncontested and, in addition to those members of Council continuing in post, the following persons were elected:

President – Mr. G. Williams
Vice-Presidents – Mr. W. Russell, Sir Anthony Holland
Treasurer – Mr. K. Ryan
Secretary – Mr. B. Hamill
Council Members – Dr. M. Jameson, Mr. K. Lambert, Mr. A. Mthobi, Mr. J. Potts.

The detail of the day's business is contained in the formal minutes of the AGM.

The President paid tribute to Dr. Chris Quirke, who had served as Secretary for a full term, and as Acting Secretary thereafter, but would now be standing down as Brian Hamill had volunteered to serve as Secretary.

The President also made special mention of two recently deceased members, Mr. Peter Havard, and Mr. Michael Vadon. Peter Havard, of Manchester & North Cheshire Circle, had served as Treasurer, and had instituted effective changes to the structure and presentation of the accounts. Michael Vadon, Ealing Circle, had been a Past President of the Association, and had acted latterly in the capacity of Examiner. Requiescant in pace.

The President mentioned some forthcoming events and activities:

The Palazzola Pilgrimage, between September 16th and 22nd, would now include a talk by Prof. Maurice Whitehead, and possibly one on St. Philip Neri. The number of pilgrims was likely to exceed 40.

A Conference on Laudato Si' in the South East was being planned as a joint venture between the Diocese of Arundel and Brighton and the Newman Association. Details would be announced once arrangements were fully in place.

The day concluded with the celebration of Mass by our chaplain, Fr. Fabian Radcliffe. A Memorial Book of deceased Members prepared by Gloucestershire Circle was placed on the altar for the Mass.

Reports from Working Groups

Membership Group: The President gave a report on the Membership Group, whose task had been to find a way of retaining the identifiably Catholic nature of the Association, while extending full membership to other Christians, these being the clear wishes of the Conference delegates.

He stated that members of the working group had failed to reach agreement and this situation had led to the resignations from Council of Harcourt Concannon and Arthur McLay. The President publicly issued an invitation to both to rejoin Council. The President stated that the Fourth Meeting of Council 2015/2016 had discussed the matter, and had also been split evenly on the subject, requiring the President to make his casting vote in favour of the status quo.

Subsequently, Fr. Fabian had liaised with the Bishops' Conference of England & Wales to ascertain whether there was any issue in Canon Law, and what reaction we might get from the BCEW in the event that members still retained an appetite for change. On a show of hands, those present at the AGM favoured a change in the membership rules.

Communications Group: Anthony Baker gave a brief report for the group. The group had a number of members, and had worked mainly through emails. There had been no face-to-face meetings of the group.

The main output from the group was a matrix of communications, internal and external, between Council, Circles, and third parties.

There had been a number of comments during the AGM about activity at parish level (i.e. support and promotion of the Association by the clergy) but in fact there was much that we could do ourselves.

The full report of the group is available from Anthony Baker.

Finance Group: Kevin Lambert reported for the group. They had been much exercised by the question of allocations from the centre to Circles, and had addressed questions such as:

• Should the £350 allocation be raised?
• Should active Circles receive more than others to fund their greater level of activity?
• Given the level of balances in Circles' accounts (£17,000), should Circles always require an allocation?

A second area of discussion had been the requirements of the centre. The group acknowledged that the legal identity of the Association existed at the national level, but discussed what the basic services and funding should be for central operations:

• £4,000 a year would cover a skeleton service, meaning no website and no Newman journal
• £15,000 a year was required for the full service currently provided

The group recognised that the choice would be made by the membership, and the level of subscriptions required was the prerogative of the AGM. The group was split on this question.

(In discussion it was pointed out that a change in subscriptions could take two years from an initial proposal, through ratification by an AGM, to implementation.)

An interim proposal from the group was that is that:

• An annual budget should be set for Council
• Performance against the budget should be reviewed through the year
• A review of exceptional expenditures should be undertaken with a view to eliminating any no longer deemed appropriate
• The size of Council should be reviewed with a view to reduction in numbers of people and associated costs.

Mission Group: Peter Firth reported for the group. He opened by saying that the group believed that its title was potentially confusing – the term Mission could relate to the overall mission of the Church, to the mission of the Newman Association, to the mission of the group (to look at recruitment and increasing membership), and to corporate approaches to "mission statements". The group had therefore renamed itself the "Development Group".

The group had arranged two face-to-face meetings, but only one had proved necessary, which had been very productive. He recommended such a meeting to the Communications Group. Peter had drafted a report which had been made available to the website.

The group's conclusions were:

• The purpose encapsulated in the strapline, Promoting Open Discussion and Greater Understanding in Today's Church remained valid
• The life of the Association resided in the Circles, but given the legal identity of the organisation, there was necessary central activity, causing tension between the centre and Circles
• Faced with an ageing demographic we needed to target specific groups
• Our marketing, promotion and communications to these target groups needed to present our "product" and our USP (Unique Selling Proposition). A fuller exposition was given in the report
• The Development Group had been questioned by the Finance Group about any use of the Association's reserves. It was the view of the Development Group that reserves should not fund operational deficits; rather, they were for projects that would enable the Association to recruit and grow
• There was much good practice carried on in Circles. Such practices should be collated into a Resource Pack and made available to Circles
• A map of Circles plotted against the overall map of Great Britain showed great deserts of inactivity, particularly in the east and south-west of England: we should be aiming to extend our reach into these areas
• Collaboration with other organisations that complemented our purpose (e.g. Living Theology) should be explored for mutual benefit.

Finally, Peter noted that the group had latterly unearthed a report from a 2011 subcommittee that reached much the same conclusions and recommendations as theirs. It had not been implemented, and seemed to have slipped from the collective memory, as it had not been referred to at the Hinsley Hall Conference. It was imperative that any accepted recommendations from the current work should be implemented.

Conclusion

The President concluded by stating that he hoped to see all accepted recommendations from the Working Groups implemented, and thanked everyone who had volunteered as members of the groups, especially those who had led them.

He stressed that the Conference could only bear fruit if the membership was willing to take on the responsibilities of finding new members (this was indeed a duty), and to take up offices in their local Circles. The President stated that incoming Council would address the reports at its second meeting.

John Potts