A.M.D.G

13^th Annual General Meeting,  Friday, October 31st, 2008

PRESIDENT’S REPORT

The following is the report of the activities of the St.Stanislaus College

Association Barbados Chapter for the year 2007-2008.

1)    MEMBERSHIP

The number of members remains at fifty. While they maintain their financial status for which we are grateful, the active participation is a much smaller number.

2)    ACTIVITIES

Since the Association’s Constitution was changed to allow its Executive Committee to hold office for two (2) years, the membership of that Committee remains the same as the one elected in November 2006.

This is set out below:

President            ………………………    Pat Thompson

 Vice President    ………………………   Stanley Greaves

Secretary            ………………………    Kenneth Khan

Asst. Secretary   ………………………   Richard Bhola

Treasurer        …………………………    Clement Derrell

Past President    ……………………….  Gavin Ferreira

I thank the members of the Executive  for their service over this two year period. At this AGM we will elect a new Executive Committee. There were no specific fund-raising activities by the Association over the last year.

 

3)    REFLECTIONS ON THE FUTURE OF THE ASSOCIATION

Small , voluntary associations like ours live an uncertain life, especially in the conditions currently obtaining in the modern world. The members of our Executive Committee who have given yeoman service over the years are inevitably becoming older. Various considerations, including the personal health and changing family circumstances, mean that a number of them will probably be unable to actively serve for very much longer. Here in Barbados, my view is that there is not a sufficient supply of Alumni who can constitute an adequate replacement pool. These are, I believe, serious facts of life on which we must seriously reflect.

 

Any voluntary fee-collecting association like our needs, at minimum, a basic core part-time staff.

1.  First, a strong President with a committed Vice-President able to step in and substitute for the President, as needed.

2.  Second, a dedicated Secretary, along with a back-up Assistant Secretary, to manage the day-to-day affairs of the Association.

3. Third, a competent Treasurer whose job is to ensure that the Association keeps accurate financial records and accounts for all funds received and disbursed.

4.  Fourth, as the Executive Committee changes by rotation, the outgoing President becomes the Immediate Past President and serves as a source of continuity and advice. This is a bare minimum of part-time staff.

Ideally, in order to assist with recruiting new members and providing hands-on assistance with fund-raising activities, there should be at least two other members of the Executive without specific designation or assignment, who can help with those pivotal activities. Of course, it is especially advantageous if there are other ordinary members who are prepared to volunteer their services from time to time, to help as requested.

What we have to consider as an Executive Committee is whether we  now have the minimum manpower requirements needed to run the Association effectively and, if so, whether this state of affairs is likely to hold over the next two to four years. An affirmative response may well require our new Executive to undertake a serious recruitment drive for new, younger members or alternatively, to obtain some firm commitments of future service from existing members. The alternative may well be to wind up the Association in its present form and to continue it as an unstructured social club.

I invite members of the Executive to discuss these matters at this AGM