Beaconsfield Independent Electors Association

MINUTES OF THE 2011 ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING

held in the Council Chamber, Beaconsfield Town Hall, Wednesday 1 June 2011

Association Business started at 8.00 pm with 20 members present.

1. APOLOGIES

Joy Legg, John Meredith, Brian Scrivener, Jeanette Taylor, Mr and Mrs N Tuckley.

2. MINUTES OF THE ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING HELD ON 18 MARCH 2010

These were accepted as a correct record and signed by the Chairman.

3. MATTERS ARISING

There were no matters arising.

4. CHAIRMAN’S REPORT

The Chairman, Geoff Grover, reported that until a few weeks ago he felt that the BIEA had had a successful year.  Independent Councillors had contributed a great deal to the work of both the Town Council and South Bucks District Council to the benefit of the community.  Henry Wilson had been Vice Chair of the Finance and General Purposes Committee until just before Christmas when its Chairman, Alan Johnson, died and Henry took over.  He also spent a great deal of time developing the 2011-12 budget for which he was thanked and congratulated.  Les Davies had led the Town Hall Group extremely well, and Geoff had chaired the Open Spaces Committee.  As for the District Council, he served on the Licencing and Environment Committees and Ken Brown was on the Planning Committee.  Ken was also the Editor of our Newsletter, which had been well received by the community.

Then came the election, prior to which three Independent stalwarts had decided not to stand again, Les Davies, Henry Wilson and Frank Armstrong.  We were fortunate to recruit three new candidates – Graham Davie, Paul Henry and Deirdre Smaje.  Unfortunately, however, we were unable to find a candidate for the North Ward which meant that six Conservative candidates were returned unopposed.

Geoff reported our delight that Graham Davie and Joy Legg were elected in the South Ward and Ken Brown and he were re-elected for the West Ward, but our other candidates Paul Henry, John Meredith, Nico Sacchetti and Deirdre Smaje were not.  Ken was re-elected for the District council but he was not, and neither were Paul and Joy who had been candidates for the South Ward, which overall was a very disappointing result.  Geoff said this would be discussed more fully later in the meeting.

Before that, however, he had pleasure in giving tokens of our thanks to Les, Henry, Nico and Frank for a total of some 50 years of service to the Town Council as well as to Michael Harrison who had expertly guided our candidates through the labyrinthine election regulations for many years.

5. TREASURER’S REPORT

Henry Wilson presented the Accounts for the previous year, which had been registered with the Electoral Commission and distributed to members, and further copies were available at the meeting. The Closing Bank balance in December 2010 was £1567.87, substantially more than that of the previous year because of the successful campaign to increase our funds for the 2011 election.  There were two large donations and a heartening response from the general membership which together created a fund almost sufficient to pay our expenses for the election.  Henry, on behalf of the Association, was pleased to express his appreciation for this generosity. After certain aspects of the Accounts were elaborated in more detail Henry thanked George Foden for examining the accounts which were then opened for discussion.  There were no questions, and approval of the Accounts was proposed by Michael Harrison and seconded by Frank Armstrong and carried unanimously by the meeting.

6. ELECTION OF OFFICERS AND COMMITTEE

The Chairman then handed over to the President who presided over the election of the Chairman.  She began by thanking and paying tribute to Geoff Grover who had chaired the Committee for the past rather difficult year and had even agreed to serve for the coming year if it was the wish of the Association.  It was certainly the wish of the Committee and indeed of the membership and he was proposed, seconded and elected unanimously.  Shirley then handed over to the Chairman.

Geoff informed the meeting that Officers could serve for three years only without the express permission of the Annual General Meeting.  Both the Secretary and Treasurer had served for this period and were prepared to continue in these roles.  They were duly proposed, seconded and elected as follows:

• Hon. Secretary                 Laurence Smaje
• Hon. Treasurer                  Henry Wilson

Michael Harrison, who has ably served as Nominating Officer for many years, had said he did not wish to continue in this role, but was prepared to remain on the Committee until a successor has found his or her feet.

All Independent Councillors are members of the Committee (ex officio).  Following the Election, these are Graham Davie and Joy Legg in the South Ward, and Ken Brown and Geoff Grover in the West Ward.  There are up to seven places available for members of the Association to be elected to the Committee and Les Davies, Paul Henry, John Meredith, Nico Sacchetti and Deirdre Smaje were proposed, seconded and duly elected.

7. THE POST-ELECTION  CHALLENGE

Our disappointing results in the election have been discussed by the Committee.  A number of reasons for this were proposed and examined.  The Conservatives had worked hard to encourage their supporters to vote against the proposal in favour of abandoning the ‘First past the Post’ voting system and the consequent large turn-out was to our disadvantage.  Another factor was that we were unprepared for their extremely aggressive negative campaign.  The Town Council now consists of 12 Conservative and 4 Independent councillors and the Conservative majority is not prepared to utilise any of the skills and experience of Independent councillors to be Chairs or deputies of any of the main committees.

In consequence Geoff said we had reached a watershed and there were two options open to us:

• We give up and wind up the Association
• We transform ourselves and ensure we are in a strong position to do better at the next election.

The Committee is clear that it wishes to adopt the second alternative and in order to move forward, it proposes to establish sub-committees to examine three issues and to report back to the Committee within the next few months.

• Policy to be headed by Geoff
• Membership to be headed by Graham
• Communications to be headed by Ken

Members present were fully supportive of this approach and Geoff reported that the Committee is keen to have members serve on these groups and after they have reported  the Committee will seek the views of the membership before instigating any significant changes.

There was then an open and free discussion of the issues which will help inform the sub-committees.

8. ANY OTHER BUSINESS

There was no other business and the formal proceedings finished at 8.50 pm