Despite the heavy rain a good number of members attended the March General Assembly and our Annual General Meeting. Once the formal meetings finished, they were rewarded by fascinating talks from two of our members, Sheena McMahon and Sue Holley, who kindly stepped in at very short notice after the listed speaker was unwell and had to cancel.
In my report to the AGM I said that we could look back on the past year with quiet satisfaction. As Roger Bentley, our Treasurer, reported our financial position is significantly stronger than it was 12 months ago and we are also performing well in most other areas.
Barbara Bentley our Membership Secretary and her team of willing volunteers continue to do an excellent job. Numbers grew steadily through the year and we came very close to hitting our informal target of 500 members by year-end. It has been pleasing to see a good number of returnees alongside the new joiners. If the present trends continue the 500 target should certainly be achievable in the current year. We are also making slow but steady progress in attracting a wider range of nationalities, all of whom are very welcome.
Our general assemblies have been consistently well attended and in September we met our second informal target for the year of having more than 100 people in the room. I am grateful to Murla town hall for allowing us to continue using their excellent facilities. We try to provide a mixture of activities, combining fun with the provision of useful information, and have welcomed some excellent speakers with very positive feedback from the members.
Last year I reported on the refresh of our website and said that I was particularly proud of our monthly newsletters produced by Linda Burns. I still believe that both the website and the newsletters are of remarkable quality for an organisation of our size.
The Travel & Entertainment team, led by Carole Wardle, has continued to provide an excellent choice of trips throughout the year and we have much to look forward to in the coming months.
If I have one area of concern it is around our activity groups, which are at the heart of our organisation. This is in no way a criticism of the excellent work that Teresa Tillbrook, our Groups Coordinator, does when supporting both existing and new group leaders. Rather it is a fact of life that many of our group members and leaders are getting older. While the majority of our groups continue to flourish there are a few cases where there is an urgent need for new blood. Please therefore contact Teresa if you have the time either to help an existing group or to support the establishment of a new group.
Under Brigid Redmond’s leadership, our Friendship & Support team continues to give very valuable fellowship and support to several of our members and their regular coffee mornings are becoming increasingly well attended. We also receive positive feedback on our ‘Information Hub’ booklet, an important source of information for all our members, both in hard copy and online.
Finally, the Goodwill team led by my wife Paula have exceeded themselves once again. Not only did they provide some fabulous events for us all to enjoy but they raised more than 15,300€ which goes directly to the local charities and voluntary organisations that we help and where our support is so very valuable. This excellent work will certainly continue in the coming year. In addition, we are now trying to work more closely with other u3as in the area, including u3a Javea and u3a Denia.
None of the above successes would have been possible without the hard work of your committee members and other volunteers. We work as a team and I am very grateful for all the support that I have received throughout the year.