At the end of every year we hold our Annual General Meeting, or AGM. This is a chance for the board, staff, and members to go over the Flourish House accounts and talk about how the year has been. We also hold a celebration of members achievements throughout the year. Flourish House member and Vice-Chair of the board Stuart C. has written up an account of the day.
I turned up at Flourish thinking I just need to talk at the celebration & as soon as I get in John Linn shouts down through the atrium ‘Stuart’. can I see you for a minute?’
Upstairs in his office he says I’ve got some bad news (I thought the worst) wondering whether Colin had fallen down a manhole or something worse John then said ‘Colin is sick & unable to make it in today’
I knew what was next, as vice chairman its my responsibility to fill in for Colin in his absence, I had lots of Questions, the main Question in my head was “what do I need to do”
I was up for the challenge & John took me over to look at the agenda and explained what I’d need to do, I wrote down an introduction for the meeting & did a little planning.
My heart was beating a little faster than usual & I felt a little overwhelmed here and there, I took some deep breaths when I needed to, drank plenty of water and luckily I pulled it off, the AGM was a success and everybody was happy.
The Auditor spoke regarding our finances and kept it brief and to the point & company members agreed the auditors job was satisfactory & also agreed to keep him as Auditor (no offshore bank accounts or tax havens).
Leah M, Mary H & Dianne F had to step down and re-stand for election back onto the board and we welcomed them back onto the board again, happily.
Neil had put his name forward for election & he was also happily welcomed onto the Board of Directors as a brand new board member, Neil had sat in on a number of meetings to test the waters & he enjoyed it, we wish him all the best of Luck in his new role within our clubhouse.
Neil said “I’m looking forward to learning more about the board & I want to interact more with people on the board like Colin and Leah and all the other executive members. I think I’ll be good at it because I’m good with numbers and I can be trusted to keep things confidential if I need to. I’m a positive person and I want to bring that positivity to the board”.
Wesley was congratulated for his 10yrs of service to our Clubhouse, & He was Crowned & presented with some bespoke engraved specialist gardening tools (he got a flippin’ Rambo Knife man!) how cool is that and a bit of Cake from Ina. Then he gave an off the cuff heart warming speech about his time working at Flourish
Ina came over after the meeting and was telling me i did a good job which was nice to hear, she said when she was a board member she had to do the same thing and she knew what it was like to be Chairperson at an AGM.
Overall i enjoyed the experience of Chairing the AGM & signing the legal documents (it felt really legitimate, like i was an essential part of the Clubhouse) it felt really good to be able to do that.
We then took a break for 20 mins & the Members Achievement day celebration started.
During the Celebration we had 7 speakers chat about their achievements, A.G, A.E, M.B, K.L, M.B, S.C & T.U, other members added comments such as M.J & L.Y.
Members were then prompted to split into groups and discuss further their best moments of the year, following on from this members were encouraged to write down their achievements on a piece of paper in the shape of a flower and hang it on the tree.
