AGM – Successful Year – New Treasurer
On 22nd October, Unlocking Warwick held its Annual General Meeting in the Court House. The AGM is an opportunity to reflect on the quality and effectiveness of our community activities in the past year, to hear reports from the sub-group leaders, and to look ahead to 2019.
The Chair, Karen Parker, thanked the volunteers for a very successful year with a wide range of activities and excellent feedback from the hundreds of people who had taken part in our events, whether at the monthly social ‘In the Ballroom’ or Unlocking Warwick’s Court House Tours, or special events.
This year Unlocking Warwick has played its part in marking the centenary of the end of WWI, with a focus on how The Great War affected Warwick and its residents. The launch of the special Warwick War Memorial website in March has been a notable achievement, with a team of researchers finding out about the 358 WWI names on the memorial, and members of the public offering photographs and family memories. So far this year the website has had 6,232 visitors reading the features and finding details of The Fallen.
Some of the information and stories unearthed for the website have been used for the very successful ‘Warwick Armistice Afternoon Tea’ during the Warwick Words History Festival, and the ‘Warwick WWI Walk’ ending at the poppy display in St. Mary’s. It attracted 50 people, many from outside Warwick. Their £5 donations went to St. Mary’s and The Fusilier Museum, both in need of maintenance funds.
Chair Karen Parker and Secretary Rick Thompson were both re-elected unopposed for another year. And we have a new Treasurer, Paula Fletcher, who was elected unanimously following the withdrawal from the group of former Treasurer Stuart Davies. Paula has extensive experience of keeping track of the finances of small and large businesses, so Unlocking Warwick’s relatively small turnover should be no problem for her!
It was decided to continue with our core activities next year: organising for the Town Council the monthly social ‘In the Ballroom’ and monthly Tea and Dance Lessons, staging Court House Tours at weekends telling visitors about the building and the history of Warwick, providing the comprehensive What’s On in Warwick updated each month, helping in the Visitor Centre and running the prestige showcase event in the ballroom, the Christmas Regency Ball. The War Memorial website will continue to develop as more information about the Warwick Fallen comes to light.
If you know of someone who might want to join the Unlocking Warwick volunteers, please ask them to get in touch with Rick: info@unlockingwarwick.org