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MINUTES OF THE 26TH ANNUAL
GENERAL MEETING
held on SATURDAY 7TH SEPTEMBER
2019
at QUORN GRANGE
HOTEL, LOUGHBOROUGH
INTRODUCTION
Following a group
photograph outside the hotel, the meeting, attended by
41 members, was opened at 1100 hrs by the Chairman,
Rod Goddard. He welcomed everyone to the meeting and
introduced himself and the Committee:
- President: Maj Gen
Tim Inshaw CB
- Chairman: Rod
Goddard MBE
- Treasurer: Stephen
“Farmer” Vaughan (absent from the meeting)
- Secretary: Charlie
and Jud Charlesworth
- “Our Man in UK”
Dick Pickup
LAST POST
The Chairman asked
everyone to be upstanding to remember those
members/non-members who had passed away since the last
AGM:
PETER RADNIDGE
BOB ALLUM
TED APPLEBY
RUSTY ROSSON
BRIAN KEIGHTLEY
MICHAEL BRAHAM
BOB RIDLEY
MARLENE BROOKS
HELEN NEAL
DEREK IRWIN
ERNIE COOPER
The Exhortation was
cited and a minute’s silence kept.
APOLOGIES
Apologies were
received from: Dennis Weir, Horst Funke, Stephen
“Farmer” Vaughan, Tom Perkin, Arnuff Baumann (very ill
in hospital and wished a speedy recovery), Jim and
Betty Hardy (who, with bags packed, were unable to
travel as Jim was hospitalised the previous morning),
Tom Neal, Ron Mason, Bob Kay.
MINUTES OF THE 25TH ANNUAL
GENERAL MEETING
The Secretary
presented the minutes of the 25th Annual
General Meeting to the meeting. Ernie Callaghan
proposed and Jim Husband seconded, that the minutes
were a true reflection of proceedings at that meeting.
MATTERS ARISING
At the last meeting
the Treasurer, Rusty Rosson, through the Chairman, had
indicated his wish to hand over the role but, at that
time, no-one volunteered. Subsequent to that, Stephen
“Farmer” Vaughan had come forward and has taken the
post.
PRESIDENT’S
ADDRESS
The President stated
that he was conscious that he was very much the “new
boy”: not only was he never stationed at Langeleben,
he was never stationed in Loughborough either! The
closest he had come was a two day familiarisation
visit on his way to command 9 Signal Regiment in 1995.
An even more tenuous link was his attendance at
Welbeck College – when it was in Welbeck and not in
Woodhouse Eaves. He and his wife, Sally, looked
forward to meeting those members they had not yet met
and to catching up with others.
On behalf of the
members he thanked the Committee, and in particular
Dick Pickup, for their work in organising the reunion
this year.
He then spoke about
the challenges facing the Army today, from two
perspectives:
Firstly, its size. He
compared the manning numbers over the decades and
concluded that now, our Army is very small, smaller
that it had been for over 200 years. Military
charities glean a considerable amount of their income
from the ‘one day’s pay scheme’ from serving soldiers.
The fewer the soldiers, the less money is available to
Corps charities and, as Chair of the Royal Signals
Benevolent Fund, he had seen a considerable drop in
revenue over the years.
Secondly, the type of
operations the Army is expected to be able to conduct
today. The expectation is that it continues to carry
out what it has traditionally done over the past 60
decades as well as increase its capabilities in the
new challenges such as Cyber operations. With a
smaller Army and less funding for equipment the Army
is facing challenging times and the skills possessed
by the Royal Signals and the Intelligence Corps – with
their supporting Services - are probably more in
demand now than ever before.
2020 is the centenary
of the Royal Corps of Signals and one of the ways the
Corps would be marking the milestone is the production
of a book covering the history of the Corps through a
series of very short articles. He had been involved
with the production of the book and was hopeful that
one of the stores included might be about Langeleben
and the Reunion Association.
He then turned his
attention to the future challenges to the Reunion
Association. To have reached a 25 year point in such
good shape was a fantastic achievement, but the
challenge would be to keep the reunion going. Having
done the sums he concluded that it would be quite
possible to reach another 25 year mark and spoke about
the issues that may stop the Association achieving
that goal:
One – the lack of
volunteers to serve on the Committee. He particularly
commended Rod Goddard for the fantastic job and number
of years that he had served both as Vice President and
Chairman, but that he needed to handover the position
of Chairman. He encouraged the younger generation to
step up to the plate and also to re-double their
efforts to encourage their generation to enrol as
members.
Two – BREXIT. Whilst
the reunion in Germany was not everyone’s cup of tea
and some could no longer make the journey, he felt it
to be the mainstay of the Reunion Association and
supported more by the younger generation. He thought
that very little would change in the event of leaving
the EU, and it would be a huge shame for BREXIT to be
an excuse for not making the trip across the channel,
and thus threaten the future of the Association as a
whole. The Association had been specifically invited
by the Stadt to be their guest at its Schutzenguild
550th anniversary next year and thus even
more reason for the younger element to persuade their
mates to return to Konigslutter for a great time.
So, rather than
seeing the 25th anniversary as the
beginning of the end, the President asked the
membership to see it as the beginning of the next 25
years and asked the younger generation to lead the
charge in filling positions on the Committee -
starting with the Chairman - and increasing the
membership in order to prolong an Association that he
described as truly special. He felt it was a great
privilege to our President.
TREASURER’S REPORT
Each member had
received a copy of the Annual Accounts. In the
Treasurer’s absence, the Chairman gave an overview of
the Association’s accounts for the year. The Opening
balance on 1 January 2019 was £3,917.45 and the
closing balance at 13 August 2019 was £2,371.73.
SECRETARY’S REPORT
Since the last AGM
the Association had sadly lost eight members. Of those
eight members, three families had requested the use of
the Reunion Coffin Drape at their funerals, and it was
much appreciated. The Secretary reminded the meeting
that this facility is available to all members.
The Association had
gained one new member - GRAHAM SLACK - and a warm
welcome was extended to him.
The total of active
and honorary members stood at 272.
With the demise of
Marlene Brooks, the Association had lost its Listening
Post Editor. The Secretary paid tribute to the
considerable time and effort Marlene had given to the
Association with the publication of the Listening Post
over many years. He stressed that the Listening Post
played a huge role in keeping those members who cannot
attend meetings in touch with what is happening in the
Association, and gave them an opportunity to relive
old times.
It was stated that
the previous venue, Burleigh Court, had served the
Association well in the past but had become too
expensive. He then thanked Peter Ellis for finding and
recommending the Quorn Grange Hotel. He hoped the
present membership agreed that the rates were very
competitive and rooms very good.
Special mention was
given to Dick Pickup who had liaised, on behalf of the
Association, with the Hotel Conferencing Co-ordinator,
had collated all accommodation and meal choices, and
was the main point of contact for the entertainment
artistes, The Hotsie Totsies. The members were asked,
and showed their appreciation for the work Dick had
put in.
Finally, he thanked
Tom Perkin, for all his efforts in maintaining and
up‑keeping the Langeleben website.
ELECTION OF
OFFICERS
The Secretary and
Treasurer had indicated a willingness to continue to
serve in those posts and, as there were no new
nominations for either post, the proposal that they
should continue for a further year was carried.
The Chairman
indicated his desire to hand over the role but would
continue for a further one year only if no volunteer
was forthcoming. No-one stepped forward and, subject
to anyone volunteering outside the meeting, it was
agreed that Rod Goddard remain Chairman for one final
year.
LISTENING POST
EDITOR
With the demise of
Marlene Brooks the very important role of Editor of
the Listening Post had become vacant. No-one from
those attending volunteered to take the role. The
President made a plea to the wider membership to look
around them (sons/daughters/grandchildren) to identify
anyone who might have a passion for IT editing. *See
footnote.
COFFIN DRAPE
The Chairman reported
that it had become apparent that when the current
coffin drape was laid over a coffin and word
‘LANGELEBEN’ was upside down. It was proposed, and
unanimously agreed, that a new coffin drape be
purchased. It was suggested, and agreed, that members
donate towards this purchase. A plea, via Tom Perkin
and the website to be initiated.
WEEKEND
ARRANGEMENTS
Dick Pickup gave
comprehensive details of all the timings, logistics
and payments for the weekend.
2020 27TH REUNION
The Chairman
announced that the next reunion, in Germany on 28th –
30th August 2020, would coincide with the
550th anniversary of the Schutzengild.
While the general format for the weekend would change
very little, he stated that many more Schutzengild
groups would be joining Konigslutter for their
celebrations. The need was therefore identified to
book accommodation with the Avalon Hotel at the
earliest possible opportunity via “our man in
Germany”, John Richardson.
ANY OTHER BUSINESS
Gerry Kane mentioned
that an Attendance Book was missing. It was agreed
that the previous Secretary (Clive Saunders) be
approached and, if nothing transpired, a new book be
purchased.
A member from the
meeting stated that it was very good that Gail Baldwin
continued to support the Association and all in
attendance heartily agreed.
There being no
further business, the Chairman thanked everyone for
attending and closed the meeting at 1215 hrs.
Chairman:
………………………………………………. Date: ………………………………
*Footnote
Following the AGM, Chris Jones contacted
the Chairman and Secretary and volunteered to become
the Editor of the Listening Post. His offer was very
quickly and gratefully accepted.
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