2022

 

Breaking News!!!

Brian O'Riordan will be stepping down as Society Treasurer at the AGM in May after 16 years of sterling service to the Society, Brian has not enjoyed the best of health for past twelve months and has decided it is time to hand the reigns over, or at least the financial side of his duties.  He will continue to edit the Newsletter and serve on the Committee.  The committee have been actively looking for a replacement for a year and we are delighted to announce that Jeremy Stone from the Tavistock area of Devon has volunteered to take on the role of Treasure subject to ballot at the AGM.  Jeremy has been a Society member for many years and in fact his wife Gail held this office from 2000 - 2004. 

Below are the designs for the 2023 Membership Brass Competition, the membership brass designs for 2023 have been taken from those that did not make it onto the list from previous years simply because until recently we have still been under the grip of Government restrictions due to Covid-19 and until now unable to make arrangements for the 2022 AGM.

The voting for the annual membership brass is open to NHBS members only who may send their votes by email, post, telephone or in person at the AGM.  We just need your name membership number and the brass design number of your choice.  Your vote for the 2023 brass from the choice below needs to be in by the 15th May 2022 for the AGM on the 22 May, email;  jimspeed42@gmail.com   

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Snippets from the 2022 AGM held on 26th May.

It was good to be back following two years absence through Covid regulations and the displays of brasses were of good quality though dispite being a later date the meeting failed to attract more that twenty for the morning session including the exhibitors.  It was hoped that after two years absence the meeting would attract higher numbers, the future of such meetings has to be considered uncertain and was the theme of both the Chairman and Secretary's reports at the following AGM.  Centre stage again was Andrew Hopkinson who made the journey from Derbyshire and displayed his late fathers collection, always a pleasure to view them.


 


  Allan Brewer's collection, Allan is also well known for making superb leathers for brasses, examples of these were amongst his display


                                      Peter Ferguson (right) admiring the display presented by Rankin Lewis

 Tony Hughes Looking for the odd Bargain!!                       The Boss!! Stan Benton

                                                                                                                                                                                

This complete set of Society Brasses put together has now been displayed for a number of years at Society Meetings the collection started in 2005 and was given a major boost by the purchase through Terry Keegan of Ron Baldwin's membership and special brasses displayed here on the left board.  Ron died in 2004 and designed all of the Society brasses in partnership with Terry Keegan up until his death the collection has continued through my membership.
Jim Speed


The long and the short of it is that we welcomed Jeremy Stone as the New Treasurer during the meeting!!  Brian O'Riordan stood down after seventeen years of stalwart service and in recognition of this, later on the AGM agenda a resolution was passed giving the committee authority to confer on him the preferment of President of the NHBS.  Also honoured for long service was Overseas Representative Rolf Augustin and Stan Benton who both become Vice Presidents.  

 

 


Sue Hart pictured here with Chairman Ian Jones had her position confirmed by ballot as Membership Secretary and becomes an Officer of the Society.  This should have been done at the 2021 AGM which had to be cancelled due to the Covid regulations. Since taking the office Sue has built up an excellent rapport with all in connection with membership matters.  Sue with her partner Andrew are also willing helpers at Society meetings providing bacon butties for the hungry!!

 

 

Officers of the NHBS left to right Ian Jones, Chairman. 

Jim Speed, General Secretary. 

Sue Hart Membership Secretary. 

Brian O'Riordan retiring Treasurer

or four wise monkeys!!  I will leave others to judge!!

The remainder of the committee were elected on block

 

 

 

 

A trio of Treasurers from left to right Jeremy Stone newly elected Gail Stone 2000 - 2004 Brian O'Riordan 2006  - 2022

 

 

 

 

 

 

Item 6 General Secretay's Report (Extracted from the minutes)
We must first look at the stark reality that six of the current administration team are aged between eighty and ninety so we urgently need younger members of the Society to carry it through into the future. 

Live meetings such as Church Stretton, Ipsden and even the AGM has resulted in a changing pattern with poor attendance in recent years. The 2020 AGM as you will have seen in the minutes amounted to sixteen Society members present of which seven were committee members. The 2021 AGM was cancelled due to the Covid restrictions but despite moving the meeting from March to May and combining it with the Church Stretton Meeting we have an attendance today of fourteen with three members of the committee absent, although the displays were excellent and plenty of opportunities to buy, at this morning’s session the attendance only amounted to twenty. 

What is not known of course is the reason for low attendance, it could be distance and cost, or age related, I wouldn’t dare suggest apathy!! This is not unique to the NHBS but the situation in many organisations, it is not helped in our case being a National Society drawing our members from throughout the UK and overseas.

The Covid-19 Pandemic in 2020 pushed the committee into modern technology using Zoom, which is an online secure and reliable video platform. Computer skills and poor broadband connections have caused a few problems but in the main it has worked extremely well and enabled the admin team to function efficiently during the lockdowns and of course no one had to make a long journey home afterwards. There can be no doubt Zoom is here to stay and if people will no longer travel to actual meetings, it is the only way to survive.

This raises the question, what of the AGM? Working online with six or eight people from experience we have found acceptable but it would be totally impractical to handle a large meeting in this way. If the future is to be online, more details of any proposals would need to be explained with the AGM calling papers as happened to some extent this year in my secretarial admin notices. It might perhaps be possible to recruit a list of volunteers NHBS members to act on behalf of the membership at an online AGM to raise questions and vote on proposals. This could also be the route of finding new committee members to help us to develop our computer skills to the benefit of the Society.

It also raises the question, what of the Church Stretton and Ipsden Meetings? There can be no doubt numbers have dwindled over the past few years and in fact Mick Mullens due to health reasons will not be organising the Ipsden meeting this year, an announcement will need to be made to this effect in the July journal. Again, if online is to replace our actual meetings, a page for advertising Society Members brasses might be the way forward on the website. There can be no doubt we cannot ignore the current trend and need to find new ways of reaching out to our members.

Finally I thank those who sent in their votes by email and some by post for the 2023 Membership Brass, the result will be made known later on today's agenda.

Jim Speed22.05.22

 

*** If anyone has ideas on this, the committee will be very pleased to hear about them. ***

 

The result of the 2023 Membeship Brass competition was no 7 Below total no of votes cast was 35 or 14% of our membership.