Dear Members
The Society held its most recent Annual General Meeting on the 18th March and it was a very well attended event with many questions from members at the meeting and the swearing in of the new Committee and your President starting a second term.
I will leave the introduction of the Committee for another post as we are currently organising a group photo for the website this weekend.
The AGM was well conducted but long and there was concern from some members about rumours that the BSWA was going to be replacing the Committee with highly paid Managers which is not true. These rumours had grown out of the fact that a Sub-committee has been appointed to investigate Committee portfolios and suggest ways to address the concern that some of our volunteers have very high workloads.
The most common question about this at the AGM was that the Sub-committee may contract out all jobs and then there is no Dana/Service opportunities left for volunteers. This is not the case and the Sub-committee is only making recommendations to the main Committee which we will bring to the members. The BSWA is not in a financial or philosophical position to mass contract out work of the Society but perhaps we do have shortfalls in some areas that need to be addressed. Members with concern should remember that we do have some part time paid staff in Administration, Treasury and even Gardening so whatever the Sub committee comes up with in six month time would probably not be a departure from what we already do.
I will inform the Members of the progress on this and in the meantime any Member is welcome to request a copy of Committee minutes through our Administration desk.
With Metta
Drew Bellamy
President BSWA