Well, it was definitely the fastest and most efficiently conducted AGM we have ever had in the time that I have been a club member. Monday 19.11.2018 Paul Evans held his last Annual General Meeting as Chairman and club members will be very sad to see him step down. We know that he and Jo will approach parenthood with the same commitment, enthusiasm and success as they have done their club duties and are assured that Paul will still be around until a replacement is voted in, when he can hand over the reigns properly. Behind the scenes, and his original role, he was also webmaster and I, for one, hope he continues to do this sterling job. He will, of course, also probably need to continue to run and, just to confirm, Jo intends to continue her position of Club Development on the committee.

Committee

This segways  nicely to advise you all of the recent committee changes. There are some newly appointed members as well as some who have stepped down from their roles. We now have 13 roles in total and, with a club the size of ours, that is certainly more in line with how a committee should be.

Hazel Sherrington, our previous Treasurer, has passed her responsibilities onto Michelle Kimberley. Michelle is a chartered accountant and finance manager and is therefore more than qualified to take on the treasurer role. She also helps regularly with the Sunday runs.

Michelle said “I’m a chartered accountant and work as a finance manager so I’m pretty decent with numbers, accounting and reporting and I currently look after about 80 different properties so I’m very organised with financial info and keeping track of schedules etc. I also ensure all suppliers are paid promptly and keep track of receipts from around 2000 residents each month as well as reconciling the bank accounts.”

Becky Dibb, Welfare Officer and Carl Jones, her partner have both decided to step down. Becky has passed the reigns to Ruth Bennett  and her role as teacher and SENCO at a school leaves her very qualified for the welfare role. She has also helped out a lot on Sunday runs.

Ruth said: “I would be hugely interested in a Welfare role. This is largely my role at work (with both children and staff) as I am on leadership and also SENCO and safeguarding lead. I am quite used to dealing with sensitive situations as they arise.”

Glenn Barker, our Lead Mental Health Champion will fulfill Carl‘s duties.

Jo Evans has handed over her Kit responsibility to Mark Dillon. Mark has been a regular group leader and helper of club events for many years, doing the league, helping with races, magic miles, announcements, C25K, etc. He’s always quick to step in and help out. He has some good contacts for kit and is keen to get a better range of hoodies amongst other useful items.

Stuart Munday has taken on the post of Group Leader Co-Ordinator. He is a regular group leader and long-standing well-respected member of the club. His recent retirement leaves him with more time to help and he regularly assists at club events, including carrying out the risk assessment for the Croome race each year. He has some ideas that he wants to introduce as well as looking after group leaders, arranging meetings to discuss best practice and issues, being a point of contact for them and sorting LiRF applications.

Nick French applied for treasurer but given Michelle’s qualifications Paul spoke with him about co-ordinating the Sunday volunteer page, with support from others, to ensure the routes are posted out and we get a good pool of helpers. As a Director for a well-known national builders merchant, he has the skillset for this and has already helped lots with Sundays.

Shaun Paskin has been a very enthusiastic individual, stepping up to take groups and wanting to play a bigger part in the club. Shaun has been in touch with the committee about bringing back the Social Secretary role, something his dad Gavin Paskin did for the committee many years ago. Many of you will still remember the amazing Charity Ball Gavin staged for the much loved Peter Duncan Gilbert, who sadly died of MND.  https://bpj.org.uk/meet-the-joggers/peter-gilbert/

Shaun said: “I feel that keeping an active social calendar for the club helps keep the members involved. After all that is why we are all part of Worcester’s friendly running club! I feel I can bring a lot to this role and am currently the group co-ordinator for the MS Charity in Worcester. I understand that good organisation of an active social calendar is not only great for moral, but also for keeping all the members happy and invokes a sense of belonging (it also releases endorphins).

The rest of us currently remain as is and all committee members and their roles can be viewed on the website here.

New Charities

The other bit of news was that after a few years of raising funds for Magg’s Day Centre and YSS, we have chosen two new charities. These are St.Richard’s Hospice and New Hope.

St Richard’s Hospice cares for patients and families in Worcestershire who are living with life-limiting illnesses. Each year they give free care and support to around 3,300 patients, loved ones and the bereaved – helping them towards the best quality of life possible.

St Richard’s is an independent registered charity.  It costs £8.8m (2018/19) a year to run all of their services. Three quarters of our income comes from public donations, this includes gifts in Wills, one off or regular donations, fundraising events and personal challenges, trading, legacies and grants from trusts and business sponsorship. The remainder comes from the NHS.

New Hope Worcester are a non-profit specialist provision working with families who have children with disabilities and complex health care needs. New Hope is registered with Ofsted (number EY415233).

They provide daytime short break care, for children aged 6-19 years of age and are open every school holiday throughout the year and every Saturday.

They take the children to external locations and venues as often as possible as they know the children love the activities!

Chris Baigent-Reed kindly volunteers as our charity liaison.