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Minutes of the Annual General Meeting

9 December 2025

 

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Present: Edel McGurk (chair), Fiona Brown (treasurer), Peta Bowyer (secretary), Tracey Comber (volunteer coordinator), Val Siddiqui (Communications) and 22 members.

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The meeting opened at 7:35.

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Edel McGurk welcomed everyone to the AGM. She announced apologies from:

·         Keith Tibbs and Kate Hart

·         Steve Ash

·         Tom Stevenson

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Minutes of the 2024 AGM

The minutes of the AGM held on 10 December 2024 were accepted by those present as a true record of that meeting. Proposed by Val Siddiqui and seconded by David Solomon and voted unanimously.

 

Treasurer’s Report

Fiona Brown presented the financial report.

Bank Balance: £5,350.13

Cash Balance: £409.96

 

Income:

  • Funding from Oxford Community Foundation, for volunteer coordinator

  • Donation from a talk by Bill Horsfield in March

  • Donation from Benson WI, as thanks for Tracey Comber’s talk to them

 

Expenditure:

  • Fees to volunteer coordinator, Tracey Comber

  • Hire of halls for events

  • Monthly bank charges

  • Insurance, mainly for the activities we run

 

The meeting accepted the treasurer’s report, proposed by Andrea Powell seconded by Emma Everard and voted unanimously.

 

Events Report

Tracey Comber gave a slide show of pictures of the activities she ran over the past year. An impressive variety of achievements and so many smiling faces. Highlights were:

  • Berrick pond

  • Benson school nature garden

  • Big green week

  • Benson library garden

  • Consultation events in Berrick and Cuckoo Pen and Hopefield Grange in Benson

  • Tree planting on the sports field for Benson school

 

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Election of Officers

 

Edel McGurk was willing to continue in the office of chair and no other nominations were received. Philip Murray proposed her election, seconded by Pat Stevenson and the meeting voted unanimously in favour.

Edel explained that she needs some assistance with the role of chair. She finds that she can sometimes be a bottle neck on the committee, when her work commitments limit her availability for meetings and tasks. The committee are suggesting that a co-chair be appointed to support the group’s activities and ensure Edel’s restricted availability doesn’t slow us down.  Edel believes she could help the group more effectively by focusing on generating funding, a task that can be pursued independently as time is available. The committee will scope the roles and publish them, and invite people to come and discuss how they might help. Philip Murray suggested that we have officers from the neighbouring villages.

Similarly, Fiona Brown, Peta Bowyer and Val Siddiqui were re-elected as treasurer,  secretary and communications officer respectively, proposed by David Solomon and seconded by Sue Cooper and voted unanimously.

Sue Cooper gave a vote of thanks to the committee for all the work that they do.

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Programme 2026 and Beyond
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Edel presented our thoughts for next year’s programme, starting in January, with a showing of the film “A River Sings”. This film is about the Evenlode catchment and fits in with our stream restoration project and the issues of surface water flood and wetland management in Berrick. Other new activities are a tour of Hale Farm looking at regenerative farming, a nighttime safari in April, a dawn chorus walk (at 4am!) in May, and apple pressing in the autumn. There is more of course, with details to follow.

Tracey explored the more practical side of managing our green spaces. She would like to have a regular drum beat of monthly activities for volunteers and also to build up our team of riverfly monitors, since riverflies are such a good indicator of water quality and habitat.

Edel talked about the importance of our green spaces to involve everyone.  We’re looking for ways to engage all sorts of people from the villages, including those who are new to the area.

Philip Murray and others updated briefly on the Wetland and Farmland Bird surveys – we‘re up to 128 species this year.

Jo Hickson from TVERC (Thames Valley Environmental Records Centre) was present at the meeting.  She suggested we consider:

  • The City Nature Challenge, a world-wide weekend of recording nature. It’s aimed at everyone at any level for 4 days Fri-Mon, using either the iNaturalist app or a laptop to upload photos for identification. The aim is to get people out and engaging with nature

  • TVERC’s spring conference, which with be held again at Cholsey Great Hall. TVERC would welcome us promoting this event which is a great opportunity for people to interact with others in the recording community and get the confidence to join in.

  • TOE grants, which are available for groups for anything that enable or increase your recording ability.  BANG has benefitted from this grant programme before and could consider applying for more grants.

John Brannan, who helped with our tree planting in November, explained that the Broad Arboretum at Earth Trust has been growing native British trees (49 in total) since the late 90s. John will show us round the arboretum in June, we hope.

 

AOB 

None. The AGM part of the meeting closed at 8:35.

 

 

​Nature Quiz
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The “President’s Big Nature Quiz”, devised by Tom Stevenson and presented by Helen Stevenson concluded our meeting. The pictures of birds, butterflies, moths and so on were tremendous in their own right and between us we identified virtually every one, with only a little help from Helen with the answer sheet. An enjoyable way to end the meeting before breaking up to chat over drinks and nibbles.

 

 

Peta Bowyer
Secretary

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