A Big Success for our AGM & Open Day!
A Big Success for our AGM & Open Day!
For the first time in many years we decided to hold your Annual General Meeting (AGM) away from a conference. This, we realised, came with both risks and benefits that may not have been obvious to members however, we all thought it was worth exploring. Turns out it was a ‘marvellous’ day! If you want the short overview, then check out our 3-minute video below. However, don’t forget to check out my ‘Hodgson view‘ below it. Enjoy folks!
Highlights – What you missed in 3 mins!
The AGM is the most important day of the year
Our AGM is singularly the most important day of the Association’s year. It is the moment when the Board and Executives lay bare their operational performance in a way that ensures accountability. The meeting also is the point at which the fully elected Board is refreshed through an open and transparent process of election. It is an event that every member has the right, if not a duty, to attend and influence. An AGM can also be pretty formal, short and some would say boring. We are conscious that many cannot justify a long trip and hours away from a demanding business, to simply cast a vote and hear us tell you how good we are. One way to ensure some attendance was to tag the AGM onto an event like the conference in order to guarantee an audience.
Time for a change on when we hold the AGM
This has worked pretty well up to now, but as we have seen the PCA conferences grow over the last few years we have realised that the time taken to deliver the formal AGMs, was eating into the time available for speakers at the conference. Add to that the pressure on staff to run events together and the issues around how and when to run the AGM to allow cross sector representation, it was clear that the old system had it flaws.
Network with the Board and staff at the AGM
In order to counter these drawbacks we decided this year to run the AGM for both GPT and PCA on a separate day. After discussion and direction from the Board, it was decided that in order to support the formal proceedings we should also provide members with the opportunity to take part in technical and insurance surgeries, tours of the PCA, access to all elected Board members and opportunities to network with members and the Associations executive team. We even attempted to live stream the event for those who wished to see what was happening from the wherever they may have been in the world!
The AGM was a great success!
All in all we were very pleased with our first combined AGM and Open Day. We were delighted to see so many attendees and to hear the chatter amongst them as our building began to fill with our friends and supporters. The AGM’s passed off without a hitch and despite the early frustrations with the live stream, the event was considered a success.
A bigger, better & more enticing Open Day next year!
We learnt a great deal from our initial attempt at this type of event and know we now have a really solid foundation to repeat the format of this essential event in future years. It would be great to attract even more members to vote, question and contribute to the AGM’s and see what we do at close quarters. To that end, we are already looking at ways in which we can add to the value of attending and make things bigger, better and more enticing next year!
We even added in a ‘spring clean’!
For my part, I was delighted with the way the day went but still keen to see even more engagement next year. As well as being very pleased with the efforts of all the staff here at Head Office in creating an open and welcoming event, I can also report that I was delighted that the event pushed us into something approaching a spring clean. It was great to be in a building that’s as neat as a new pin – at least it was for a couple of days though I can already see desks getting cluttered and the office returning to its busy, professional but “lived in”, or “worked in”, look!?
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