1.OPENING BY THE CHAIRMAN – Peter Cousins

The AGM was formally opened by the Chairman Peter Cousins.

 

2.APOLOGIES RECEIVED

Joan Rowbottom, Liz Ward, Rosemary Marshall, Peter Woodford, Kelvyn Martin, Anne Chippendale, Tony & Di Lawrence and Shirley Moxey.

 

3.AGM MINUTES 2024 AND MATTERS ARISING

The Chairman informed the meeting that the minutes of the AGM 2024 had been circulated by email and letter to all members and asked for any comments. No comments were raised.

 

Acceptance of the minutes was proposed by: Sue Lobb

Seconded by: Leon Spence

All in favour: YES

Anyone against: NO

 

4.CHAIRMAN'S REPORT FOR 2024 – Peter Cousins

 

As you will hear later from reports on membership and our finances, we had a very stable year in 2024, attracting some new members. Finances were helped by the well-attended afternoon talks and the historical walks and donations.

 

We have been very fortunate in the year to recruit a new Treasurer Jackie Sylvester who we co-opted to the Committee, and also a much-needed Minute Taker in Sue Vernon, who is very experienced in committee work.

 

During the year we changed the venue of our monthly meetings from Menphys in South Wigston to the Little Hill Primary School, and have since had some well attended meetings, in fact some of the attendance figures are back to the pre Covid levels.

 

During 2024 Judith Proctor and other Committee members attended several outside events to publicise the Society and sell our publications. These events included the Bell Street Medieval Fayre for St Wistan's day, the Wigston Library Christmas Fayre, the Wigston Conservative Club and Peace Memorial Park Coffee Mornings.

 

We also exhibited at the 50th Anniversary of the Leicestershire & Rutland Family History Society Day at the Adult Education Centre in Leicester.

Incidentally this year marks 45 years of the founding of the GWHS.

 

We continue to keep members informed of upcoming events and meetings with our monthly emailer compiled by Judith Proctor.

 

Our 2024 Christmas meeting and party was again a well-attended successful evening, with entertainment from magician John Castledine.

 

The year has seen a couple of major events – one which we were hoping for and one which was very unexpected!

 

During October 2023 we were advised that the Society should apply for the Kings Award for Voluntary Service to recognise the many volunteers who have served the Society so well over the years. This was duly applied for, and nothing was heard until April 2024 when we were informed that we were on the shortlist.

 

On 15th October I was informed from the Buckingham Palace that we had indeed won the award but under strict orders I could not reveal this to anyone until the Kings birthday on November 14th – that was not easy for me to do, but I kept it quiet as I did not want to end up in the Tower!

 

The award is in fact a group MBE to honour all of our volunteers who have contributed to the success of the Society.

 

The unexpected event that took us all by surprise was notification in August that after an inspection some of the Academy premises were to be demolished which included our Heritage Centre, with us being given notice to vacate by the end of February 2025.

 

This caused us weeks of uncertainty looking for new premises, as we did not want to just close and store our vast range of archive records never to be seen again.

 

We spent almost four months looking for alternative premises without any luck until December when we were approached by the Fenix Pharmacy in South Wigston with an offer of space in their premises.

 

The space is far less than we currently have but is a high street position with our own space and a large window for advertising plus a locked room for our computers and Railway Corner.

 

After a launch event next Monday, we will be open as normal each Friday from Friday 28th February from 10.00am until 2.00pm. Parking arrangements for the new Centre can be found on the Heritage Centre page on the website.

 

I would like to personally thank those Committee members and volunteers who have given their time and use of vehicles to help with the move, with special thanks to Tony Bryan, Roger Whalley and John Batson, and especially to our Librarian Elaine French who has organised the transfer of popular archive material to the new Centre.

Finally, as you are probably aware I am standing down as Chairman at this AGM making way for a new Chairman to oversee further success and expansion of the Society.

 

5.MEMBERSHIP REPORT – Roger Whalley

 

At the end of 2024 we had a membership of 167 down from a start of 176 in January. A number of members did not re-join the Society for various reasons although we had 15 new members during the year. Sadly, 3 members passed away during 2024. We had 29 visitors to our evening meetings, some of these joining the Society later in the year.

 

2025 has started on a positive note with 5 new members resulting in a membership total of 169 at the end of January.

 

As members are aware, subs payments have been due from January and we have already received payments from a majority of members. Thank you to those who have paid promptly! Payment by direct bank transfer has proved to be very popular this year which is welcome as it does not incur bank charges for members or the Society. Payment can also be made online via Sum Up or cash paid at one of our meetings or direct to a Committee Member. It has been necessary this year to increase subs payments by £1 to help towards ever increasing costs, resulting in Full Membership of £16 and Concessionary Membership of £13. It is hoped that subs payment can be held at these levels through 2026, dependent of course on any adverse change of circumstances.

 

Lastly, as announced last year, I am standing down as Membership Secretary although I am willing to continue to serve on the Committee. I am pleased to let you know that Sue Lobb has agreed to take on the membership role. Sue and I are already working on a handover process which we shall complete in March.

 

6.TREASURER’S REPORT – Jackie Sylvester

 

The Annual accounts had been circulated to all Members by email and post

No questions? NO

Acceptance of the accounts was proposed by: Colin Towell

Seconded by: Mike Forryan

All in favour: YES

Anyone against: NO

 

7.HERITAGE CENTRE REPORT – Elaine French – read by Peter Cousins

 

After a busy month we open our new Heritage Centre on Friday 28th of February at Fenix Pharmacy.

Be assured that nothing has been thrown away due to the limited space available. If it's not on show it will have gone into storage.

Internet access will be available for research along with volunteers to help you if required.

All Wigston and Countesthorpe books are now arranged by subject and are available at the new Heritage Centre along with the popular Railway Corner.

We look forward to welcoming our regular visitors, and anyone with an interest in The Greater Wigston area, to our new Heritage Centre.

We are open 10am to 2pm on Fridays and would like to open on a second day each week. This would be dependent on recruiting more volunteers.

 

8.WEBSITE REPORT – Peter Cousins

 

The website continues to attract a regular flow of visitors, over 4,000 home page visits since July 2024 when the counters were reset, with a total of almost 13,000 hits to all pages.

The most popular pages visited recently being the Heritage Centre and the Meetings details pages.

The site was revamped last year with a menu system at the top of the page, making accessing certain pages much easier.

A Google search of “Wigston History” still continues to bring up our site at the top of the list.

If you come across any difficulties using the various pages or find any broken links, please do let me know.

 

9.ELECTION OF OFFICERS AND COMMITTEE

 

The nominations for the Officers and Committee members are:

 

Chairman Judith Proctor

Vice Chairman POSITION VACANT

Secretary POSITION VACANT

Treasurer  Jackie Sylvester

Membership SecretarySue Lobb

Website/Social Media/ Advertising  Peter Cousins

Bulletin Editor  Steve Marquis

Heritage Centre Co-ordinator Joan Rowbottom

Heritage Centre LibrarianElaine French

Committee Members – Roger Whalley, Ann Cousins, Colin Towell

 

The Chairman asked if we could vote for the nominations en bloc – this was agreed.

Proposed by: Mike Hibbitt

Seconded by: Angela Pitches

All in favour: YES

Anyone against: NO

 

On behalf of the Society, Mike Forryan (President) thanked Peter for his sterling work whilst Vice Chair and Chairman & also Roger for the excellent work as Membership Secretary - not an easy task.

 

New Chair Statement - Thank you to all the members for having the confidence in me, and accepting me as Chairman. Peter will be a hard act to follow, but will be continuing with Mike and others to find a permanent home for the society, where all the resources and archive material will be fully accessible. I am looking forward to getting to know you all, and finding out your ideas for future events & outings. As vice chair, I attended many events representing the Society selling publications & books, and would like to extend my thanks to my fellow book sellers Steve Marquis, Stuart Mucklejohn and Neil Hancock.

 

10.A.O.B

The 2024 accounts have been examined this year by Deborah Evans; however, an Accounts examiner will need to be appointed for next year

Constitution Review - opinion was that the Constitution needed refreshing - this will be discussed at a special general meeting on the 18th March prior to the ‘Medieval Pilgrimages from Leicestershire’ evening meeting.

There are 2 vacant positions on the Committee - Vice Chair & Secretary – if interested, please contact Judith Proctor.

 

11CLOSE OF AGM.

Meeting closed at 19.38 and was followed with a talk by Eddie Smallwood: HENRY V11 ROUTE TO BOSWORTH & THE CROWN

 

NOTE: 76 Members and 4 visitors attended the Annual General Meeting