NORTH EDINBURGH NEWS Ltd
NORTH EDINBURGH NEWS MEDIA & COMMUNICATION TRUST
Annual General Meeting
27th September 2012 07:00pm in Drylaw Parish Church.
MINUTES
Present:
As per Attendance Sheet.
In Attendance:
Dave Pickering (Editor)
The meeting was chaired by Martin Hinds who opened the meeting and welcomed everyone.
Apologies:
Councillor Cammy Day, Stuart McIvor.
Previous Minutes:
Approved by Eddie Thorn & seconded by Willie Black.
Chairperson’s Report:
Martin Hinds opened by saying that since the last AGM, 18 months ago, in which there was fear it might have been the last and along with the sale of the office at Crewe Road North, the future looked very bleak. Following on from a successful Community Conference in Telford College, however, which generated a lot of support, it was agreed that a community paper with a successful history of 30 years should just not be allowed to die. The board with that support and with the residue of funds left over, decided that the paper should not be allowed to disappear and plans were put in place to keep the NEN going, mainly in the early days via the Blog, and slowly build up to the re-launch in February. This was mainly down to the hard work of Dave Pickering (Editor) and Alan Lennon (Lennon Design) who redesigned the paper, and the board of directors both old and new, Martin expressed his thanks to all for their hard work to get where we are today. Martin also thanked Scotmid & PCA for their sponsorship each of an edition. He added that the Board had been in getting a community grant from the Inverleith Partnership, which would allow the NEN to start a series of Social Media Workshops (NENgage) and hopefully the end product will produce a community reporter(s) for the paper.
Martin closed on a note of caution with regards to the finance side in which he explained that unless there is a significant uptake in advertising income the paper had only enough funds left to produce 2 more editions (October & December). With this in mind he, along with 3 fellow members of the board, met with local councillors from both Forth & Inverleith wards to look at ways of increasing funds. The outcome is an application for a grant, which will be made to both Forth & Inverleith Partnerships for sponsorship, which would enable the paper to continue into next year. By this time it was hoped that some form of partnership working could be agreed with the Council.
There followed a fairly long debate on the future plus various suggestions were made. Board noted them and they will be fully discussed at future board meetings.
Editor’s Report:
Dave Pickering opened by remarking that a lot had happened since the last AGM and a lot has changed. In fact he had not envisaged another NEN AGM, but because of the hard work of the board members, who refused to let the paper die, we are here tonight!. It is all down to them, volunteers who have given up their own time and because of that the community owes them a debt of gratitude that the NEN is still here, clinging on but surviving.
Follow the success of re-launching the paper the other major success story is that of the blog with 90 blog followers, 410 twitters & 52 facebook ‘friends’ . On average the blog is visited 300 times per day and because of that we are looking at ways to try and get paid advertising on to the blog.
Dave ended with his thanks to the board and to the community for sticking with us so far and looked forward to continued support in the future.
Appointment of Auditor:
The meeting agreed to the re-appointment of Alison Glass as Auditor.
Finance Report:
Eddie Thorn Company Secretary/Treasurer produced and explained the Accounts for Year ending 31st March 2012 for both the NEN Ltd & NEN Media & Communication Trust.
There were no questions with regard to the accounts.
Councillor Hinds gave thanks to Eddie for a clear and precise set of accounts.
Nominations/Election of the Board:
Martin Hinds reported that Thomas Brown had resigned from the board.
Martin Hinds moved- That the existing board with exception of Thomas be re–elected. This was unanimously agreed. There were no other nominations.
AOCB:
One Question on NENgage : If was still possible to attend the Workshops. Dave explained that it was still possible. The next one is on Thursday October 4 th in Stockbridge Library.
Date of Next Meeting:
In 12 months’ time in a place and time to be confirmed.
Alex Dale,
1st October 2012
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