Our 94th Annual General Meeting took place on Thursday 18th February with 36 members in attendance. At the beginning of the meeting we paid our respects to two Sutton beekeepers who sadly passed away this year,
John Weston and Glyn Jones, both will be sadly missed. We then had our principal officers reports in which our treasurer submitted the years accounts and summarised our finances as being healthy with our income coming from training courses and association honey sales. Our Chair then discussed our association’s social events and outreach with our BBQ, Christmas meal, Honey show, Sutton Park Bioblitz and Canwell agricultural show being just a few of our highlights. With our newly appointed social secretary our calendar was kept full. This year we also commemorated Julian Routh’s life by planting a tree within our training apiary with his family. A vote of thanks was proposed thanking the many members who give their time and expertise free of charge to help make our association a success. Then it was time for the election of committee and with some stepping down it was time to welcome on board Lee Greatorex, Leonie Williams and Alison Vaux. Any other business included our education coordinator discussing exciting new training opportunities for members and our honey show secretary informing members of a new two day format for our local show at Middleton Hall on heritage weekend, with an association outreach marque to engage the public.
Over £740 was raised by our association during the year for various charities and our thanks go to all who contributed to this fantastic achievement. Our Chair left us with these words “We have a very successful, busy and friendly association and one of which we should be very proud.” This sentiment was shared by all in attendance.
