Friends of Old Bega Hospital Inc
Notice of Annual General Meeting 2021
The 2021 Annual General Meeting of the Friends of the Old Bega Hospital Inc will be held at 2pm on Sunday 14 November 2021 at the Nurses Quarters (EdgeFM building) at the Old Bega Hospital, 3 Corkhill Place, Bega NSW.
Agenda
1. Opening of meeting
2. To confirm the minutes of previous general meeting, the 2020 AGM held on 13 October 2020.
3. To receive from the committee reports on the activities of the association during the last preceding financial year
4. To receive and consider the financial statement and report
5. To elect office-bearers of the association and ordinary committee members
6. General business.
Explanatory notes
1. Article 29 of the constitution requires 5 financial members to be present to constitute a quorum. The constitution is available on the Friends website, www.obh.org.au. New or non-financial members should contact the Secretary (friends@obh.org.au) to pay the annual dues ($10) before the meeting.
2. For agenda item 2, the draft minutes of the 2020 AGM are at Attachment 1 below.
3. For agenda item 3, the president's report is at Attachment 2 below.
4. For agenda item 4, the financial statements are at Attachment 3 below.
5. The office bearers of the association are set out in article 16 of the constitution. To be elected are president, vice president, secretary, treasurer, and 3 ordinary committee members. Article 17 of the constitution sets out the processes for nomination and election. The only requirements for nominations are that they must be made in writing, be signed by 2 members of the association and be accompanied by the written consent of the candidate (which may be endorsed on the form of the nomination); and that nominations should be sent to the Secretary 7 days before the meeting. There is no specific nomination form. If following consideration of nominations received in advance there are unfilled positions then further nominations will be accepted at the meeting.
People with no committee experience are encouraged to nominate if they would like to learn about committee processes. Being a committee member involves legal responsibilities, so informal arrangements may need to be made for people under 18. Contact us (email friends@obh.org.au in the first instance) if you would like to discuss a nomination or the nomination process.
Minutes of the Annual General Meeting of Friends of the Old Bega Hospital Inc on Tuesday, 13 October 2020, at the Old Bega Hospital cottage.
Apologies: Nil.
Present: Val Little, Chris Rogers, John Reynolds, Jay Ellard, Richard Bomford, Gordon Beattie, Claire Lupton, Eric Myers, Pat Jones..
Minutes of 2019 annual general meeting: Moved: Pat Jones, seconded: Gordon Beattie. Carried.
President's Report:
President's report attached.
Moved it be received: Val Little, seconded: Jay Ellard. Carried.
Fundraising committee report attached.
Treasurer's report:
Balance of membership account: $1,573.78
Balance of public account: $409.04
Balance of public investment account: $65,557.83
The sum of $47 be paid to the NSW Department of Fair Trading for the lodgement of an annual summary of financial affairs.
Moved: John Reynolds, seconded: Jay Ellard. Carried.
Election of officers and committee:
President – Richard Bomford (Claire Lupton, John Reynolds)
Vice President – Jay Ellard (Claire Lupton/Val Little)
Secretary – Claire Lupton (John Reynolds/Jay Ellard)
Treasurer – John Reynolds (Claire Lupton/Val Little).
Committee members: Val Little, Pat Jones, Gordon Beattie and Eric Myers.
Fundraising committee members: Val Little, Gordon Beattie, Pat Jones and Claire Lupton.
President's report for the year ended 30 June 2021
2020-21 was the year Covid took, making it very difficult to organise and carry off any public events. Activities by the Friends were curtailed, as were those of the community groups that call the Old Bega Hospital home.
The year started with cancellation of the annual Trivia Night in August. That was followed by cancellation of the 2020 Raise the Roof Spring Fair and the Bega Cheese Vegemite® competition at the end of October.
The usual opportunity to sell raffle tickets, face to face in the streets of Bega in spring and summer was restricted by Covid. We took a fresh approach and moved the raffle online. Our first online raffle was our Christmas Gourmet Basket Raffle 2020, and the second was the MITRE 10 Autumn Raffle. A big thank you to Gourmet Baskets and Mitre 10 for their support for our raffles and to everyone who embraced the new approach to buying tickets online.
Life did continue! Newsletters went out each quarter. Thank you to Gordon Beattie for coordination, editorial and design inputs over the last two years. Thank you too to Andrew Constance and his Bega Electoral Office and to the Bega Campus of Wollongong University for their ongoing support for printing the newsletter.. The website www.obh.org.au was kept up to date, and the Friends committee and the Events committee met regularly to keep things moving. A lot of work went into preparations for the Trivia Night and the Spring Fair even though they ended up being cancelled.
The Friends represented the OBH at public forums, seniors week, a CWA gathering and at other community events through the year.
One of the major roles of the Friends is to provide support for the Reserve Land Manager, the volunteer group which manages the Old Bega Hospital for NSW Crown Lands, which owns the site and the buildings. The Reserve Land Manager continued with detailed design and costings for restoration of the main building. The RLM had $3.5m grant funding for the restoration, based on 2018 costing of the concept design produced by Sibling Architects with help from a Heritage Near Me grant. Revised costings prepared for the detailed design by Design5 Architects, including some functional changes and additional requirements by Council and the building code, indicated that the likely total cost had blown out to closer to $5m. The RLM applied for a grant from the Bushfires Local Economic Recovery scheme but was unsuccessful. Since the end of the financial year the RLM has applied for a Black Summer Bushfires Recovery grant. As the result of that application probably won't be known before the end of the calendar year, the RLM in conjunction with the project manager, Public Works Advisory, and the funding bodies (NSW Regional Development and Crown Lands) is seeking to go ahead with a partial restoration using the funds that are available. That would see all structural repairs done and would indeed 'Raise the Roof' over the whole building - a major milestone. Inside would see eastern half of the building boarded up to keep it secure and weathertight. But the western half would be available for the community - including a meeting room, community kitchens, the men's ward as a space for activities, room for a gift shop and office, and a couple of rooms available for community groups to move into. Depending on how tenders came in from builders, it might be possible to finish a couple more rooms for community use in the middle of the building. The Reserve Land Manager has worked very hard for a very long time to get the project to this stage and is to be commended for its work. The Friends hope the second grant application will see funding made available to complete the job, so that the whole building can be handed over to the community and again become the hub of the Old Bega Hospital Regional Community Cultural Centre some time in 2023.
The Reserve Land Manager also got Crown Lands grants to repair the roofs of the Operating Theatre and Laundry buildings, got an insurance payout for storm damage to remake and reseal the circular driveway, and a Council Heritage grant to help with connecting the Nurses' Quarters stormwater to the site stormwater system.
So a difficult year, but one with rewards. Thank you to all involved and all our Friends
Richard Bomford
President
October 2021