YHA National AGM 2008
The 2008 YHA National AGM or National Meeting, previously called YHA National Council, was at Ironbridge over the 12th, 13th and 14th September. I have been attending these meetings as an Individual YHA Member since September 1996, not on behalf of YHA Local Groups. I think this was one of the best organised I have attended, the presence of new hands at the wheel was clearly apparent.
Last year Chris Bolton resigned as National Chairman, a year early, being replaced by his then Vice-Chairman, Chris Darmon. This was followed only three months later by a similar early resignation of Roger Clarke, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) the head of the paid staff. He has been replaced by an Interim-CEO, Caroline White. I know it happens, but Roger’s resignation was very quickly followed by three or more of his senior management team leaving YHA, which to me seems suspicious?
For the first time in about eight years, we returned this year to a meeting with two overnights based at a youth hostel, Friday evening to Sunday afternoon, rather than a cost cutting one overnight meeting from 1 o’clock Saturday to 1 o’clock Sunday at a university hall of residence! We had ample time this year on the Friday night to meet fellow delegates plus the new CEO and the National Chairman over a glass of wine from YHA. Not last year but for two or three years previously the Local Groups organised their own sherry reception on the Saturday night for any members of Local Groups present. Prior to that it was the Chairman’s Sherry Reception for Trustees and invited guests only!
On the Saturday morning there was a series of informal Power Point lectures. These started with a talk by Vice-President Hedley Alcock on his reminiscences of how and why YHA England and Wales started in the 1930s up to the present day. This was followed by more up to date talks on YHA’s Do It For Real and Learn For Real. It was the first time I have ever seen direct evidence of what Do It For Real and Learn for Real actually are, and yes, YHA are still helping young people of limited means, our methods have changed, since Hedley’s days, but our principles are still the same! As proof of this, in the lecture on Learn For Real by Alistair Boyd the Manager of YHA Castleton, a photo of his was shown, taken only last year, of a group of young kids standing at the edge of a field staring at a herd of young heifers staring back them. One lad was said to have asked. “What are they, sheep or cows? Are they dangerous? Do they bite?” We’ve all joked about it, as if it was something of the past; even today, there are still kids who have never seen a cow! Castleton YHA has recently acquired new buildings in order to expand their Learn For Real programme, we were also informed that they intend to set-up a brewery in the hostel, as a teaching aid!
On the other hand, the next morning in the Financial Report given by Alan Bourne the National Treasurer, we were informed that the extra income from food and beverage (beer and wine) sales, over and above the income from overnights, had stalled two years after its instigation - I’ll leave you to make up your own minds on that one!
Our Saturday afternoon session started with a talk called Every Child Matters: what this means to YHA, given by the Rt. Hon. John Mann MP, Chair of the All-Party Youth Hostelling Group. Every Child Matters is Government policy and John told how he thought YHA could help through programmes like Learn For Real and Do It For Real; linking these in with the Beijing and the London 2012 Olympics implying that YHA should encourage sporting activities by using hostels as bases for particular sports. His suggested approach was to form partnerships with sporting groups; if a suitable plan could be presented that would help with this Government policy, grants he said, were available. However, he is also a hiker that goes hostelling with his own family and he gave us his opinion as a Family YHA Member - it wasn’t all flattery! He highlighted the loss of hostels in the Yorkshire Dales and the gaps in the hostel network in general, i.e. he took a poke at YHA’s recent hostel closure programmes. He said hostel drying rooms should be a major selling point for YHA - how many of these have we seen converted into miniature laundrettes, just for washing hostel bed linen! Or, used just used as warden’s storerooms and cluttered with their rubbish! John certainly did not pull his punches when he spoke, many of his audience, volunteers and staff members alike, were given something to think about!
From 3:30 that afternoon the formal AGM commenced. After the usual red tape - Apologies for Absence, Appointment of Scrutineers, etc. the minutes of the previous meeting held at the Museum of Science and Industry, Manchester on the 8 September 2007 were accepted, I thought, with surprisingly light correction or matters arising. We ended that afternoon’s session with a discussion and acceptance of the YHA Annual Review 2008.
Then it was back to the hostel for a clean-up, and to don our suits for the Conference Dinner. Whether they succeeded, I don’t know, but at that dinner, I thought, there was an obvious effort to overcome the ‘them and us’ atmosphere of previous years between staff and volunteers. A presentation being made to Dianne Nightingale for 40 years as the volunteer leader of the Postellers, a hostelling group she set up for under privileged 11 to 17 year olds in London. Later, two YHA Trustees Helen-Maurice Jones and Lindsey Porter were given the chance to launch their new book ‘The Spirit of YHA’ a pictorial history of the very early days of hostelling in England and Wales before YHA England and Wales existed. The proceeds of which, for sale at £20 a copy, will all go into the Small Hostels Fund for renovation of YHA Rowen. These sorts of things I was used to seeing at National Council but this year there were also presentations made to YHA staff members associated with volunteers at YHA National Office and for those that had organised the AGM itself, which I cannot remember seeing before.
Next Morning the session started with, as I said earlier, the presentation of the Financial Results 2007/08, the main point to me was that YHA had made a small Operating Surplus, £0.2 million surplus whereas in 2006/07 they had a £0.3 million Operating Deficit. Of course, there is a lot more to it than that, copies of YHA’s Annual Report 2007/08 are available that summarise the finances.
The next part of the morning session was to re-elect National Officers, Trustees, Vice-presidents and the President. The majority of which were direct reappointments, except for the election of the Rt. Hon. Patrick McLoughlin MP as one of the ten Vice-presidents. This was done to maintain the political balance, since the TV celebrity John Craven had stood down as President and the Rt. Hon. Richard Caborn MP was elected into that position.
This left the remainder of the session to discuss three motions; however, as these involved some confidential matters I cannot discuss them here.
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A very full and interesting report, Dave, that will be appreciated by many.
Although YHA doesn’t offer its members the accessability to national AGMs that most other such organisations do, surely it’s unusual for motions debated not to be reported on the grounds that they ‘involve some confidential matters’! And what became of the motion from the Affiliated Groups Conference in April, thrown out by the Agenda Committee was it ?
Comment by Lounge Lizard — 18 Nov 2008 @ 6:37 pm