At the BW AGM on 15th November, the committee said goodbye to some familiar faces and hello to many new ones!
Committee presentations highlighted a very successful 12 months, including the 25th Anniversary Ceilidh, the 3 Peaks Challenge in Yorkshire, and a Summer Solstice overnight walk.
- Tom presented the Walks Leaderboard showing which leaders had led the most walks in the last year – no surprises there, with Michael at 45, more than twice as many as anyone else.
- Chris presented the membership statistics, showing that membership has dropped very slightly, but was still looking good.
- I reminded everyone of the 5 very successful trips we had (Exeter, Swanage, Weston-super-Mare, Ingleton and Penzance), and the 25th Anniversary Celebrations – thanks to the subcommittee for all their hard work!
- Michael summarised the many socials he’d organised, and which ones were most popular.
- Despite having promised to do so, our treasurer did *not* share his review of the finances in the form of interpretive dance, but thankfully our accounts were still looking good, so perhaps we can forgive him.
Stepping down this year, a huge thank you goes to Zak for his 7 years on the committee as Membership Secretary and then Walks Coordinator, Grant for his four years as group Chair, and Andrew for his 5 year contribution – mostly as Social Secretary, as well as Georgia after 3 years as our Publicity / Marketing Officer, and Will after successfully completing our new website, and 2 years as Website Officer.
We then welcomed Dan P as our new Membership Secretary, Alex as joint Walks Coordinator with Tom, and Caroline and Mark as Ordinary Members.
The new committee 2025-26:
- Chair: Shannon
- Secretary: Ed
- Treasurer: Paul
- Website: Chris
- Membership Secretary: Dan P
- Social Secretary: Michael
- Walks Coordinators: Tom H & Alex
- Trips Advisor: Shannon
- Ordinary Members: Caroline & Mark
- Publicity Officer: Vacant (someone has already volunteered to take this on and be co-opted on to the committee at the next meeting!)
I’m personally very sad that Zak will be moving on, after his huge contribution - he assures me we can all count on him as our unofficial consultant, though he has moved on to pastures new as an ordinary member on the BWW committee!
We’ll all miss Grant’s steady leadership – and we presented him with a personalised BW tankard at the AGM stating affectionately that he’s “Always the Boss”. And we’d like to say a huge heartfelt thank you to Georgia, Andrew and Will for their contributions.
I’m looking forward to supporting our new committee this year as Group Chair! I can’t wait to see what fantastic ideas everyone has for the year ahead 😁.
Shannon
(now Group Chair 2025-26!)