Hosted by Derbyshire Dairy Goat Club
Saturday 10th April 2010

At The Twin Oaks Hotel
Junction 29 of the M1 near Chesterfield, Derbyshire (see below for more details)
Postcode for SatNav users is S44 6UZ

Agenda
10.30 a.m.  Arrive – Coffee
11.30 a.m. BGS AGM
12.30 p.m. Lunch (see below)
1.30 p.m. Affiliated Societies Conference (Click for Agenda)
3.30 p.m. Tea and Depart

Lunch
A two course lunch will be available:

Mains:
Steak and Ale Pie
OR
Lasagne (vegetarian option also available)
AND
Choice of sweets available on the day

Cost £11.50

Please forward payment and your main course choice to
JOANNE SMITH, 5, PARKHOUSE ROAD, LOWER PILSEY CHESTERFIELD DERBYSHIRE, S45 8DG
Telephone 01246 854898
Cheques made payable to “Derbyshire Goat Club”  and sent by 5th April
For those not having lunch with us we ask  of £3.50 per person to cover tea and coffee – this can be paid as above or on the day.

LOCATION OF TWIN OAKS HOTEL
The hotel is situated very near to junction 29 of the M1, and is well signposted from all directions.
Travelling south on the M1 (signposted Palterton) it is just to the left of the exit road.
Travelling North take the slip road at J29 and then follow the roundabout round until you PASS the southbound exit and you will see the signs to Palterton. The Hotel is just down the road on the left.

 

Present: Richard Wood (Chairman) Mr P Cox, Mrs A Aitken, Mrs M Edginton, Mr C Newton,
Mr N Parr, Mr T Hanna, Mr R Pemble, Mrs C Ball, Ms S Knowles.
By invitation: - Mrs J Wilson.
Apologies were received from Mrs R. Earthy

The Chairman opened the meeting by introducing and welcoming Jane Wilson, the new Secretary to the BGS. The chairman thanked Mr Peck who is retiring from committee and Mr Cox who is the retiring President.

Plans are going ahead for the implementation of the Grassroots System after 1st March and a meeting of the Milk Recording Secretaries will take place when the system is operational. Donations towards the Grassroots appeal were now in excess of the December’s £900.

Offers of help with closure the office in Bovey Tracey had been received from members. This was very much appreciated. The Committee gave approval for Mr Wood and Mrs Wilson to visit the office as soon as possible and together with Mrs Knowles would consider the archive and necessary sorting, storage an removal to Northumberland..

Plans are going ahead for a BGS stand at the Dairy Event at the NEC in September.

The Chairman would write on behalf of the BGS and give formal support to an award nomination for David Harwood for his work as a veterinarian and long standing support for goat health and welfare.

The landlord for the Bovey Tracey office had produced a large bill with a list of repairs and dilapidations that raised many questions as to responsibilities. Mr Parr the BGS solicitor advised that we should act within our contract. It was resolved after some discussion that quotations would be sort for painting and decorating the office space and Mr Parr would write to the landlord.

An enquiry for export has been received from the West Indies. Further enquiries to be made on EID for exports.

The accounts were approved prior to going to the Auditors. Three small amendments to the Report of the Trustees were approved for the year ending 31st October 2009.

Mr Pemble had researched the history of the Centenary Fund first recorded in 1979. Further discussion would go before the new committee in April.

The AGM takes place on 10th April in Derbyshire. Two nominations had been received for President and therefore a vote would be necessary.

The Chairman thanked Mrs Knowles for all her work as Secretary over 23 years.

The next committee meeting takes place on 24th April.

(Thanks to Jane Wilson for writing this summary - as a volunteer!)

Present: Richard Wood (Chairman), Agnes Aitken, Christine Ball, Peter Cox. Ros Earthy, Terry Hanna, Margaret Edginton, Colin Newton, Nick Parr, Charlie Peck, Richard Pemble.
Apologies were received from   Sue Knowles.

The deaths were announced of John Allen and Peter Bidwell. Richard Wood has written to both families to give the Society’s condolences. 

 A meeting with regard to the proposed Dairy Goat Show to take place at RASE has not yet taken place but is still under active consideration.

A major publicity drive is to be linked to a bid to the Sir James Nott charity. This will help to give the BGS stand at the Dairy Event the professional image it requires.

An export to Trinidad took place. The purchaser is very pleased and had ordered more. More enquires have been received but the Blue Tongue situation is still making things difficult.

DEFRA has made an enquiry about how commercial herds would re-stock in the event of a major health crisis.

 The autumn conferences were successful. There were excellent speakers at Grampian and the Grassroots presentation at Durham was very well received.

Appointment of a new secretary: the interviews will take place in London on 5th January.

 Discussion of the Grassroots system: the proposal that the system be accepted as a whole and to be in place for use by the new secretary was passed unanimously. The chairman was authorised to launch an appeal to be called ‘The Grassroots Appeal"

 Feedback on the consultation with members. Richard W. reported that a lot of the issues raised were answered by our adoption of the Grassroots system. Other points are to be broken down and passed to the relevant sub-committees for further consideration.

 A net increase in members has produced £1000 increase in funds. Transfers and prefix registrations show an increase and there is a small rise in registrations. Year Book advertisements and sales are up but income from shares is still down.

 CAE testing: The proposal that we should move to three year testing was discussed. It was felt that there was still not enough information about the extent of CAE. A reminder of the Monitored herd scheme is to appear in the journal.

The AGM will be at the Twin Oaks Hotel, Derbyshire 10th April 2010

The final affliated society conference for 2009 was mainly devoted to a demonstration of the Grassroots program which allows a vast amount of data to be stored, sorted, analysed and accessed.

The program had been devised specifically for livestock registrations and data and is used by many breed societies including RBST.

The demonstration, and the response to questions, impressed everyone present.

Our thanks go to Libby Henson and Margaret Hargreaves (of Grassroots Systems Ltd.) who gave the excellent presentation and also Durham Dairy Goat Society who hosted the conference.

The PowerPoint slides which acted as the core of the presentation can be downloaded from HERE, but if you do not have PowerPoint on your computer then get a .pdf version from HERE.

The personal notes used by Libby in her talk are available HERE. The notes list 56 points, only 34 of which were covered by the PowerPoint presentation. The other points in  the notes refer to an online demonstration of Pedeweb in action.

Ros Earthy and Peter Cox