Annual General Meeting & Awards Presentation
31 October 2014 / Words by Bryan Shedden, Photos by Rod Carter
Annual General Meeting
The AGM of the MX-5 Club of NSW was held on Wednesday 22 October 2014 at Garage Cafe, Sydney Motorsport Park. A year ago, many members were unable to attend our AGM due to the terrible bushfires at Springwood, Minmi and Pheasants Nest. And yet this week, it was snowing on the Blue Mountains. Such a contrast!
51 members were present for the meeting, which was an excellent turn-out. We had Member #160 through to New Member #2796 and plenty in between, ensuring a broad cross section of attendees. Special thanks to Peter Battisson (Canberra), Mark & Lynda Gray (Hunter), Phil & Sandra Reid (Illawarra), and Trevor Griffiths (Illawarra) for making the long trip to Eastern Creek.
In my President's report, I did my best to summarise the Club's long list of achievements during the last twelve months, and you can read about them in the attached report. Michael Soulos spoke briefly about his Captain's report, and tempted us with some hints about the Club's 25th Anniversary celebrations that are being planned for 2015. David Lawler gave a brief overview of his Competition report, the highlight of which was our club winning the CAMS NSW Supersprint Championship for the ninth time - a new record. The final report was given by our new Treasurer, Julie Sando. In recent weeks, Julie had been working extremely hard on finalising the accounts with the help of our Auditor Stewart Temesvary, and they were only completed at 5:15pm that afternoon! Thank you Julie & Stewart for your incredible effort.
With the reports accepted, we then elected our new Committee. Welcome to Glenn Thomas as Vice President, Rod Carter as Publications Officer, and Pam Estreich as Regalia Officer. Thanks to Julie Sando (Treasurer), Wesley Hill (Secretary), and Greg Perry (Website Coordinator) who were appointed to casual Committee vacancies during the year. I was reelected for another term as President. Thank you to Michael Soulos (Captain) and Adam Walker (BreakFast Club Coordinator) who were also reelected. Other Committee members not up for reelection and who continue into 2015 include David Lawler, Keith Monaghan, and Ken Liston. Click here to see the full Committee list with contact details.
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| Bryan Shedden | Glenn Thomas | Julie Sando | Wesley Hill |
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| David Lawler | Michael Soulos | Keith Monaghan | Maggie & Ken Liston |
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| Rod Carter | Pam Estreich | Greg Perry | Adam Walker |
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| Guy Coles | Tony & Iris McDonald | Mark Gray | |
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| Lesa Bunn | Phil Reid | Peter Rodgers |
Awards Presentation
With the AGM officially closed, we then moved on to our Awards Presentation. This commenced with the presentation of Certificates of Appreciation to our sponsors. Peter Battisson (ACDC), Mauro Consalvi (Hume Smash Repairs), and Trevor Griffiths (Centenary Plumbing) were all present to receive their certificates. Peter even took the opportunity to present the club with his sponsorship cheque for 2015. The certificates for Mazda Australia, Deckspeed Racing, Blue Mountains Mazda, and MX5 Solutions will be presented elsewhere. Thank you to Pam Estreich who fostered the idea, Rod Carter for designing the certificates, and Glenn Thomas for making it all happen.
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Peter Battisson |
Mauro Consalvi Hume Smash Repairs Sydney Chapter Sponsor |
Trevor Griffiths Illawarra Chapter Sponsor |
Next up, Membership Tenure Award badges were presented by Keith Monaghan to those members who had achieved 5 Years, 10 Years, and 15 Years of continuous membership in the Club during 2014. I was delighted to receive my 5 Year badge and was amazed to discover that I joined the Club on the same day as Lesa & Greg Bunn! Unfortunately our two 20 Year badge recipients, Russell Wheatley and Sylvia Edgar, were unable to be present - Russell gave the "poor excuse" of living in London. However, he will be visiting us over Christmas and I hope to arrange a day where he and Sylvia can be presented with their badges. Thank you to our Major Sponsor, Peter Battisson at ACDC, who made these awards possible through his continued generous support.
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| 5 Year Awards | 10 Year Awards |
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| 15 Year Awards | 20 Year Awards (absent) |
The final announcement was for the recipient of the President's Award in recognition of Extraordinary Service to the Mazda MX-5 Club of NSW. The highly deserving winner was David Lawler. Exactly one year ago, David was elected to the daunting role of Competition Secretary, after Mike Hicks' retirement. David has worked very closely with Mike who continues to organise our club track days, while David has been Clerk of Course at recent track days. David was very keen to win back the Supersprint Championship for our club, and maximised our chances by coordinating the recruitment of as many entrants in as many classes as possible. It worked because we won the 2014 club championship by a comfortable margin. David helped Craig Durrant with getting the MX-5 Cup race series accepted by the Committee, and was also a keen participant. Motorkhana is a passion for David (or more precisely, Gaynor), and he was the driving force behind our first motorkhana in many years, held at Sydney Motorsport Park in March. We also held a very successful Driver Training Day at Marulan, with another this weekend, and once again David was behind them. Beyond all this, the thing that impressed me the most about David's contribution has been his determination to promote our club's motorsport activities in the best possible light. He has regularly and promptly contributed news reports for the club website, promoted them via Facebook, and taken a keen interest in the coverage of motorsport in Club Torque. Having such an active advocate for our club has been enormously helpful. Thank you and congratulations David!
