Chairperson:

 Outgoing and incoming President Peter Leiner (due to illness of John Akele

Opened 6:36pm

-           Welcome

-           Apologies: Frances Cairns, John Akele, Gay Palmer, Karen Boyle

-           Agenda for the evening

(* Only financial Members can vote for the AGM).

General Business:

Meeting Closed at 8:05pm

Minutes of last meeting: Were deemed to be true and correct

Moved: Rachael Broome

Seconded: Helen Gerard

Treasurer’s Report: Provided by outgoing Treasurer Sally Weiner and passed on in records to new Treasurer.

Moved to be excepted: Elise Leiner

Seconded: Dinesh Mascarenhas

Positions were declared vacant and the following were voted into the new committee. Positions not filled on the night have been noted also.

§       President – Peter Leiner

§       Vice President – REMAINS VACANT

§       Treasurer – Frazer Davey

§       Assistant Treasurer – Karen Boyle

§       Secretary – REMAINS VACANT

§       Assistant Secretary (Correspondence) – REMAINS VACANT

§       WebMaster & E-News Officer – Scott Smith

§       Membership Officer – REMAINS VACANT

There are currently 25 members who are paid for the 2007/2008 financial year. There were only 6 of these members present at this AGM. The discussions on the future of Corrimal Chamber due to all positions, and most importantly key positions having not been filled, were emotional and ended in no resolve. At this stage, President of the chamber, Peter Leiner and new executive members as listed above, are taking time to consider the future direction the chamber will take. Options include:

1.     Continue with the above, incomplete, committee

2.     Dissolve the Corrimal Chamber completely

3.     Enter discussions and possibly merge with, the Northern Illawarra Chamber.

Spring Into Corrimal Ball

• Tickets are now and sale

• A new brochure/promotional flyer has been suggested that would be more impacting on the recipients than the current poster
• More information is need to be gotten out there. A number of people have not been sending out the poster as it lacks all the crucial information that is needed. Ie. What the menu will consist of
• Elise Leiner has offered to look into having a new poster drafted within a week. Her source will be WECTWFD, a training and employment agency she works with.

Declining attendance at meetings

• The subject of declining attendance at Chamber meetings was discussed.
• One attending guest, Bruce Anderson, suggested perhaps we could have free membership as the Chambers total revenue only sources 20% from membership fees. This may encourage more members to join and this may bring more active members. The issue with this idea is that the Chamber has no other sources of revenue to meet insurance costs which is where at least 50% of the chamber income goes. Bruce indicated that through his experiences with the chamber in ??? , events are the answer to this problem. Events bring people and people bring the funding. But this strategy needs a budget to start with!
• Sunny Spargo suggested that perhaps having no discussions or decisions at General Member Meetings and due to having no E-Newsletter (due to no Media Officer) to send information quickly and regularly out to members that our members see no return worth re-investing their money in or their time.
• The decision to change to holding separate Executive meetings (where all decisions would be made), from the General Member nights (which would become primarily information and training nights), was made by the Executive committee and without consultation with all chamber members. Helen Gerards pointed this out as most probably being against the correct processes of a Chamber Committee.

FURTHER INFORMATION WILL BE SENT AS SOON AS A DECISION IS MADE.