Minutes of the Fusion Annual General Meeting held at 14:00 on 24th January 2004 at UMIST, Manchester

1. Chair's Welcome.
Paul Ruffle welcomed those present.

2. Appointment of Minute Taker.
Jim Grozier volunteered to take the minutes.

3. Introductions.
Sally Griffin, Jim Grozier, Richard Humphreys, Andy Knowles, Norrette Moore, Dwyn Padfield, John Pollard, Paul Ruffle, Digby Tarvin, John Taylor, Rosemary Twidale.

4. Apologies for Absence.
Sheldon Attridge, Eleanor Cowan, Wendy Mayhew, Reinalt Vaughan-Williams, Rob Wilby.

5a. Minutes of 2003 AGM
Agreed.

5b. Matters Arising from 2003 Minutes.
1. Auditor: Peter Fletcher to be approached again.
2. Nexus Award: It had been proposed that this be spent on a special colour edition of the Newsletter, but this was found to be too expensive.
3. Fusion portion of S103 leaflet: In hand with Norrette.
4. OUSA conference expenses: The anomaly whereby societies have to pay, but OUSA branches do not, has been satisfactorily resolved.

6. Reports on Fusion activities in the past year, and discussion of our plans for the future, broken down into the main areas of activity as follows, and led by the Committee member responsible for each.

(a) Finance
Norrette Moore gave a written report. In 2003, £1848.00 had been received in membership, including new and renewed memberships of greater than one year, for which £920 has been "put aside" for future years. T-shirt sales exceeded costs by £91.20. We also received £100 for our Nexus Award and £11.04 interest. Main expenses were: Advertising £170.39; Office Expenses £212.41; Travel £81.95; AGM £52.53. Altogether, income exceeded expenses by £612.56 in 2003.

(b) Membership
Rob Wilby sent a written report. Current membership was 387. 246 of these have signed up for more than one year. 300 are IOP members (218 having joined with Fusion). 91 have joined and 91 lapsed in the last year - membership static. We need to find out why people don't renew. We should also explain that they can remain members even after finishing their OU study. "Final reminder" letters to be reinstated. Standing orders were also suggested as a way of simplifying the renewal process. Recruitment: We have a year's worth of stats on "How did you find out about Fusion?" but they were not available at the meeting. It was suggested that we could put up posters at tutorial venues and contact tutors to ask them to publicise the society.

(c) Newsletter
Paul Ruffle stated that only three editions had been issued in 2003. Sample Newsletter now on web site. Copy needed - we have no reserves of articles. Speakers from AGM weekend to be invited to write. No-one had entered the quiz!

(d) Events
Jim Grozier informed us that the Mill Hill weekend astronomy event had been a great success, even though we didn't fill all of the original 30 places. We plan to repeat it in 2005 (possibly joint with OUSAPS?). Plans for a "General Physics" weekend practical event in 2004 had to be abandoned because the OU considered it would be a threat to the viability of the SXR207 summer school(!) Other successful events had been visits to Winfrith, the Centre for Alternative Technology, the Royal Institution and three Open Afternoons at the Rutherford Appleton Lab. Also the UCL physics society had invited Fusion members to join them in a trip to Paris; Jim and Digby had taken part. In 2004 we will be visiting Bletchley Park, Rheidol hydro-electric scheme, the Mullard Radio Astronomy Observatory, and Windscale as well as three more open afternoons at RAL. UCL are organising a follow-up to Paris, this time to Amsterdam, and again Fusion members are invited. UCL are also considering a tour of their Physics Department.

(e) Merchandise
John Pollard: Schrödinger T-shirt now available. Current stock: (allowing for donations to AGM speakers) Black Maxwell: 3 "M" only. Navy Maxwell: 8 "M", 8 "L", 5 "XL". Navy Schrödinger: 1 "M", 12 "L", 15 "XL", 5 "XXL". We can continue with both the Maxwell and Schrödinger designs for now. Stats required on how many T-shirts are ordered with membership forms. Should we add a T-shirt order to renewal forms? Cost price is £3.65 excluding screen charges. Alternative merchandise (pens, mugs etc) was discussed but we decided to stick with T-shirts for now.

(f) Web Site
Paul was congratulated for his work on our web site, which recently won a Nexus Award. There are no costs associated with the web site except £35 per year for the domain name.

(g) OUSA Conference and Societies Standing Committee
Norrette Moore: We did not have a conference delegate last year. It was pointed out that this year's conference is on the OU campus and societies are being encouraged to have stalls, as Open Day has been cancelled. Agreed we should have a stall. Norrette has contributed to two motions - on First Class access for society officers, and on the cost of Sesame adverts.

(h) Nexus Rep
Jim Grozier attended the Nexus Reps' Day and AGM as Paul was unavailable. He gave a short report. Nexus had some financial problems in 2003 but had now resolved them. Dan Evans had now taken over as President, and the Nexus Committee had also appointed an officer in charge of policy issues - part of the move towards campaigning/representation instead of having a purely social role.

(i) OU Physics and Astronomy Department
No representative present.

7. Election of New Officers, Committee and Delegates:
In order to satisfy the Constitution, OUSA and the Bank, we require the first three statutory posts. Chair and Secretary are signatories to the bank account, but have no other formal duties and are normally occupied by two of the Functional Officers.

Post	Candidate	Proposed	Seconded	Result
Named Officers
Chair	Paul Ruffle	Jim	Andy	Elected
Secretary	Jim Grozier	John P	Digby	Elected
Treasurer	Norrette Moore1	Paul	Rosemary	Elected
Functional Officers
Newsletter and Web site2	Paul Ruffle	John P	Norrette	Elected
Membership	John Pollard	Jim	Digby	Elected
Revision Weekend Coordinator	Digby Tarvin	Andy	Richard	Elected
Events	Jim	Paul	John P	Elected
Merchandise	no nominations3
OU Liaison	Nigel Mason	Paul	John P	Elected
Societies Standing Committee	Norrette Moore	John P	Digby	Elected
OUSA Conference	Norrette Moore	John P	Digby	Elected
Nexus Rep	Digby Tarvin	Richard	Norrette	Elected
Nexus Committee4
Ordinary Committee Members
	Richard Humphreys	Paul	Norrette	Elected
	John Taylor	John P	Paul	Elected

Notes:
1. Norrette indicated her intention to step down from this post at the next AGM.
2. It was agreed to merge the posts of Newsletter Editor and Webmaster.
3. Jim agreed to cover the merchandise portfolio for the time being.
4. As Nexus Committee members are appointed by Nexus, it was considered inappropriate to elect anyone, but Paul indicated that he was willing to continue in this role.

Jim will write to the retiring committee members, Eleanor Cowan and Rob Wilby, thanking them for their contribution.

8. Motion to Change the Membership Fees
Membership fees shall be as follows, with immediate effect, until further notice:
Bronze (1 year): £6 (Fusion only) £16 (inc 1 yr IoP);
Silver (3yrs): £15 (Fusion Only) £25 (inc 1yr IoP);
Gold (5 yrs): £20 (Fusion Only) £30 (inc 1yr IoP).

Proposed by Digby, seconded by Andy. CARRIED.

9. Motion to Amend the Constitution
(i) Officers and Committee (5.i)
The Committee of the Society shall consist of the Officers and not more than 4 (four) ordinary Committee members. The quorum for Committee Meetings shall be 5 members of which at least one member shall be an officer.
To be changed to:
The Committee of the Society shall consist of the Officers and not more than 7 (seven) ordinary Committee members. The quorum for Committee Meetings shall be 5 members of which at least one member shall be an officer.
(ii) Officers and Committee (5.v)
No member shall be eligible to be nominated for the same officer post for more than 3 (three) consecutive years. No member shall be eligible to be nominated for membership of the committee (either as an officer or as an ordinary member) for a total of more than 6 (six) years whether consecutive or separate. The provisions of this clause may be waived in whole or in part for periods of one year at a time at the discretion of an AGM if insufficient eligible members are nominated for officer posts or committee membership.
To be changed to:
No member shall be eligible to be nominated for the same officer post for more than 5 (five) consecutive years. No member shall be eligible to be nominated for membership of the committee (either as an officer or as an ordinary member) for a total of more than 7 (seven) years whether consecutive or separate. The provisions of this clause may be waived in whole or in part for periods of one year at a time at the discretion of an AGM if insufficient eligible members are nominated for officer posts or committee membership.

Proposed by Norrette, seconded by John P. CARRIED.

10. Committee Meetings
Jim proposed that committee meetings be held in 2004, on the following dates and at the venues indicated:
February 21st, Bletchley Park or OU Milton Keynes (following Bletchley Park visit)
April 17th, OU Milton Keynes (during OUSA Conference)
June 19th, London (IoP?)
October 2nd, York (during Revision Weekend)
November (probably 20th), Young Physicists' Conference (probably Newcastle)
The first two dates were agreed as definite; others to be reviewed at the next committee meeting.

11. AOB
None.

CLOSE

Paul was thanked for organising the AGM and the Fusion Weekend.