Notes from the PYA Annual General Meeting - 22 March 2022

Thank you to everyone who attended the Promoting Yorkshire Authors AGM by ZOOM at 7pm on Tuesday 22nd March 2022. These are the brief notes of the meeting.

Chairman's and Finance Report

Paul Smith presented highlights of the Chairman's and Finance report (available from this blog) and asked for comments and questions. Pam Golden asked Paul to explain the meaning of the columns on the Finance report but otherwise the reports were accepted by the AGM.

Committee

Neelie Wicks resigned from the committee and we thank her for the significant contribution made by her for the good of PYA.

The remaining committee will continue and be augmented by the new members detailed in the Chairman's report. In addition, Ros Kind and Stuart Larner volunteered to stand and we welcomed them to the committee.

Open Discussion

In no particular order, the following was either discussed and/or agreed by the AGM attendees:

• ZOOM events should continue as they attract members across Yorkshire and are better alternatives for some who would find it difficult to travel to sessions across our large county.
• We agreed that we should also aim to re-open our contacts with libraries across the region and aim to create face-to-face events in addition to the Book Fairs arranged in Harrogate for May and October. Paul will post in the Committee WhatsApp group and Facebook members' group seeking ideas for face-to-face events and identifying champions for locations within the county.
• Linda Jones and Darren Walker will aim to restart contacts for Wakefield and Leeds respectively if possible.
• Susanna Lewis will investigate PYA being involved in FEVA (Knaresborough Art Festival) - even if it is only a token representation for this year - aiming for a good long term relationship.
  
• Susan Pape suggested creating a Finance Subcommittee to investigate fund-raising for PYA and Paul will post in the Committee WhatsApp group seeking views and expressions of interest. To be considered are:
  
• Reinstating membership fees.
• Obtaining local grants.
• Funding from other sources - brainstorming ideas.

 

PYA Book Fair Saturday 29th October 2022 - Expression of Interest

We're pleased to announce that we've found a great venue for the Book Fair scheduled for 29th October 2022 in Harrogate and we'd like you to contact us if you are interested in selling your books at the fair.

This book fair will be open to all genres and is being organised by Jane Clack with a supporting cast of members helping her.

Kate Swann kindly went to view the venue and here's what she thought...

I had a  good look at St Peters today and was impressed by the facilities.

The entrance hall in glass would make a good 'shop window' to display books and banner and could accommodate around 3 or 4 tables. This would be a good place to entice people in an point them to other spaces.

There is an alcove area which could be used for another table and/or display on the corridor to the Brostoff Hall. This room is upstairs and is 7m x 9m square, it has access to a kitchen and a loo and can be reached by lift or stairs.

There are about a dozen tables 6ft x 3ft which can be set up and plenty of chairs.   Close to this area is a smaller space which is glass fronted and looks over the church which I thought might be used for readings. Light and airy and enclosed for quieter activities.

The church itself is used as a cafe on Saturdays so plenty of footfall to attract visitors. They have installed a state of the art air purifier which traps and kills germs and viruses. The building is modern and well appointed with disabled facilities.

The administrator suggested that we set up on the Friday and the church staff would help with putting up tables.

There is another room available for readings if we wanted to do several at a time and this is a music room with excellent acoustics.

They have boards for attaching publicity material and a banner rail if we wanted to hang large advertising material.

All in all I was impressed and feel it would be an excellent venue. If we can attract lots of authors to join and if we do readings and/or discussion it could be a really lively event - the facilities are first rate.

Some photos are below... please register your interest quickly as spaces are likely to go quickly.

 

PYA Chairman's Report for the Annual General Meeting of 22nd March at 19:00

The AGM this year is a little late, normally in January so I'll cover the period between 1st January 2021 and 31st December 2021 in this report.

Finance

First the finance report - see this Blog for the figures. Because of the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020 and the subsequent serial lock-downs, the committee took a decision to abandon our ambitious plan and to cut our costs. As a result we closed the Promoting Yorkshire Authors Limited Company and reconstituted as a Community Group with a simpler constitution and significantly reduced costs. We also decided to cease membership fees and for each event we undertook to be self funding.

To an extent we've achieved this and our finances are broadly flat, except that the loans provided by two committee members are still outstanding and are unlikely to be paid anytime soon.

If you can, it would be great if you'd donate to PYA to help refill our coffers.

The Year in Focus

We've used ZOOM extensively for events in 2021 with mostly positive results - attracting many members together who we probably wouldn't have seen in the same room in face-to-face sessions.

Successful events have included drop-ins, our regular writers' support group hosted by Helen Johnson, children's author group hosted by Linda Jones - previously by Neelie Wicks, thanks Neelie for all you've done - and the poetry evening hosted by Kate Swann. All have been well attended and superb for stretching the writer, trying something new.

Less successful has been our book club and, after a trial re-launch, we've decided not to continue with this.

I attended a writer's event organised by Ripon Library and offered the services of our members for another session and quite a few of you came forward. I've passed the information you've provided on to the organiser.

We had plans to link up with Click-a-Book but, mostly because I've been unable to find the time and energy, I haven't been able to progress this much - mostly because it needs technology input. On this front, the web site has been updated and numerous member books have been added to our site plus that of Wise Grey Owl. If your books haven't been added - please let us know and we'll be happy to add them.

A big achievement organised by Jane Clack with a wonderful supporting cast of our members was the production of our first full colour book pamphlet which has been distributed throughout Yorkshire (and beyond). It was a monumental task and we all breathed deeply when it was finally out of the door. Thank you everyone who helped, added your books or advertised - you know who you are and we couldn't have done it without you.

The Year Ahead

We're being brave this year (masks at the ready) with two real events, both Book Fairs and both in Harrogate. The first is a smaller event at the Victoria Shopping Centre and is on Saturday 14th May. We're focusing on Children's and Young Adult books for this event as we've been allocated a limited number of tables.

In October (more details will follow soon) we're organising a much larger event for all of our members - watch this space.

Committee

Our existing committee is available for re-election:

• John Jackson
  
• Helen Johnson
• Susanna Lewis
  
• Paul Smith (Chair)
• Kate Swann
  
• Neelie Wicks (Secretary, retiring 2022)

And we welcome our new volunteers to the Committee

• Jane Clack
• Phill Featherstone
  
• Pam Golden
  
• Linda Jones
  
• Heike Phelan

I'd particularly like to thank Neelie Wicks - who is standing down this year - for all of the hard work she's undertaken on behalf of PYA. We'll miss your insight but best wishes for the future.

Thank you for being our members and I have everything crossed for the pandemic and world situation to improve so that we can all achieve whatever becomes the new normal in these strangest of times.

Paul Smith

March 2022

 

PYA Finance Report for the AGM of 22nd March 2022 by ZOOM

Here's the finance report for the Annual General Meeting of Promoting Yorkshire Authors to be held by ZOOM on Tuesday 22nd March at 7pm. For joining details see the event in the members Facebook group of PYA (you'll need to be a member to view this and the link opens in a new window).

Promoting Yorkshire Authors Finance Report
Date:	16/03/22
			Changes since
		Last Report	Last Report
Income
Donations	£316.00	£214.00	£102.00
Initiatives	£202.00	£1,271.15	-£1,069.15	Payment made for Book Pamphlet
Interest	£0.00	£0.00	£0.00
Membership Fees	£1,171.95	£1,171.95	£0.00
Commerce	£0.00	£0.00	£0.00
Other	£0.00	£0.00	£0.00
Total Income	£1,689.95	£2,657.10	-£967.15
Expenditure
Company Formation and Disposal	£230.00	£230.00	£0.00
Marketing	£177.96	£177.96	£0.00
Technology	£506.51	£506.51	£0.00
Other	£554.31	£554.31	£0.00
Total Expenditure	£1,468.78	£1,468.78	£0.00
Income – Expenditure	£221.17	£1,188.32	-£967.15
Gross Current Assets
Cash in Hand	£0.00	£0.00	£0.00
Current Account	£537.39	£1,586.88	-£1,049.49
Paypal Account	£25.31	£22.97	£2.34
Total Gross Current Assets	£562.70	£1,609.85	-£1,047.15
Current Liabilities
Director Loans*	£341.53	£421.34	-£79.81	*Edwin Rydberg	£0.00
Expected Expenditure				*John Jackson	£59.00
Accountant	£0.00	£0.00	£0.00	*Paul Smith	£282.53
Audit	£0.00	£0.00	£0.00
Accruals	£600.00	£1,189.00	-£589.00	Estimate: October book fair booking, Liability insurance, Flyer printing
Total Liabilities	£941.53	£1,610.34	-£668.81
Net Current Assets	-£378.83	-£0.49	-£378.34

PYA Children's Author Group - March 17th at 2.30pm

The next PYA Children's Author group meeting is our discussion session, this time on Children's Comedy.

 

We'll discuss this difficult genre in preparation for our next meeting in April when we'll prepare a piece of work to read out to the group - great for feedback and friendly critique.

 

Our next session is Thursday March 17th at 2.30pm by Zoom (please see our Facebook event for details - opens in a new window and you need to be a member of this closed group to view it) and we hope to see you there.

PYA Book Fairs

We're holding our first book fair in Victoria Shopping centre in Harrogate - a good venue with heavy footfall - on Saturday 14th May focusing on Children's and Young Adult books.

There are a few places left if you're interested and we're also looking for volunteers to staff tables during the day or hand out leaflets. Please reply to any Espresso if you are interested or contact Paul Smith, chair of PYA.

We're seeking a suitable venue for a larger fair featuring all genres in October, in good time for Christmas, again in Harrogate. If you haven't already registered your interest in being involved in this could you please reply to any PYA Espresso or again to Paul and we'll let Jane Clack, the organiser, know.

We are producing a generic Book Fair Leaflet, A5 in size, to hand out to shoppers on the day telling them about PYA and our book fairs. We have limited room for adverts - 4 on the front and 8 on the back and we're offering adverts to those who advertised in our promotional pamphlet last year at a reduced rate of £10. We'll print 1,000 of the leaflets and distribute them at all of our book fairs. Reply to any Espresso of contact Paul if this is of interest to you.