Notes from the PYA Annual General Meeting of 22 Jan 2025

Notes from the PYA Annual General Meeting of 22 Jan 2025

The Annual General Meeting of the Promoting Yorkshire Authors Community Group was held on 22 Jan 2025 and we appreciate the participation of all those who attended, even if you couldn't make it for the whole session which lasted an hour and a half.

Firstly - the documents referenced in these brief notes can be found in the December section of our blog (opens in a new window) and are.

• The Agenda
• The Chairman's and Finance Report (combined in one document), and
• The PYA For the Future - PYA 4F working document.

Chairman's Report and Finance Report

Paul Smith (Current Chair) referenced his report which was placed on this blog in December 2024 but he did not go through the report in detail (please read it in this blog under December 2024).

Paul emphasised the vision of PYA which is broadly to improve the quality, visibility and worldwide recognition of the work of authors who have a strong connection with the ancient Ridings of Yorkshire (the old boundary of the current four counties).

He stressed that PYA will work with any other groups and organisations (commercial or otherwise) who support our vision and who will help us realise our ambitions. PYA is about helping - helping one another, supporting each other and sharing experiences, knowledge and skills across the group. In short - we are stronger together.

PYA has done much in 2024 - organised four PYA book fairs, supporting members who are holding their own book events, attendance at the prestigious spring and autumn Harrogate Flower Show, continued with our popular Writers' Support Group that helps authors improve their writing (thanks to Helen Johnson who hosts this) and the Children's Author Group which saw presentations from established writers and book sellers plus development events (thanks to Linda Jones for hosting this) and growing our membership to around 400. We also continued our cooperation with the Thirsk Write Now writers' group that meets fortnightly to prepare stories against a theme to read to the group (PYA members are always welcome to these events).

By convention the PYA Committee steps down each year and resigns or put themselves forward to serve for a further year. All committee members agreed to continue but subsequently Susanna Lewis resigned after the meeting due to other commitments. The committee would like to thank Susanna for her support since PYA was formed, particularly her Directing of our Ilkley Literature Festival performances.

Finally - PYA has significant presence in Cyberspace , namely our You Tube Channel, Open Facebook Group (book promotion welcomed), Members Facebook Group (no book promotions), Our new Mastodon account (@PromotingYorkshireAuthors@MastodonApp.uk), our website plus this blog of course.

PYA is a not-for-profit Community Group and all funds we receive through our events are reinvested into our activities to support our vision. Our current net assets are £1,590 and we aim to keep at least £1,000 in reserves to cover our insurance and technology committed annual expenditure.

PYA for the Future - PYA 4F

The aim of this section of the agenda was to recruit champions against 'headings' to support our PYA 4F strategy but it didn't quite work out like that - perhaps the chair was expecting too much as the AGM is often the place where members share their ideas and (possibly) grievances.

The PYA 4F document uses PYA's vision to identify topics on which the committee should concentrate, namely the bolded items in our vision:

Advancing the work of Authors who have a close connection with Yorkshire to improve the Quality and Recognition of their work Worldwide.

The PYA 4F working document (meaning it is for discussion, not set in stone) suggests what is required for each of these headings - as a starter. We were seeking champions who would volunteer to run with a topic and put flesh on the bones - make it happen in other words.

That outcome wasn't achieved but we did have two volunteers for PYA 4F - Jane Clack for Quality and Kate Swann for Advancing (with an emphasis on poetry initially). Karen Drury also volunteered to advise the committee and be involved with the Quality topic, specifically beta-readers and Yvonne Battle-Fenton offered to assist with event organisation and perhaps act as a committee adviser (to be confirmed).

There was a far-ranging discussion about PYA 4F which uncovered numerous ideas - like improving skill recording for members, offering beta-readers to improve quality, a virtual books shop (which most people feel we already have on the PYA website), improving face-to-face events - especially workshops to improve skills, promotion of eBooks as well as physical ones, an annual membership fee for PYA and a database of events for book selling.

Date of the Next YA Annual General Meeting

The next PYA AGM will be held on Wednesday 21 January 2026 at 7pm.

2024 PYA Report from the Chair and Finance Report

2024 Report from the Chair

2024 has been an interesting year for PYA as we grew our membership to nearly 400 from across Yorkshire and welcomed many new members to some of our book selling events. An exciting departure was that we were invited to attend the prestigious Spring and Autumn Harrogate Flower Shows, at the Great Yorkshire Showground and Newby Hall respectively. We have our fingers crossed that this can be repeated in 2025.

PYA held two book fairs in the Ridings Centre in Wakefield and we've scheduled two for 2025 - in spring on 17th May and our Christmas book fair on 6th December. Both were well attended and footfall was favourable despite the weather trying to scupper the December event.

Events like those above take much organising and we're grateful to our small team of organisers and helpers. The book fairs and flower shows wouldn't take place without them and ... you guessed ... we need more of our members to become active in PYA and shape its future.

We've continued our ZOOM sessions and are grateful to Helen Johnson for hosting the evening and afternoon sessions of the monthly Writers' Support Group which helps us all improve our authoring with a ten minute writing exercise against a theme. You'd be surprised what can be achieved in ten minutes and the techniques that you learn in these sessions help you improve your writing skills.

The other monthly ZOOM session is hosted by Linda Jones and is the Children's Author Group. We've had presentations from invited guests and discussed topics of interest to the group's members aiming to share knowledge and experience from our membership. Some of what we over is of interest even if the genre that you write isn't aimed at Children.

Expect more in 2025 and, if you haven't attended one of our ZOOM sessions please consider it. It's an efficient way of encouraging communication between our members from across the ancient Ridings of Yorkshire and we often have participants from as far apart as Hull, Doncaster and Thirsk - not something that would be possible face-to-face.

I met with the head at Knaresborough Library late in 2024 and I hope we can design some great events to be held at the library in 2025.

Finally, PYA were invited some time ago to link up with the writing group Thirsk Write Now (TWN) who meet by ZOOM every two weeks on a Tuesday at 7.30 pm during the year to read out a short story to a prepared theme. We've some regular attendees from PYA now so, if you are interested in attending, please let us know and TWN will add you to their distribution list to let you know of upcoming themes.

PYA Committee

The committee and subcommittees resign at each AGM and those who wish it can put themselves forward for re-election for a coming year. We are also seeking new members for the committee to replace those standing down and to add to the experience of the committee and sub-committees. The current members are:

• Core PYA Committee: Paul Smith (Chair and Treasurer), Linda Jones (Vice Chair), Jane Clack (Vice Chair), Kate Swann, Pam Golden, Ros Kind.
• PYA Advisory Committee: Heike Phelan, Helen Johnson, Phill Featherstone, Stuart Larner, Susanna Lewis.
• PYA Finance Subcommittee: Paul Smith, Ros Kind, Jane Clack, Linda Jones, Kate Swann.
• PYA Events Coordination Subcommittee: Paul Smith, Jane Clack, Linda Jones, Pam Golden.

PYA 4F

Promoting Yorkshire Authors for the Future - Discussion Document. Please take a look at our discussion document which you'll find on this blog. It proposes a way forward for PYA and we're seeking active members to drive PYA onwards. Please try to read it prior to the meeting.

Finance Report

Date:	31/12/24
Income since PYA Formed
Donations	£341.07
Initiatives	£2,114.16
Interest	£0.00
Membership Fees	£1,171.95
Commerce	£0.00
Other	£2.00
Total Income	£3,629.18
Expenditure Since PYA Formed
Company Formation and Disposal	£230.00
Marketing	£177.96
Technology	£914.26
Other	£716.27
Total Expenditure	£2,038.49
Income – Expenditure	£1,590.69
Gross Current Assets
Cash in Hand	£64.08
Current Account	£1,573.61
Paypal Account	£0.00
Total Gross Current Assets	£1,637.69
Current Liabilities
Committee Loans Outstanding*	£47.00	*Paul Smith £47.00
Expected Expenditure
Accountant	£0.00
Audit	£0.00
Accruals	£0.00
Total Liabilities	£47.00
Net Current Assets	£1,590.69

Agenda - Promoting Yorkshire Authors (PYA) - Annual General Meeting 2025

The PYA Annual General Meeting will be held on Wednesday 22nd January 2025 by ZOOM at 7 pm and we encourage all members to join us as we shape the direction of PYA for the next twelve months and beyond.

To join on the day use this link or ZOOM Meeting ID 815 3498 8938 and Passcode 974772. Please disregard any other joining instructions you may have been sent - only use the ones in the Agenda for the AGM.

Agenda

1. Welcome and Chairman's Report (Paul Smith)
2. Finance Report (Member of the Finance Subcommittee)
3. Committee and Subcommittees - The committee and subcommittees will resign and those who wish can put themselves forward for re-election for a coming year. We are also seeking new members for the committee to replace those standing down and to add to the experience of the committee and subcomittees. The current members are:
• Core PYA Committee: Paul Smith (Chair and Treasurer), Linda Jones (Vice Chair), Jane Clack (Vice Chair), Kate Swann, Pam Golden, Ros Kind.
• PYA Advisory Committee: Heike Phelan, Helen Johnson, Phill Featherstone, Stuart Larner, Susanna Lewis.
• PYA Finance Subcommittee: Paul Smith, Ros Kind, Jane Clack, Linda Jones, Kate Swann.
• PYA Events Coordination Subcommittee: Paul Smith, Jane Clack, Linda Jones, Pam Golden.
4. PYA 4F - Promoting Yorkshire Authors for the Future: Discussion. Please take a look at our discussion document which you'll find on this blog. It proposes a way forward for PYA and we're seeking active members to drive PYA forward. Please try to read it prior to the meeting.
5. Any other business.
6. Date of the Next AGM - 21st January 2026 proposed.

 

Promoting Yorkshire Authors

PYA-4F – PYA for the Future

A Discussion Document

Version 2, 19th October 2024