CHAIRMANS REPORT AGM 2021
I have now finished my 4th year as your centre chairman and have been very proud to do so.
Over the last 4 years we have had some exciting times, the pinnacle of course was our 60th celebration rally in 2019.
The last 2 years have been very challenging with Covid bringing lots of extra work for myself, the officers and committee and I thank them all for their efforts.
The one thing that Covid did bring was more people were buying caravans and staying in this country to spend their leisure time; our membership has risen to over 2,400 including joint members.
When we started rallying in April at Whitby we had to put many restrictions in place and we understood that many members were still uncomfortable with rallying and decided to stay safe by remaining at home.
We were able to go ahead with our annual golf competition in May which again proved very successful and we look forward to next year and hope more members take part.
The Chairman’s rally at Seaburn went ahead, again under strict restriction and we managed to be able to do our sponsored charity walk raising money for our centre charity which was carried forward from the previous year. With lots of support from Barbara, Dave the committee and centre members along with visitors on our rallies. I can announce today we have raised for our charity (If You Care Share) a charity for people with mental health problems £1,162.45 which I am sure will be greatly received. We plan to hand over the cheque to the charity at our rally at Bradley Burn, Wolsingham 8-10 October.
Thankfully restriction in Scotland were relaxed just in time for our holiday rally to go ahead at Upper Largo and 14 vans including visitors enjoyed a relaxing sunny holiday.
By the end of June rallying continued, albeit still under restriction, but members started rallying more as they felt more comfortable with all the precautions that the centre took.
By the time our holiday rally at Ambleside in August came around the Caravan And Motorhome Club lifted all restriction, although we still provided water/elsan points with sanitiser to help keep members safe.
Again we had lots of visitors attend the rally and we were able to put up our marquees to enjoy social evening. At this point I would like to thank all our helpers for transporting the marquees to both our holiday rallies.
We again held our annual horticultural rally at Crimdon in September which again proved very popular and all proceeds went to our centre charity. We will be repeating this rally again next year so get your thinking caps on.
Bedale holiday week was a nice wind down holiday rally for the end of season which was well supported from Kent, Yorkshire and Scotland.
I would like to thank all Marshals and Co-Marshals for running weekend rallies for our centre.
Please not we have now gone back to having £5 deposits when you are booking a weekend rally and £10 deposits for holiday rallies. All deposits must be paid to confirm bookings. Please pay by cheque, made payable to ‘Caravan and Motorhome Club Durham Centre’ with rally name on reverse or by bank transfer with reference rally name. Along with booking forms sent to the Rally Marshal, either by on line or by filling in a booking form.
Balances for the holiday rallies will be due 6 weeks prior to the rally.
No deposit, no confirmed booking, verbal booking will not be accepted.
The year we have purchased two 8mts X 4mts inflatable marquees at a cost of £1,200.00 for the use of members to enjoy social whenever the Rally Marshal wish to use them.
As the old marquees were getting too much for us OA.P’s to put up, we decided to help finance the new ones by selling the old ones. One has been sold and it is looking promising for the sale of the other two.
I would like to thank the present committee for their support to both Angela and myself over the last 12 months and their dedication to the centre.
I wish to thank Butch Young and Kenny Heslop for putting their names forward and wishing to join our committed for 2022.
Again nobody has come forward to take over the chairmanship for 2022 so I have agreed to do one more year to help Butch Young who is to become our new Vice Chairman, to settle in. I am sure he will then with your support take the centre forward to bigger and better times.
Before I finish I would like to thank all who have helped today, but most of all I would like to thank Ang for her support over the last 4 years and ask for that support for just one more year.
Here’s hoping we can all continue to support the centre next year and take our centre forward to better times.
Barry Dodd
Durham Centre Chairman
Barry Dodd
Chairman’s Report AGM 2021
