Minutes of the Leicestershire Repeater Group AGM held 14th May 2015 at 8pm at The Greyhound Inn, Botcheston.
The Chairman welcomed everyone.
Present: G4AFJ, M1GPO, M6BYL, M1JPF, G0MCV, M3WZV, M6MJV, G7LRS, G8DKC, G3TQF,
G0ATR, M3WZV, G0DMB, M6JEN, 2E0MFP, G1UOZ, M6PTO, M6CDM, M6CBM, M1NAS, M0OFL,
Apologies for absence: G1IUT, M1EWH, M0CJW.
Minutes of the 2014 AGM and Matters Arising
The minutes were taken as read as they had been circulated to members earlier in the week. There were two amendments. In The Chairman's Report under the section headed Thanks to Outgoing Committee in the second sentence the word “many” appeared twice and shoud be deleted and the word “members” should be inserted after committee thus it would read “….had both decided that they would like to stand down as committee members after many years of service”.
It was proposed that the minutes be adopted as a true record of the meeting by G0ATR and seconded by M1GPO.The minutes were approved unanimously.
There were no matters arising.
Treasurer's Report (G4AFJ)
G4AFJ reported that shortly before the end of the LRG Financial Year end M1GPO had suffered a heart attack and as a consequence had been unable to prepare the accounts for inspection. He had passed all the accounts information to G4AFJ who had prepared a draft balance sheet in readiness for inspection. However the timescale had not allowed for the accounts to be inspected. He would arrange for the inspection in due course and for circulation to members. He reported that once again there had been little expenditure during the year for maintenance and repairs which was down to the engineering team who not only gave of their time freely but also supplied items for maintenance FOC too. Despite requests for receipts to be presented for payment none had been. He thanked them for their efforts which were greatly appreciated. He drew members attention to the subscriptions and donations which had both increased. In fact donations wre considerably increased at £600 and this had resulted in a small surplus being made. He thanked the donors for their generosity as it should be noted that were it not for the donations we would be seriously in deficit and he hoped that the increase in subscriptions from April 1st would see a consequent increase in income. It should be noted that it was costing around £1300 per year to run LRG. With a membership of around 30 this worked out at £43 per head. Looking at it another way if we could increase the number of members to 50 we would be just about at the break even point.
The electricity bill continued to be a major expense and the hours of operation of the repeaters had continued to be restricted. The new committee had investigated the possibility of changing supplier and found that the contract was due to renew around the end of March 2015. G4AFJ had discovered that although we are business customers rather than domestic consumers we can still shop around for the best price electricity. The present contract with British Gas was costing around over £1000 per year and our new supplier Opus Energy estimated that we would be paying around £750 which was a considerable saving. The company doing the investigation for us are called MakeItCheaper.com and they will investigate at the end of the contract in a year's time for the best deal at that stage.
Members should know that although there is telephone access and internet at site this has been paid for by three members of committee as in the previousyear. It was felt that now that this was seen as an essential part of running the repeaters that this cost should be brought in house. G4AFJ had negotiated a new contract and this had resulted in a two year deal giving free internet access for the first year which would cost around £15 per month for the first year increasing to around £22 for the second year. The cost of the phone line will therefore be equivalent to 7 or 8 members subscriptions. It was essential to shop around for the best prices on electricity, phone and internet on an annual basis.
In conclusion, G4AFJ reminded members that many subs were now due at the increased rate and he hoped that they would bear in mind that this would only partly compensate for the cost of the telephone and internet so he hoped members would be generous and include a small donation to assist.
Membership Report (G4AFJ)
At present there were 28 paid up members, 7 life members and 14 lapsed. It was hoped that all 14 would renew which would bring the membership back to around the same level as the previous year i.e. 49. It was still hoped to organise the web site so that members could check their expiry date and download a membership card. In the interim G4AFJ had introduced an electronic membership card which he sent out to members when they had renewed. This featured the expiry date as a reminder.
Engineering Reports
Engineering Manager's Report (M1NAS)
M6CBM and G4AFJ had spent several hours replacing and re-arranging aerials on the mast. The dual band colinear for 2m and 70cm had been replaced with an X700 and the performance of GB3CF and GB3LE was greatly improved.
GB3CF still had a slight intermittent fault which it was hoped could soon be found.
GB3LE was ctcss access only to alleviate problems of qrm on the input.
GB3UM's aerial had been replaced with the folded dipole and reports indicated it was working well although it was slightly deaf.
G8DKV reported that GB3GV had a 23cm digital output as well as a digital inputs for 70cm & 23cm. It was relatively easy to become operational in receive mode as FreeSat TV boxes were readily available and could be re-tuned.He had a loan service of a beam and box if anyone was interested. He was thinking of re-building the entire unit to make it more energy efficient. The present aerial for 70cm was a bigwheel and for 23cm beam had been deployed for users to the south. He had spent a considerable amount of money on GB3GV and he was thanked for his generosity by the Chairman on behalf of the members.
Beacons (G3TQF)
UHF Beacon GB3LEU
The aerials for GB3LEU,built by G4AFJ, had been installed with one pointing NW and one SE in readiness for the switch on of the beacon. All modules had been assembled and the beacon exciter was giving an output of 10mW. It was being soak tested prior to installation later in the Summer.
The 3.4GHz beacon GB3LEF was still not rebuilt. GB3LES and GB3LEX continued to work well and were frequently reported at dx via the dxcluster and beacon spot.
Site Manager (M6BYL)
G8DKC had been elected as Site Manager at the 2014 AGM. However in subsequent discussions it was agreed that he would take over as web master. This combined with his role as repeater keeper for GB3GV meant that he could be overloaded so it was agreed that he would relinquish this role.The background was that after the AGM during the Open Forum session M3DVE had been proposed for Site Manager. G4AFJ had stated that he would be co-opted at the first meetingof the new committee. Subsequently, before he had been officially co-opted, the Chairman received three complaints about M3DVE. All the complaints mentioned that he was a disruptive influence and had been known to threaten violence to various individuals. After discussion M3DVE agreed to step aside. Thus M6BYL had been coopted as Site Manager at the first meeting of the new committee..
Chairman's Report (G4AFJ)
It had been a fairly uneventful year as the various repeaters and beacons had continued to give sterling service although it had to be remembered that they are under the watchful eye of the various engineers. Without their vigilance and attention to detail the service would have deteriorated. We owe them a big debt of gratitude for their dedication to our various units. We still had the lock up problem on the GB3CF logic although this had been alleviated by the ability to shut down the repeater remotely. No progress had been made on solving the problem with the logic.
Thanks to the Outgoing Committee
The Secretary, M0HEL, had been unable to attend any meetings and due to a vertigo related illness. Members of the committee who were prepared to stand for re-election were as follows; G4AFJ, M1GPO, M1NAS, M6CBM, M0OFL.
Election of Committee for 2015-16
Chairman: G4AFJ proposed by M1NAS seconded by M6CDM.
Secretary: M6CDM proposed by G4AFJ and seconded by M1NAS.
Treasurer: no nomination..
Engineering Manager: M1NAS proposed by G4AFJ and seconded by M1GPO.
Site Manager:M6BYL proposed by G4AFJ and seconded by M6CDM.
Three committee members:
The following were proposed and seconded for the committee:
M1GPO proposed by G4AFJ and seconded by G8DKC;
M6CBM proposed by M1NAS seconded by M1GPO.
M3WZV proposed by G4AFJ seconded by M6CDM
M0OFL proposed by M1NAS seconded by M1GPO
As no-one was prepared to stand for Treasurer, G4AFJ would assume responsibility for this position and would be assisted by M6CBM as Assistant Membership Secretary.
G3TQF (Beacon Co-ordinator) would be co-opted by the new committee.
The Chairman closed the formal part of the meeting at 9:00pm.
Open Forum
The following items were discussed.
40th Anniversary of the Group Celebration.
Special 40th Year Edition of LENS
Bunkers on the Air
IRLP/Echolink on 70cm
Rugby Rally at Princethorpe.
Availability of past issues of LENS.
The Chairman closed the meeting and thanked all for their attendance.