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Held at Killiecrankie
Hall on Saturday 6th October 2007 at 2.00 pm
1. Welcome by Andrew
Duncan, Chairman. Apologies had been received from 31 members and 46
proxy forms. The Chairman
sadly intimated the death of Kenneth
Robertson, a member of Council. We extend our sympathy to his wife and
family in their
sad loss.
2. The Meeting adopted the
Minutes of the AGM 2006 proposed by Donald Reid and seconded by Duncan
Huie.
3. Chairman's report:
· New members coming on to Council: Rev'd.
James Reid, our new chaplain; Stephanie Robertson; Donald Robertson,
QC. These names were all approved by
the meeting.
· Retirals from Council: Dr Matt Robertson,
James Robertson (Brighton). They were thanked for their dedicated
service to the
Clan over many years.
· Statue of the Highlander finished in April
with a pathway and lights, although the flood lighting is not in use at
the moment.
· A Stone Memorial to be placed at Culloden
Battlefield has been ordered by the Society. National Trust are opening
a new
centre and are appealing for money
and asked Clans and others to buy an Insignia Stone to commemorate those
who fought
there in 1745. This the Society has
done on your behalf. The stone costs £1,500 and we have put out an
appeal to members
and we are only £400 short. The
stone will have the Clan Crest on it with clan names, Robertson, Duncan,
Reid and others.
· Homecoming Scotland 2009. An International
Gathering is being held in Edinburgh July 25th & 26th, sponsored by the
Scottish
Government. The Highland Games,
World Heavy Events Championship and special Clan ceremonies will be held
at the Castle
Esplanade commemorating the
contribution made by the Clans to the culture and history of Scotland.
Our AGM and Gathering
will take place a few days before the
event. We intend to use it as a recruiting campaign to gain members to
the Society. The
venue is Holyrood Park, Edinburgh and
accommodation in Edinburgh will be very expensive. It would be better
for members to
stay in Pitlochry, as usual, and we
will arrange buses to take people to Edinburgh. More up-to-date
information at
www.thegathering2009.com
· Date of AGM in 2008: October has been a
popular month with USA members, but June is a nicer time of year and
more
popular by UK members. Ann McBay
stated that Struan Kirk find it difficult to fit in the Clan Service in
October because of
traditional other services. The Clan
cannot join with local worshippers at the moment and is having a
separate service.
October is a school holiday which
affects accommodation and members with grandchildren. Air flights to
Scotland in June book
up very early and are much more
expensive. If we hold it later on in October some tourist places will
be closed. After discussion
about various times, Mike Stead
suggested the second week in September so that members could attend the
Pitlochry
Highland Games, i.e. 13th September
and the Braemar Games is on the weekend before that. It was put to a
vote and 32 were
in favour of September, none in
October and 3 wanted June. The AGM will be held on Friday 12th
September 2008.
4. Secretary’s Report :
Florida
Branch celebrated their 25th year and the secretary visited Orlando in
January to go to the 2007 Highland Games. She
thanked them for their hospitality
and lovely weather in the Sunshine State. It is good that Christy
Lange, Florida Branch
Secretary and her husband John are
with us this year and she will report later on. David and Ginnie did
enjoy seeing the
Highland Games and then visited Boggy
Creek to see the Alligators, the Tiffany Glass Museum, several gardens,
and the
wonderful Cape Kennedy Space Centre,
a great trip in all.
Back to
Highland Perthshire and, as Andrew said, the Statue of the Highlander
was finally finished in April by the Territorial
Army. The Trust which owns the
statue asked us to insure it, but we declined.
Our
garage, up at the centre, was in a fine mess because we stored all sorts
of bits and pieces there, old lawn mowers, bits of
wood, paint pots, shop fittings. We
cleared it out, making sure nothing of value was thrown away, and we now
have a store that
we can walk into again.
The secretary
thanked the local branch for their generosity. They have recently paid
for a new chair, flat screen monitor and a
carpet for my office. Ann and Jim are
also a great help with advice, criticism, cups of tea and support in
general. The secretary
works 3 days just, only 15 hours a
week, so don’t worry if you don’t get an answer to an email or letter
instantly, it may take a
week for me to get back to you.
5. Financial Report.
We
received apologies from Alun Morgan, our Accountant, and so the
Secretary gave his report. The Summary of the Accounts
was available to all members in the
hall with full copies available on request. The accounts had a column
for 2005 so members
could compare the previous year with
2006. Shop sales were slightly more, subscriptions were also increased,
but expenditure
has gone up, i.e. wages,
administration costs and the Clan Annual. We now have an Audio Guide
for visitors to the Museum,
which costs £1,442. The Office of
Scottish Charity Regulators look at costs of Charities and all expenses
have to be justified.
The
Accountant has concerns about the investments, which are with only 3
companies. If one of them went down for some
reason then we would lose a lot of
money. Shop/Centre/Museum expenditure all goes up and we need over
£1,000 per month to
keep the Society going. Depreciation
cost of our equipment has increased. We may have to consider increasing
subscriptions.
Acceptance of the Financial Statements: Proposed by Alan Robertson,
Seconded by Betty Robertson.
6. Membership Report and Shop
Report - Jim Taylor
We opened the
shop last March and turnover during March and April was similar to last
year. The Easter holiday, May and June
were all poor months owing to the
weather and the poor dollar exchange rate. July and August showed an
upturn in sales and
we made up for the shortfall in
previous months. Sales are still down, but hopefully with a good autumn
we may be back on
target. The best selling lines are:
Clan mugs, key rings, clan ink stamps, clan books, jewellery and
glassware. After the statue
of the piper was unveiled outside,
the sculptor, Alan Herriott, arranged to have small versions made for
sale. We bought 4
bronze figures, (3 have already
sold), and 1 in silver as a window display. That was a large outlay of
funds (£1450) but well
worth it for the interest shown in
the statue. We are organising a set of postcards of the statue for next
season. Up to date the
shop has done almost £30,000 since
March (29 weeks), averaging £1,000 per week in turnover.
Clan
membership is dwindling – just over 1300 Clan Annuals were sent out this
June. We had less than 200 new members this
year of which 4 are Life and 9 are
Five-year member-ships. A few of these new members are visitors to the
museum who join
after seeing the Exhibition room but
the bulk are joining through the Branches in USA. Unfortunately there
is a low take-up of
membership in the second year and
people move and don’t tell us their new address and don’t go back to the
Games where
they originally joined. Oregon, we
thought, had set up a branch but has not sent in any international
subscriptions as yet.
Southern California is a worry as we
have had no communication from them this year although Bill has tried to
contact them.
They normally have over 90
international members and that is £900 lost subscriptions this year.
7. Museum Report – Dr Matt
Robertson
Cataloguing of the artefacts in the collection has been going on all
year with only the photographs remaining to be done by the
year end and notes of where each item
is stored have been incorporated in the catalogue. Dr Jean Munro has
sorted through
the vast amount of paperwork received
from the heirs of Major J Reid Robertson, author of “A short history of
Clan Robertson”.
Cataloguing the more important ones
and entering them into a separate data base similar to the artefacts and
books.
Sylvia
Robertson continues to monitor the environment of the museum store –
temperature and humidity – thanks to equipment
lent by Blair Castle. The genealogy
software has been upgraded and more family trees connected to the
Chief’s line will be
added to the database this winter
thanks to a further generous donation from the Texas Branch
Visitor
numbers to the Museum over the last year stand at 1,684 but usage of
the audio equipment has been disappointing at
34 in spite of the fact that we are
now offering it free of charge. The lease for the equipment runs for
another year and the
incoming museum sub-committee will no
doubt have to make a decision whether to renew it or not.
The 1992
Museum Trust has resolved to transfer their assets to the Charitable
Trust and approval for this to happen has been
obtained from the Office of the
Scottish Charity Regulators and Inland Revenue. The Executive Committee
and Clan Council
have been kept informed of this move
and have agreed the constitution for the Charitable Trust to incorporate
the Museum
Trust. Many thanks must go to all
the Trustees of the Museum for their sterling work over the past years,
especially Ann McBay
who has been our secretary and has
borne the brunt of the substantial administrative work for the transfer
of our responsibilities
to the Charitable Trust along with
the usual duties of a secretary.
Thank
you to Colin Liddell for ably keeping up on the right side of the law
and steering us through the complexity of the new charity
regulations. Thanks were expressed to
Dr Jean Munro, Sylvia Robertson, James Irvine Robertson, Duncan Huie,
Sir Sandy Reid,
Hugh Cheape of the National Museum in
Edinburgh and Sue Payne and Mark Hall of Perth Museum. Thanks also to
Kay Liney,
Connie Walters, Patricia Kerr and Ron
Greer, also Ginnie Wilkie as Clan Secretary. Dr Matt Robertson was
thanked for his
detailed and competent report. Ann
McBay thanked him warmly for all his work as Chairman of the Museum
Trust.
The
formal statement was read out by Ann McBay as follows:
The Clan
Society Trustees and the Museum Trustees have agreed to amalgamate the
Clan Donnachaidh Charitable Trust
(Scottish Charity No. SCO21783) and
the Clan Donnachaidh Society 1992 Museum Trust (Scottish Charity No.
SCO20688).
This
involves:
a) The amendment of the Clan Donnachaidh Charitable Trust
Constitution to include all the Museum elements;
b) The formal transfer of all of the assets and undertaking of the
Museum Trust to the Charitable Trust; and
c) The subsequent dissolution of the Clan Donnachaidh 1992 Museum
Trust; all necessary consents and approvals having
been obtained.
All such
approval has been received and the amalgamation will take place on 1st
December 2007.
8. International
Vice-Chairman's Report - Bill Robertson
Bill
reported that he hoped to grow the membership with his initiatives; the
Y DNA project, to attract surnames so that all the men
could go as far back as possible.
There are now 353 participants. Stephanie Robertson and Tim Duncan are
running the
program. There are now also testing
facilities for the ladies available. The genealogical database has been
started with 57 in
the program and this is restricted to
members of the Society only.
Youth
membership: 330 certificates (a copy of the 1893 original certificate,
signed by our Chief) have been sent out. They are
invited to visit Bill’s web-site,
which has stories about Scotland and the Clan. Name, date of birth and
address of the child should
be sent to Bill & Cheryl. There is
no charge.
Bill’s
International website (
www.donnachaidhinternational.com ) is up to date
and will be maintained until the Society wishes to
take it on. It has had 65,745
visitors from January to end September. Of these 46,735 are first time
visitors.
Because
of the fascination with everybody’s ‘roots’ Bill commissioned Gordon
McGregor and gave him £1,000 to research the
cadet families of the chief’s line,
he has interesting information for us. This will be published on the
web site in the near future.
Bill,
Cheryl and Tim Duncan will go to the Family Tree Annual Meeting in
Houston Texas. In December Bill is addressing the S.
California Branch and then going on
to N. California Branch. In January Florida Branch is the honoured Clan
at the Orlando
Games and Bill and Cheryl will
attend. Florida has almost 100 youth memberships and was congratulated
by everyone.
9. Clan Annual Report -
James Irvine Robertson. He asked for reports and articles from
members. Costs are going up and
additional advertising and
sponsorship would be welcome. James was thanked for his work on
producing the annual.
10. Affiliated Branches Reports:
London
Branch; Rannoch & Highland Branch; Australia; Texas; Carolinas;
Florida; Alabama; Kentucky; S. California;
Northeast Branch and were all
represented at the meeting and gave reports.
Sylvia
Robertson reported on her book, “Memorial Inscriptions in Struan
Churchyard”. The gravestones have been recorded by
members of Rannoch & Highland Branch
and collated by Sylvia. Cost of the book is £5, but £3.50 if you buy 6
or more. They can
be purchased through the Clan Shop.
Tim
Duncan reported that he had DNA leaflets available and the information
could be downloaded from the international website.
11. Any Other Business
The
secretary made an announcement regarding events over the weekend and
thanked Dean & Jean Robertson from Oklahoma
for providing money for “cookies” for
the tea. All Clan members were invited to Struan Kirk for 10.30am
service followed by
prayers and piper’s lament at the
grave side of the Clan Chiefs. There was to be a short Council Meeting
immediately after the
end of the AGM in the side hall to
elect the Executive Committee.
The
telephone no. on the official website is incorrect. It should be 01796
483338.
George
Robertson McNeil thanked the Chairman and Committee for all their hard
work in arranging the Gathering and making it
so successful.
12. Date of Annual General Meeting - Friday
12th September 2007 at 2pm in Killiecrankie Hall |