Annual General Meeting Report – 2018

Our AGM was again held at the County Arms, Truro on 3 November this year.

Ian BELL welcomed everyone to the meeting with a special mention to Carol GOODWIN and Dick RICHARDS from The London Cornish Association (LCA).

As the first part of a programme of events, the AGM started with a minute’s silence to remember our members who have, sadly, passed away in the previous year.

The agenda then moved on to presidential matters. Our president for the last two years, Ed ROWE, had asked to be replaced and the meeting elected Viv HENDRA as our president for the coming year. Ann HICKS kindly agreed to be re-nominated as vice president. We were pleased to accept another nomination, for co-vice president, for Paul HOLDEN who is the House and Collections Manager for the National Trust at Lanhydrock House.

The meeting unanimously approved both nominations and we now have a very strong presidential team.

The Executive Committee’s report and audited accounts were approved, the independent examiner of the accounts was agreed and the committee’s resolution not to change the subscriptions was approved. The existing Executive Committee were all prepared to be re-nominated and we were pleased to welcome the additional nomination of Jim COFER (a former member of the committee). The meeting voted to approve this committee completely.

Subsequent discussion within the committee decided that Ian BELL and Lynne TASKER would be Chair and Vice Chair.

The morning session concluded with a detailed presentation from Mike HICKS about our Cornwall’s War History website. This website has been well used this year as the centenary of the end of WW1 has focused public attention on the subject.

Following lunch, the afternoon session started with the presentation of the Francis Dunstan Memorial Cup. This beautiful silver cup has been donated to the CFHS by the London Cornish Association, in memory of Francis Elliot DUNSTAN, who was a former chairman of the LCA, a vice president of our society and a staunch Cornishman.

The cup is to be awarded annually for outstanding effort and this year’s recipients were mother and daughter team Sheila PETERS and Lynda QUEE who are photographing and collating monumental inscriptions faster than we can process them!

The cup was presented to Sheila and Lynda by Carol GOODWIN, Chair of the LCA.

Our first guest speaker saw the return of Dr Lesley TROTTER, whose talk was entitled – ‘More Than Deeds and Wills’. Lesley explained that she was asked to catalogue the contents of 47 large boxes of documents from a solicitor’s office in St Austell.

As the title suggests there was a surprisingly large variety of items, including beautiful maps, manorial records and personal letters, as well as the more mundane ephemera of past lives.

After a tea break our final talk was entitled ‘The Commonwealth War Graves Commission – its history and legacy’. Our speaker was Dick RICHARDS, who is an ambassador for the CWGC. Dick explained how the CWGC was formed during WW1 and he pointed out the underlying principles that were employed, such as that there should be no repatriation; there must be equality of rank and religion. He also illustrated the way the architectural and physical design principles for the cemeteries were established. The CWGC now maintains 1.7 million graves worldwide, and will continue to do this in perpetuity to mark the great sacrifices that have been made in conflicts since 1914.