Thursday 20 March 2025
Another year passed and another DMC annual gathering to celebrate the last twelve months.
After admiring Yasmin’s latest edition of the club newsletter, we kicked off the evening in traditional style with a slideshow of the best pictures from the last year of meets. Then it was down to the official AGM business with officers’ reports from the Meets Secretary, Social Secretary, Membership Secretary, the Treasurer and the President. Thanks also to Niall for auditing the previous year’s accounts and signing them off.
The club agreed to set the normal adult membership rate for 2025/26 at £40 to cover increases in our Mountaineering Scotland subscriptions. For existing members, this will be charged by direct debit at the start of April. Membership for existing MS members remains at £16 and youth membership £5.
A new committee was elected for the coming year:
- President – Heinke
- Vice President – Paulina
- Secretary – Sandy
- Treasurer – Andrew Holmes
- Meets Secretary – Ruth & Lena
- Membership Secretary – Greg
- Social Secretary – vacant (but someone has expressed interest)
- Digital Officer – Allan
We also appealed for members who were interested in the more technical roles (treasurer and digital officer) and might like to shadow the existing officers to learn the nuts and bolts of these roles.
Jon Bowyer has kindly agreed to audit the 2024/25 accounts.
The club considered a number of amendments to the constitution that had been tabled. Amendments accepted including allowing the club to organise day meets and formalising the Member’s Support Representative role that we have been trialling for the past two years.
After all that official business it was time for food. Lyndsey served up a delicious chicken and chorizo stew, with vegan alternative, and everyone tucked in whilst catching up with each other and submitting their votes for the annual photo competition.
After the interval, Paul led us through the, sometimes hotly contested, awards ceremony. After a few ‘cheer-offs’, the DMC clap-o-meter finally decided the following awards:
- Culinary – Berenice for a delicious curry at one of our meets
- Ditch the Car – Allan for driving his mum’s car into Rudolph’s sister. Santa will not be happy!
- Scribe – Andrew Brooks for his caving trip write up in the style of E. Shackleton
- Most Active – Yasmin for climbing hills whenever and wherever she can (also finding time to rescue the Meets book and produce the club Newsletter!)
- Altitude and Attitude – Iain for finally completing his ‘Full House’, every hill of note in the British Isles
- Navigation – Seasoned international traveller Alex who’s booked flights to, and accommodation in, Berlin for a football match in the nearby (only 360 or so miles) city of Munich!
- Spam – Heinke has finally managed to unseat our reigning drivel champion and won a fresh supply of spam from the local chip shop. (We’ve asked her not to return this prize next year.)
And finally… it was over to Greg to announce the winner of this year’s photo competition. It’s seemed for the last few years that the formidable Berenice and Andrew team had this award almost sewn up, but this time: congratulations to Paul Kinghorn for his Torridon shot featuring Andy Murphy. The photo will be displayed all next year in the Bank Bar for you to admire.
Thanks to everyone who helped organise, run and attended the Annual Gathering and AGM this year. Full minutes of the meeting will be appearing on the club website in due course (I’m told).
- Report by David Matthews
