A great turn out was seen in The Viaduct Inn for GAScc’s first AGM which was held on Friday 27^th March. A total of 30 people were there to see the club’s Chairman John McCarthy open the meeting. John let everyone know that even though AGM’s are mostly very formal affairs, ours will be just like all the meetings we had during the previous year, relaxed and easy going. It was agreed that this “feature” of our get togethers is one of the reasons why our membership has been growing throughout the year.

Next on the agenda was for the secretary to read through the minutes of the previous year which I did to the best of my ability. Rather than a formal bullet point method I decided to give a summary of what has happened to the club throughout the year from when the committee members decided to start up a club themselves, through all our plans through the year, the shows we went to and so on. At least there were no objections……….

After the minutes Eugene gave the treasurer’s report. We did really well through the year with a balance of nearly €1000 on the books. The excellent Christmas party raffle going a long way to this. Pretty good for a young club.

John Mac discussed the membership fees followed by Kalli who told us how the web site has gone from strength to strength. Web activity appears to be growing with a lot of hits from Google searches. The classified section is proving a success with two cars sold to date. Kalli hopes to create a section just for parts and spares.

Following that Kalli led the way for the election of the new Committee members. The committee has remained largely unchanged from the previous year. The results of the election are:

President: Jason O’Driscoll

Chairman: John McCarthy

Treasurer: Eugene Riordan

Secretary: Hugh McEvoy

Web Master: Kalli Schlauch

Membership: Kevin Spillane

Events: Jason O’Driscoll

PR: Ger Keohane

Web Assistants: Patrick McCarthy/Hugh McEvoy

Committee Members: John Foley/Tom Leahy

It was mentioned that; do we need a committee organising things? It’s worth asking and Kalli said without a committee there would be no one to organise club activities. To reinforce this John Mac said that a club needs officers to lead its direction. Essentially the committee is made up of club members and elected by the club members. Democracy is alive and well in GAScc, at least John Mac didn’t start with “I have a dream…..!”

Kevin told us about the current state of the club membership. At the time of the meeting we had 36 members on the books. Messages were going out to a further 10 people so we hope to get a few more out of them. A really good amount for a young club. After that Jason said if anyone wants to join they can do so now and with that we got five new members! Also outstanding memberships were paid up.

John Mac said a few words of praise for Jason’s hard work throughout the year which has been a huge benefit to the club. Without him we wouldn’t be where we are today. But John isn’t left out as Tom reminds people that without John who would fix their cars?

In typical GAScc fashion a feast of deep fried food is now served to the masses to feed the hungry bellies and to provide soakage to some…..

After the break, Jason tells us about the upcoming shows and events that will happen during the year. The next one up is Durrow in April and some of the big highlights to look forward to are Youghal, Americana in England, Kilbeggan and of course Las Vegas. Elvis costumes are optional……

Jason got a few GAScc car flags to see how they would look and they were snapped up at the meeting. Better get another order in there Jay. Of course the t shirts and fleeces are still popular. Jason and John also showed two racing shirts they got to check out. Everyone was impressed with these, so more orders for the list.

John reminded people about the insurance deal worked out for club members with Brophy & Co who visited the club a couple of months ago. A really good deal.

Jason said he is working on getting further discounts for club members for tyres and shipping and maybe more. Good man Jay!

Membership cards are soon to be finalised which will top off a nice list of items that club members can avail of.

John Mac then closed our first AGM which proved to be a great success. May there be a lot more in the future.

Hugh McEvoy

Secretary GAScc

31/3/2009