{"id":30956,"date":"2020-11-14T12:06:47","date_gmt":"2020-11-14T12:06:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.potentialplusuk.org\/?p=30956"},"modified":"2024-07-25T12:56:15","modified_gmt":"2024-07-25T11:56:15","slug":"back-to-the-future-agms-past-and-present","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/potentialplusuk.org\/index.php\/2020\/11\/14\/back-to-the-future-agms-past-and-present\/","title":{"rendered":"Back to the Future – AGMs Past and Present"},"content":{"rendered":"

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]History and Principles of Potential Plus UK with a visit to AGMs Past and Present<\/em><\/p>\n

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[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1\/3″][vc_single_image image=”31020″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes” alignment=”center” style=”vc_box_rounded”][\/vc_column][vc_column width=”2\/3″][vc_column_text]Back in 1965, Margaret Branch, a psychiatric social worker in Guys Hospital London, recognised that there was a lack of information and support for gifted children, who might have similar difficulties to those with special educational needs. Two years later her work to improve support for these young people led to the formal constitution of our charity, The National Association for Gifted Children<\/strong>.[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]The governing principles of the charity are laid out in our Memorandum and Articles of Association. A glance through the original signatories provides fascinating reading. They include lecturers, teachers, head teachers, housewives, musicians, child psychiatrists, engineers, bankers, architects, an MP, a Peer of the Realm, newspaper publisher David Astor, zoologist and writer Gerald Durrell, and of course Margaret Branch.<\/p>\n

As a registered charity we continue to abide by these Articles of Association, which include holding an Annual General Meeting of the membership. Indeed, it was at the AGM in October 2012 that the charity\u2019s members voted to change the operating name to Potential Plus UK.<\/p>\n

The AGM continues to be an important event in the charity\u2019s calendar and this year was no exception \u2013 although the circumstances were exceptional. Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, legislation was required through the Corporate Insolvency and Governance Act 2020 to enable charity AGMs to be held via electronic means and for votes to be cast electronically.<\/p>\n

Potential Plus UK\u2019s AGM was held on Saturday 31 October via Zoom and our Chair of Trustees, Steve Ramsden, welcomed members from across the country to the meeting. As well as approving the minutes of last year\u2019s meeting, attendees received reports on the charity\u2019s finances, as well as its activities over the last year. Inevitably, the recent Covid-19 crisis has impacted much of our more recent work, but Steve highlighted our success in receiving funding from the National Lottery Community Fund, which is enabling us to provide a fully funded programme of online activities for young people and their parents over the coming months.<\/p>\n

An important part of the AGM is to report trustees standing down from the governing board and to elect new ones. Steve expressed his gratitude to Jason Buckley for the valuable contributions he had made to the charity since joining the board in 2017 and he thanked Michael Speranza for standing for re-election.<\/p>\n

In addition to Michael, six new trustees were elected unanimously, which brings the board up to its full complement of 10 trustees:<\/p>\n