AGM Membership 07

I am delivering this report at the end of my first year as HOS membership Secretary. There was a lot I had to learn at the beginning and my apologies to any of you who suffered from my inexperience. I would like to thank Maren Talbot, previous Membership Secretary, for the Membership database she bequeathed to me and the advice and help she gave me during those first days; I would have struggled without it.

The membership figures are on the back of the Treasurer’s Report. Overall it has been a good year for membership.

· As always, some members retired this year or simply failed to renew their memberships in spite of reminders: the figure for this was 8% of all memberships.

· Recruitment was good though: we recruited people to 81 new Memberships, representing an increase in number of memberships of 15% over the previous year.

· The combined result of these two changes is a year on year increase in Memberships of 7%, with the total number of members rising by 8%.

Maren, our Publicity Officer, has recruited members and handed out many leaflets at shows – thank you Maren. I would particularly like to thank all those who recruited their friends or gave them a gift membership for Christmas, a birthday or just out of kindness.

Membership Type	Number at AGM 2007 (15/4/07)		Number at end of 2005/6 Membership year		Percentage change in membership	Number retiring during the year			Number new during the year

Single Europe	399		375		+ 6%	39		63
Family Europe	111		101		+ 10%	4		14
Single Overseas	8		5		+ 60%	1		4
Honorary	3		3		unchanged	unchanged		unchanged

Total Memberships now		521		Total Memberships at 30^th April 2006		484	+ 7% on the year
Total Members now		632		Total Members at 30^th April 2006		585	+ 8% on the year