Apologies: Neville Ying

The meeting was called to order at 6:50 p.m. by the Chairman, Patricia Sutherland

Mrs. Sutherland thanked everyone present for coming and asked Father Grenier to open with a prayer. Prayer by Father Grenier Mrs. Sutherland introduced herself and asked that the members of the Executive do the same. She noted that Dr. Neville Ying, the President had sent his apologies and indicated that he will not be offering himself to serve again this year & that he wishes us well. She then said that she would wait to read/confirm the minutes until we had 3 additional members, who would make a quorum and went straight to her report.

Mrs. Sutherland advised that due to several different computer disasters in the last 2 years, staff leaving and insufficient back up procedures, the accounts have been a problem. However she was happy to report that we finally have accounts. They are not yet in a report format, but in general ledger format. These have been sent to the auditors and we will have monthly financial statements going forward. She said that this was a good year as we were fairly financially successful and we have achieved the objectives that we set for ourselves and expanded our membership benefits.

The objectives we had were:
1. to convert our main membership from individuals to group membership
2. to have 5,000 current names on our database
3. to increase donations to the GREAT THINGS programme, which is our main vehicle of contribution
4. to be more visible in student life
5. to have current monthly financials
6. to expand our business venture, which is Docuspot, on the campus.

Mrs. Sutherland said that we believe that more loyalty can be generated around smaller groups like the HRD Group, Doctors and Engineers. Instead of having a broad membership of only UWI Alumni, she said, we have decided to include Group membership of the Guild, especially as the Guild is the only recognized alumni association of the University and we are written into the Ordinances and Charter of the University, so the smaller groups will have a "voice" regarding governance and other issues, through us.

She said that we will be better able to serve our Alumni in terms of groups by providing Secretariat services to these smaller groups, especially if they do not have the resources to set up a Secretariat and to maintain databases etc. We have therefore proposed amendments to our current constitution to allow this and these amendments were agreed by the Central Executive Committee. The different levels of Group membership were accepted by the meeting with the understanding that changes could be made, if necessary.

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