Another term

We had our AGM last night. My main concerns were 2 things:

1. Whether we’d have enough attendees to make a quorum. Quorum is half of the full members. As at 31 December 2010, we had 16 full members, 4 associate members and 12 trainees on the list. Based on the number of full members, the quorum should be 8.

2. Whether we’d have enough attendees to be elected into the committee. We needed to elect 11 into the Board and one more as auditor.

To be safe, we got our part time staff to call all members to confirm who’d be coming. Based on the list she had, 14 full members confirmed they were coming. Give and take one or two who may not be able to make it at the very last minute, I figured it was quite safe.

Meeting was to start at 8 pm, but by the time I performed my Maghrib prayer, it was raining heavily. Eeeks… I was hoping that the rain would not deter members from coming. Thank goodness by the time I got to the Buddies center, quite a number of members were already there, including a few trainees. Well, they didn’t have any prayers to worry about, so they got there early.

Our Patron came not too long after I did. She had always been very supportive of our activities. A very simple and nice lady.

Anyway, we started off the meeting once we were sure we had enough people to be elected into the committee. :) Out of the 14 who confirmed they were coming, 13 turned up. Although we had a few trainees attending as well, they couldn’t be elected into the Board, neither did they have any voting rights.

As usual, first up were the reports, with the various coordinators giving brief explanations on their reports – the chairperson’s overall report, followed by Buddy Bears, Clients Welfare, HIV clinic, CEF/Sponsorship, Fellowship, Outreach and finally on Volunteer Development/Public Awareness. Not many questions were raised. The whole thing was accepted and adopted without any problem.

Then came the Financial Report and Audited Accounts. Again, nothing much raised. It was accepted and adopted in no time.

Next up, election of office bearers and auditor for the term 2011/2013.

Yep, as usual, we didn’t have to vote for a single post. For the main 5 office bearers (chair, vice-chair, secretary, assistant secretary and treasurer), it was more of I propose so and so… I second… I propose nominations closed… I second. Easy peasy!!

As for the 6 committee members, we just took a look at the remaining 8 full members who attended. Coaxed [read: forced] 6 from there, 1 more as auditor and finally only one managed to escape getting elected into the committee.

DONE! One of the trainees even commented, “Cepatnya AGM you all!” Hehehehe…

No need la lama-lama, most of the members hadn’t had dinner yet, so must finish the meeting quickly so they could eat! We had decided earlier on during last month’s Board meeting to just order pizza for AGM dinner. So that we did.

Anyway, based on the above accounts, surely you could clearly see that we didn’t have much choice in the election of office bearers. So yep, yours truly has to continue with her position as chairperson for another term.

Hopefully by the next term in 2 years time, we will have more choices…

Various Updates

I have managed to get a few options for Aman (refer my previous posting). A few calls and emails from concerned organisations and individuals came in, providing me with some options. However, to date, Aman has yet to call me although he was supposed to leave his aunt's house by last weekend. I hope no news is good news. Hopefully Aman has found a place to stay... or his aunt decided not to chase him out. Whatever it is, probably I will have to check with SN if Aman comes for follow-ups at the HIV clinic. Usually those who don't show up for follow-up appointments are those who have given up hope. Hopefully that's not the case with Aman.

I am still holding my NGO's hotline phone. The phone rang a few times for the past few days and each time it rang I thought it may be from Aman. But no, Aman didn't call. The calls lately came from the management of a Company, wanting us to conduct a talk on HIV/AIDS for their factory workers - mostly foreign workers ie Indonesian and Vietnamese. Yesterday, 2 of the staff came over to the our center to discuss the matter further. The talk will be held this coming Saturday morning. The workers are not fluent in English, so the talk will have to be held in Malay. Besides, none of our volunteers are able to converse in Vietnamese language! The management will try to get one of the Vietnamese workers who are more conversant in Malay to translate for the Vietnamese workers. The Indonesians shouldn't have any problems understanding Malay... I hope! For all I know I may end up using the Indonesian accent!! (that may help for my Bali trip in August though...)

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Shila sent me another SMS telling me about her health problems again. She kept asking me why she was having such problems... whether the problems were due to the medication she was taking etc. Sigh... why lah these people prefer to ask non-medical people about their medical problems. Apparently when she felt unwell last week, I wasn't the only one she SMS-ed. Another colleague of mine also got her SMS but to that colleague Shila said she didn't have enough money to go to the clinic. To me she never complains about not having enough money for her medical needs. BUT she's always giving me all sorts of excuses not to see the doctor.

This time when she sent me the SMS, again I replied telling her to go to a clinic or hospital. In addition to that I also told her not to assume things and not to wait for her condition to worsen before she decides to see a doctor. Shila came up with yet another excuse...

"Saya takut kalau pergi hospital nanti doktor cakap ada sakit lain pulak, nanti kena tahan kat wad. Tak nak susahkan mak kalau saya masuk wad nanti."

Haiya, this woman! Memang cari pasal nak kena bebel! She thinks she won't susahkan mak if she gets sick at home? But lucky her I was too lazy to membebel that day, so I just told her to go to the klinik kesihatan near her place. Well, she promised she'd go the next morning. I hope she did.

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We had our AGM last night. Oh, just the usual AGM stuff... adoption of reports etc. And as usual, the election of office bearers too went on like previous years - I propose so and so, I second, I propose nomination closed, I second. That actually went on for every single post where there was no need to vote for anyone. Having just enough quorum for the meeting, we didn't really have many volunteers to choose from, so other than one or two changes here and there, year in year out we'd usually end up with the same faces in the Board. Yeah, so guess who's still stuck as the Chair? :(

After the meeting we decided to take a group photo. OK, ready Buddies... SMILE!!

The lady wearing the tudung had 10 seconds to catwalk to her chair after setting the camera on self-timer.

Out of the above, 10 were elected to the Board. See what I meant when I said we have a shortage of volunteers??

The Elections

Elections? Hmm… I didn’t touch anything on the general elections before this when so many other bloggers did so. As I mentioned before, I hate politics. As such I prefer my blog to stay out of politics.

So, why am I now blogging about the elections, 11 days after the 12th General Elections are over?

To those who clicked on the link to this posting expecting to read my take on the recent general elections, sorry folks, wrong blog!

I am not talking about the General Elections. I am talking about a different kind of elections.

For this particular election, we don’t have campaigns. We don’t have posters. We don’t fight to get elected. We instead fight NOT to get elected.

Yep, I am talking about my NGO’s election of new office bearers.

We had our AGM last night, and as usual, after the presentation and adoption of the various reports from the previous office bearers; were the election of the new office bearers.

Being a low-profile NGO with such a small number of members, our election of the new office bearers was such a simple affair.

“I nominate so and so.”
“I second.”
“I propose nomination closed.”
“I second.”

It was nominate-second-close-second, nominate-second-close-second. We didn’t have to vote for a single post. As a matter of fact we had to beg people to be in the committee. Obviously we're in dire need of more volunteers to join the organisation!

Our members if possible would prefer to stay out of the committee to avoid the extra work other than the voluntary support service for our PLWHA clients. We're all working people with other commitments and so additional responsibilites to our voluntary work may be quite taxing for some of us. The only post which we wouldn't mind accepting is probably just for the post of honorary auditor who is only required to audit (definition of “audit” will depend on whether the auditor actually bothers to go through all the documents) and sign the financial reports prepared by the treasurer at the end of every term to be presented during the next AGM.

I was the treasurer for the last term. By the time I prepared the financial report for the year ended December 2007 and called the honorary auditor to check and sign the statements, she actually FORGOT she was THE auditor!!

“Ha? I’m the auditor aaa?”

Aiyo, aiyo, aiyo, aiyo…

Well, the committee elections are over now. I am no longer the treasurer. YEE HAR!!

Time to rejoice? Well, not really.

I am now…

THE CHAIR.

Aww shucks!!

Well, since the next board meeting is due next Tuesday night, I reminded the newly elected office bearers about the meeting. The reminder came with a threat…

Those who fail to attend the meeting will be nominated as the next chairperson! Hehehe… (Don’t go using this kind of threat against politicians ye hear?!)

Before I assume my post as the chairperson, it’s time to take a break – from both office and voluntary work. Call it perfect timing or what… it’s time for the annual company-sponsored trip for my office staff. (Just a small group lah… my office got few staff only meh!) Last year we went for a 2D/1N trip to Genting Highlands. This year it’ll be a 3D/2N trip to Langkawi.

So I will be away and offline these next few days.

Langkawi, here I come!

p/s

I don't think I'd be basking under the sun at any of the beaches, so if you happen to be in Langkawi over the next few days and you so happen to bump into a dugong look-alike, that won't be me! Errr... duyong? Jauh sekali...