1) Welcome:
The Chairman, Jayant Tanna thanked everyone for turning up to this Biennial General Meeting in spite of other commitments. He hoped everyone had a good Starter for Lunch and promised that the main course, Dessert and Karaoke music to follow would be even better!

2) Members present:
Jayant Tanna, Vijay Patel, Kiran Patel, Dipak Patel, Nisar Butt, Pradeep Luther, Harish Luther, Balraj Sidher, Tahir Lodhi, Zahur Gitay, Bhagwant Singh Virdi, Bashir Butt, Harvinder Singh Ubhi, Kulwant Sharma, Harjinder Chana, Mahendra Patel, Bhagya Tanna, Madhukant Hirani, Dhiru Pabari and Ajit Singh Riyat.

Guests present (including spouses): 10

3) Apologies:
Suriakant Shah, Anup Singh Hanspal, Bhupendra Tank, Chandulal Rach, Suresh Bhuva, Kanji Bhudia, Ajay Mahindru, Anil Lakhani, Saleh Memon, Harikishan Mistry, Karamjit Matharu, Kulwant Dhir, Manmohan Aggarwal, Kanwarjeet Nijhar, Avtar Singh Bhoda, Hasu Joshi, Satwinder Dhand, Zahoor Seifurehman, Tarsem Sharma, Gurcharan Singh Rihal, Somnath Sharma and Vikram Tanna.

4) Notes of the last general meeting of 15th July 2010:
These were agreed as a true record.

5) Matters Arising not covered by Agenda:
None

6) Report from the Chairman – Jayant Tanna:
Jayant went through his report, which had been circulated to all members in advance. He made the following points using a power point presentation:

a) New website - www.essalumni.org.uk
It was very well planned and laid out with aims, plans, projects, accounts clearly posted. It showed school progress, staff, pupils profiles, extensive photo gallery of teams, activities, latest News, events, dates for the diary, missing magazines, photos, profiles

b) ESS REUNION 25th September 2011
We had 180 participants including 110 ex-students and 70 guests, mainly spouses. About 10 came all the way from the USA and Canada. Our Chief Guest was our teacher of English Mr Mendonca. We had opportunities to meet & Greet, 3 course Lunch, Live Music, sharing old times on the website photographs. A full colour souvenir magazine with 86 profiles, and photos of staff and ex- pupils was published for everyone. All present had a good time. It was agreed that we should try and organise reunions with holidays outside the UK like Kenya, the US, Canada etc.

Jayant reminded everyone that a CD of Photographs & a DVD Video were available for £10 only. A CD of ESS magazines was available for £5.00. Please contact any one of us.

c) Visit to Nairobi and ESS by Jayant & Nisar
Nisar and Jayant visited ESS in Nairobi in March 2012 at their own expense and presented 33 computers to the school as a donation from all the ex-pupils and members of ESS Alumni. The Chair of Governors, staff, parents and pupils present were most thankful and grateful for our donations. They hoped this generosity would continue.

We visited the school, visited lessons, labs, workshops and playing fields. There is lots of improvement from 2007 visit e.g. IT teaching and equipment is better, the School Roll has increased to over 800. The students are happy, confident and committed. There are computers for IT and separately for subject areas.

However the school is in a poor state physically. We therefore decided to raise funds for getting the leaking roofs repaired by Re-tiling and then repainting the whole school. We also helped to set up an interim committee of ESS Alumni Nairobi. We are hoping that they will take these projects forward in partnership with us.

d) Membership
We have about 150 Members during 2010-12, mainly through the Reunion in 2011. We now need everyone to renew their membership for £20 for the two years to 2014. Communication is mostly by email except for about 25 members not on email – who are informed by post for General Meetings. The website www.essalumni.org.uk is another very useful way we keep in touch with members.

We are hoping to plan visits, holidays for members and to plan Sunday Lunches in and out of London. We are looking for new ideas from dedicated members to ensure higher attendance at events. Jayant explained that the Executive Committee held regular meetings of the committee, which were well attended and properly documented. He urged all the members to pay their dues, and urged the members to get other old school boys to become members. Membership fees and Donations were possible by direct transfer.

Jayant finished his report by thanking the members and the guests for their support and their attendance. He also thanked all the committee members for their hard work and dedication.

Everyone applauded the Chairman for his excellent work and the committee for their efforts.

7) Report from the Treasurer - Nisar Butt:
Nisar presented the accounts to the members, which had already been circulated to all members. He explained that the surplus was £2987 for 2010-12. The total assets were £7706. There was good income from Membership, Reunion, sale of DVDs, CDs and T Shirts.

The accounts were approved unanimously.

8) Election of the committee 2010-2012:
The Chairman, Jayant Tanna informed the meeting that there was only one nomination for the post of Chairman – Jayant Tanna. There was only one nomination for Secretary – Vijay Patel. There was only one nomination for Treasurer – Nisar Butt. There were no other nominations. Hence all 3 were declared duly elected officers by all present at the meeting.

The Chairman explained that for the 4 committee positions, there were 4 nominations – Pradeep Luther, Harish Luther, Bhagwant Singh Virdee and Harjinder Singh Chana. All four were declared duly elected committee members by the meeting.

However, the Chairman emphasised that if there were other colleagues wishing to get onto the committee, we could always co-opt them. He invited suggestions from the members at any time.

10) Any Other Business: None

The Chairman thanked everyone for attending and participating in the meeting. The formal meeting came to a conclusion at around 3.45 pm. This was followed by Lunch and Karaoke singing till around 6pm.