The Old Bordenian Association

The Minutes of a Committee Meeting held at the School on Friday 28 November 2008

Members present: G. Barnes (in the Chair),  S.Caveney, B.Gilbert, P.Lusted, M.Pack, K.Sears, B. Short, A.Snelling (acting Hon. Sec),  D. Palmer, C. Laming, S. Rouse.

Apologies for absence: J. Macrae, H. Vafeas,  K. Shea, P. Taylor, R. Harris, P. Christopher.

Minutes and Matters Arising: The minutes of the meeting held on 12 Sept were agreed and signed as a correct record.

The 2009 OBA v School Golf Tournament date will soon be  advised by S. Rouse.

Correspondence:  Brig J. Clemow, the oldest OBA member has died at the age of 97. Obituary report to be done for inclusion in the Maroon and website. It was agreed to send a small donation on behalf of the OBA.

The Constitution: the Meeting endorsed the revised Constitution which was agreed at the recent AGM.

Treasurer’s Report:   none advised.

Dinner Secretariat: A.Snelling reported that caterer, bar, speaker had all been arranged. A copy of the Invitation letter was  given to all attendees. G. Barnes reported that the recent Sheppey Dinner was  very enjoyable despite numbers being down on last year. The date for the 2009 Sheppey Dinner is 14 November.

Hockey Report::     none advised.

Football Report: K. Shea reported  that the OBA now has only one team in the Sittingbourne 5-a-side competition as unfortunately the youngsters had dropped out of the league. A recent 11-a-side ‘reunion’ match held at the School was a great success with the 22 players having an average age of just over 56. Tony Clayton was on hand to witness the event. Further veteran 11-a-side matches are planned for 2009.

Editor of the Maroon:  G. Barnes reported that this final issue would probably be 64 pages of nostalgia featuring Past Maroon Editors, Sports Section histories, and Father/Son stories. The total cost should be approximately the same as last year. Distribution would take place at the next Meeting on 06 March-09.

Membership Secretary’s report:  none advised.

School Report:   none advised.

Website Report: see attached Minutes of sub-committee meeting. C. Laming to approach D. Jarrett to research article on History of the OBA.

Any other business: It was agreed that all Committee members in charge of the various Sections should submit their reports to the Secretary 3 weeks before the forthcoming Meeting so that they can be sent out with the Agenda and then all Members have the opportunity to be up-to-date with all the OBA affairs.

There being no further business, the meeting was closed at 8.45pm. The next Meeting will be on 06 March 2009.
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OBA WEBSITE UPDATE – for Committee Meeting 28 November 2008
www.oldbordenians.co.uk

1. The site is increasing its number of visitors as the year progresses.  The simple statistics easily available to me show that 4 of the 5 busiest days in terms of unique visitors (as opposed to one or two people continually logging in and out of the site during the day) are in the last quarter.  The information below shows the top 5 days since the site was launched.
 Top Days – Unique visitors
 
                  June 15, 2008………………….46
                 September 6, 2008……………45
                 October 20, 2008……………..42
                 November 10, 2008………….41
                 September 16, 2008………….38

2. The following is a list of outstanding actions from the last couple of meetings.  I make no apology for re-iterating this list, as the site needs a regular supply of material to keep visitors returning to the site.  If all these actions were taken forward, it would provide an excellent source of raw material.

2.1. [Anonymised] to produce an article for the website, explaining how the £10 subscription is spent and the benefit it produces (i.e. not just the Maroon).  This is to head off any potential backlash from members when we cease publication of the Maroon who may believe the £10 only funds the Maroon.
Nothing received.

2.2. The “President’s Letter” normally printed in the Maroon should become a more regular feature when required.  In the past, this could have been when funds were required for the new Library; issue surrounding the change of status to the school, etc. 
Nothing received to date.

2.3. To move away from this being the “John Macrae memories” site (although the quality of his articles are excellent!), all committee members are asked to produce one article for the site.  This can be a personal history, memory of either schooldays or event related to the OBA, etc.
Nothing received.

2.4. [Anonymised] to produce ad-hoc articles of school developments that would be of interest to OBA members.
Nothing received to date.

2.5. I believe [Anonymised] is writing or has written a history of the school.  This would be excellent material for the site.  If this isn’t yet complete, we could add chapters as and when they are ready, in a similar manner to John Macrae’s ‘Down memory lane’ chapters.
Nothing received.

2.6. The other area that is missing from the site is a history of the Association.  The longer serving members of the committee should produce such an article.
Nothing received.

3. Peter Lusted agreed to form a website information sub-committee but has yet to recruit any volunteers.  However his time has been invaluable in turning John’s major piece of work on the old school and the move to the new school into bite size pieces to add to the site on a regular basis.  Peter is taking forward a number of other initiatives to generate articles or stories for the site and I’m sure he would appreciate volunteers to help him in this aim.  The aim of the sub-committee is to maintain a steady flow of information to the website, ensuring it doesn’t become stale.

4. A number of changes have been made to the site recently that you may have noticed.  Two major changes are detailed below, but other changes are planned.

4.1. In the past, visitors to the site were able to look at the first couple of paragraphs of a story on the front page and then click to view the rest of the story. The first major change we have made is that anyone who wants to read a full story now needs to register to use the site.  Whilst this registration is quick and  automatic, it does ensure we capture email addresses of visitors for possible future use and also asks the visitor whether or not they are i) old boys of the school and ii) members of the association.  This is the first step towards the potential introduction of a members’ only part of the site.  The collection of the information about visitors will help us make an informed decision of when it would be appropriate to move to such a restriction.

4.2. Visitors can now view the latest comments left by visitors on published stories.  In the past, these may have gone un-noticed, but I see them as one aspect of the site that brings it alive and helps old boys interact with each other around the stories.

5. The last website sub-committee meeting decided not to proceed with advertising on the site at this stage.  There are a number of enhancements that we want to make to the site and I feel it would be unprofessional to make such developmental changes if we were charging advertisers for a service.  It would also deflect Ryan Jarrett’s limited time available to develop the site, which he carries out in his own time.

6. Contact points for all material are either Alan Snelling at ufton@lineone.net, David Palmer at DavidPalmer@blueyonder.co.uk , John Macrae at John.Macrae@talktalk.net or Peter Lusted at peter@lusteds.freeserve.co.uk .

David Palmer

Website Committee
18 November 2008