The three separate Annual General Meetings of the Robert Owen Society; the Marches Consortium and the Marches/Y Gororau Society of Sustainable Communities were successfully held throughout the day of the 12th November 2008.

The three elected Chairs of Directors for 2008-09 were as follows:

Roger Davies  the Robert Owen Society
Ann Brown  the Marches Consortium
Trevor Hayes  the Marches/Y Gororau Society of Sustainable Communities

The meetings were extremely positive with detailed reporting and in depth discussions together with honest evaluations of the challenges that lie ahead of us. It was agreed that with the impending formation of the Robert Owen Foundation 2008-09 will present all of us with a wide range of new opportunities.

The Vision & Service Delivery Plan 2008-09 for the Robert Owen Society Family was well received by members. The Chair of Directors of the Robert Owen Society, Roger Davies, in praising the hard work of the People First Project Management Committee in producing this impressive document said, “This document brings together our values, our co-operative business plans and our vision for a co-operative future in one very public format. We must now ensure that this is shared with all our staff, our members and community partners.”

Members have asked that Roger Davies and our central Society Family staff work together to refine the Annual General Meeting structure so that in 2009 the model follows more closely the successful plan of the Co-operative Group. This would be one central annual general meeting with a series of half yearly general meetings of members around the regions which comprise our delivery footprint.

Members noted that this would be the last Annual General Meeting cycle for the current Chief Executive, Chris Morgan. It was further noted that it is the intention to have a new Chief Executive in post early in 2009.

The Co-operative Commonwealth is certainly live and flourishing in the lands either side of Offa’s Dyke and the democratic processes are visibly working within the Robert Owen Society Family.