Minutes from meeting number 1232
Minutes of the 1232nd Meeting of the Manchester Pickwick Club held at the Moorside Social Club on 18th November, 2015.
The 1232nd meeting of the Manchester Pickwick club nearly commenced on time once again, being only 5 minutes late, prompt starts obviously being the forte of the new Mr Pickwick who then spent the next few minutes explaining why he hadn’t been present at the last meeting, having been called away at a minutes notice to visit a friend in the Middle East. He agreed to make a donation to the fines box for this misdemeanour.
There was some confusion at the start of the meeting when it was discovered that Weller, who was acting as vice-chairman was operating from an AGM agenda whilst the rest of the members were using the normal meeting agenda. Weller suggested this was a deliberate ploy by Tupman to get him fined and that the appropriate fine should be imposed on Tupman himself. Tupman denied any deliberate action, claiming that he had issued the agendas as he found them and that the wrong agenda had obviously become mixed with the ordinary agendas. Dodson agreed with Tupman claiming that it was Weller’s responsibility to make sure he had the correct agenda when accepting the temporary position of vice-chairman but Pickwick supported Weller and fined Tupman.
Dodson issued a balance sheet he had prepared to all members and briefly explained the contents. Snodgrass pointed out an item labelled Secs expenses - £10 claiming he thought that was a bargain; Pickwick agreed and said he understood the current charge for sex in Manchester was £40 but despite this he still fined Snodgrass for querying Dodson’s balance sheet. It was suggested by older members that at that rate, in the past the former Nat Winkle raised so many queries about the balance sheet that he wouldn’t have been able to afford the fines.
Dodson, a particularly versatile member volunteered to act as POC and in accordance with pickwick practise proceeded to get the order wrong; the only good thing about his volunteering was that he produced his own piece of paper to write down the order instead of asking the minute writer to tear a page from his notebook.
The introduction of members to guests was performed by Tupman with his usual excellence and he went on to say that the Christmas dinner this year would be at Breightmet golf club but that the caterer had recently changed so he wasn’t able to give a price per head, although it would be approximately £22 if cheese and biscuits were required.
The minutes were read and it was pointed that the horse racing meeting attended by some members was at Hay dock not Aintree.
Tupman reported that the Philadelphia Pickwick Club had changed the name of it’s meeting place but couldn’t recall the new name.
Magnus said that whilst he was undergoing treatment at Salford Royal Hospital two members visited his home and introduced him to alternative medicine for which he was grateful.
The 9.00p.m. toast was taken early at quarter to ten after which Dr Slammer carried out the P.O.R & I with the usual fines whether or not the question was answered correctly.
Rule 8 was then invoked and Mivins entertained the members with a story of bravery on the cricket field, or at least that was what he claimed. In actual fact he had tried to entertain his young son by taking the rattle which was attached to the pram by a large rubber sucker pad and sticking it to his forehead like a unicorn. Young ian found this terribly amusing as expected but the problem came when Mivins tried to remove the rattle from his forehead and was left with a large red circle which took days to disappear. When he went to work his colleagues, who knew he regularly played cricket for the works team, assumed he had been hit by a cricket ball so Mivins didn’t bother to correct this mistake and was feted as an injured warrior for some time afterwards.
There was some discussion about the possibility of another visit to the Crown at Nantwich where a couple of excellent meetings had been held in the past but it was decided that this matter should be discussed at the meeting in January.
The vote of thanks to Pickwick and the vice-chairman was proposed by Rev. Stiggins who said that Pickwick had done an excellent job without any support from the vice- chairman who had done nothing during the meeting but talk to Snodgrass. Gavelling had been poor, mainly because the vice-chairman hadn’t been paying attention to the meeting and the opportunity to fill the fines box from the area below the nick had been missed, Pickwick’s only fault. Seconding the vote of thanks Hopkins said he must have been attending a different meeting because Pickwick had been hopeless and the vice-chairman non existant. There had been no control with several members holding private meetings without any censure but despite this, he was prepared to second the vote of thanks, albeit unwillingly.
Pickwick said how much he appreciated the kind words which suggested how well the meeting had progressed and thatn he was now waiting for Mary Magdalene to take him home. (At this point the wife of the steward appeared to much amusement from members and it was necessary to explain that the laughter was not aimed at her but that her appearance in the room was just at the wrong moment)
To suggestions that rehearsals would be advantageous ‘Good Neet Owd Friends’ was sung by all and followed by the National Anthem.
The raffle raised £6.00 whilst the Fines Box contained £6.75.