AGM 2012 Minutes

Shared Interest Society Limited Annual General Meeting Friday 16th March 2012 The meeting was held at Oxford Town Hall St Aldate’s, Oxford, OX1 1BX at 11:30am on 16th March 2012.

Kate Priestley, Chair of the Board, welcomed 187 members plus their guests and other staff (who are not members of the Society) to the meeting and went on to introduce the opening speaker.

Ian Barney, Managing Director of TWIN, gave the introductory address which included input from Willington Wamayeye , General Manager of the Gumutindo cooperative in Uganda.

Patricia Alexander, Managing Director, presented a report on the Society’s activities during 2010/11. Tim Morgan, Finance Director, gave a presentation on the financial results for the year and then, along with members of the Society’s Management Team and Non-Executive Directors, responded to questions from members.

Question: What are the sorts of problems that have caused bad debts and can you elaborate on the Producer Committees?

Answer – Tim Morgan There is no obvious pattern of bad debts. Numerically more come from producer customers but higher value of bad debts come from buyer customers. The nature of the bad debts shows no long term trends but we would deal with these if we could see any pattern.

Answer – Patricia Alexander On Producer Committees the overseas teams met with five or six producers in their regions. Terms of Reference for the committees were drawn up and one physical meeting has been held. There are questions from these meetings which Shared Interest needs to look at and address. The plan going forward will be to have one virtual and one physical meeting per year and rotate the producers involved every two to three years. These are early days for the committees and we’ll see how they go and learn from this.

Question: How are we developing our contacts with church bodies? I never fail to be surprised by the lack of knowledge of Shared Interest from these groups.

Answer – Patricia Alexander This is a focus of the Supporter Relations Team. We do have some members who are church groups and we are working to penetrate this movement.

Question: A Dutch social lender was mentioned earlier. Does Shared Interest cooperate with other similar organisations in the field?

Answer – Patricia Alexander 1

Shared Interest Society Limited Annual General Meeting Friday 16th March 2012 Yes, we did mention lending to Kuapa Kokoo with a join package from Oikocredit, Root Capital and Shared Interest. We do meet other lenders regularly, Malcolm Curtis meets regularly with them and we do have contact and would like to do more.

Question: On the issue of mobilising smallholders and the increase in foreign countries where governments are taking over fertile land. Is Shared Interest, with others, doing anything to challenge this?

Answer – David Nussbaum As well as involvement with Shared Interest and Traidcraft I also work for WWF. You are correct that there is enormous pressure on land use around the world.

From Shared Interest, through lending finance to buyers to support producers they can hold on to their land and can cope with pressures. The challenges are huge and Shared Interest needs to focus on what we do. Shared Interest has a role to enable smallholders to be able to support themselves in facing challenges.

Question: There is a need to get more younger investors on board and can we get a foretaste of ideas on that?

Answer – Gill Dandy I think a lot of organisations are challenged by getting money, as investment or donations, from young people. Our work on social media is a step forward.

Investing online and online account management is part of our vision for the new website. The gift packs are a different way of getting more people involved but really its word of mouth, us talking to people, us opening accounts for friends and family.

Question: We recently had a talk from a banana producer, Anton Bowman, who would like to have a disaster fund. Can Shared Interest help?

Answer – Patricia Alexander The Foundation has a livelihood security programme and its purpose is to help people re-establish themselves, criteria is of people being able to get back into business. The funds come from unrestricted funding which is a challenge.

Perfection Plus, a business in Kenya, worked out of two buses which were hit by lightning and so we were able to provide them with finance from this fund to get back on their feet. It is a very small fund and we’d like to establish a bigger fund.

Kate Priestley drew the question session to a close and asked Tim Morgan, as Secretary, to conduct the voting on resolutions and report the outcome of the postal ballots. Resolutions were approved as follows:

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Shared Interest Society Limited Annual General Meeting Friday 16th March 2012 1

the Society’s accounts for the year ended 30th September 2011 and the reports of the directors and the Auditor were received; (Unanimous) [Proxy votes – For 1,155 Against 2]

2

the Society’s Social Accounts for the year ended 30th September 2011 and the report of the Social Audit Panel were received; (For 184, Against 0, Abstain 3) [Proxy votes – For 1,144 Against 2]

3

members indicated their satisfaction with the arrangements for determining the pay of executive directors that are the subject of the report by the Remuneration Committee in the Directors’ report; (For 173, Against 2, Abstain 12) [Proxy votes – For 1,053 Against 39]

4

the firm of PricewatershoueCoopers LLP were re-appointed as the Auditor of the Society and the directors were authorised to fix the remuneration of the Auditor for the year ending 30th September 2012 (For 180, Against 2, Abstain 5) [Proxy votes – For 1,120 Against 43]

5

a report from the Moderator of the Council was received;

6

public declarations of support for the Society’s object from all candidates for election were received.

7

the results of the postal ballot for the election of the following members of the Society as directors for the year were received:Name Pauline Cameron Peter Freeman

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For 1,416 1,388

Against 13 26

the results of the postal ballot for the uncontested and contested elections of the following members of the Society as members of Council for the year were received Non-Contested Name Sue Cotterell Claire Wigg

For 1,380 1,410

Against 22 9

Contested Name Chris Bird Mark Hayes Sue James Margaret Newens

For 970 1,179 1,076 1,242

Elected No Yes Yes Yes

The formal AGM closed at 1pm followed by brief presentations to Gill Dandy, Ruth McIntosh (leaving the Board after 8 and 3 years’ service respectively) and Anne Hillier who is retiring from Council after serving 4 years on Council. Jo Bird and Trevor Jones who have left Council during the year but were not present at the AGM were thanked in their absence.

Members meeting reconvened at 2pm following lunch.

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Shared Interest Society Limited Annual General Meeting Friday 16th March 2012 Elisabeth Wilson (Business Development Manager) led a session explaining more about the work of the overseas team which featured short documentary films about SI’s work in Latin America and Africa. Rachel Ngondo (Shared Interest’s Regional Development Executive – RDE – in Kenya) updated members on her work in that region and John Dossou (newly appointed RDE for the West Africa office which is being established in Accra, Ghana) introduced himself to members.

Members were then invited to participate in a session of roundtable discussions, mixing with other members and staff and considering three particular questions about the future of the Society.

Patricia Alexander presented a summary of the work of the Foundation.

Kate Priestley closed the meeting with thanks to members, noting the record attendance and thanking those who had worked to make the event a success as well as Oxford City Council for the use of the elegant venue.

Meeting Closed 16.00

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