The annual meeting of the Oakley Trustees, preceded by lunch, was held at the home of Mark and Alison Rowley in west London on Saturday 21st November with Peter Downes in the chair.

14 of the 16 Trustees were in attendance, together with senior leaders Alan Whitmore, Jenny Thorne and Jon Vernazza who had been invited to the meeting as observers.

The meeting heard reports from various Trustees on aspects of a successful Oakley year which had seen two very well attended and successful Holidays and a wide range of excellent activities and events to mark the 90th Anniversary of the Holidays.

Other innovations had included the setting up of a list of former Oakley members who wished to keep in touch, the implementation of a new medical policy for dealing with illness or accident at the Holidays and the development of a new ‘Making a Difference’ directory on the Oakley website.

The Treasurer, Lewis Kent, reported on an encouraging and improving year financially and the Secretary, Julian Wilde, on a year marked by a high level of recruitment of new members and a heartening review meeting with the Headmaster and the Lettings Manager at Bilton Grange at which dates for the Holidays had been fixed there through to 2014.

The Trustees approved their accounts and reports which will to go forward to Companies’ House and the Charity Commissioners.

The Trustees asked the leaders’ Conference next February to take forward their discussions on leadership roles at the Holidays and the breadth and depth of the programme for the daily services.

The Conference will also consider the possible use of Facebook as one official means of communication with Oakley members and the signing-up to the 10/10 carbon emission initiative.

The four office holders were re-elected for a further 12 months and the meeting looked forward to the publication of the annual newsletter “The Oakley Ciren” early in December.