RE: EGM preparation/proposal
Dear Amigos,
We have been able to run our Association in support of music at the Cultural Centre in Sao Lourenço for a long time and for this we owe a great debt of gratitude to Marie Huber. Now the time has come when she has to reduce her workload with the result that the art gallery is closed and our patronage of music at the CCSL must come to an end.
In this 25th year of patronage of music at the Centro Cultural in Sao Lourenço (CCSL), the Associacao de Amigos de Musica de Sao Lourenço (AAMSL) is preparing for the ending of its concert activities. Your cooperation and understanding is needed.
The Executive Committee has explored alternative venues and possibilities (the Teatro Lethes, Quinta do Lago Hotel, Conrad Hilton, inter alia) and in the process has found that none of these could offer a suitable, secure place for our piano or the ambience, which has been such a great part of our activities, and, more
importantly, that we would need to change the nature of our Association to a more commercial venture with all the respective repercussions and legal and financial responsibilites, possibly affecting our charitable status.
At an Extraordinary General Meeting (EGM) to be held onWednesday, June 12th,
2013 at CCSL (the convocation, agenda and proxy are attached), the Executive Committee will present to the members their recommendations to be effective from the end of the present membership year, June 30, 2013. Your approval of this proposal is required by law – you must be given the
right to approve or reject this proposal and/or propose other solutions.
Our recommendations are as follows:
1. All concert activity to be ended after the 2 piano recitals in June 2013.
2. Our Yamaha piano to be offered for sale, as it cannot remain at CCSL.
a) Offers are invited from among the membership, who have first choice.
b) The official market value of the 2005 instrument is €19.000, and our reserve
price is € 17,000. If interested please contact Committee Member John Perera at
chevalair1942@gmail.com
3. All assets, including the proceeds of the piano sale, will be put into a Young Musicians Fund, the disbursements of which will be administered by the Executive Committee in accordance with the charitable objectives of the Association.
4. AAMSL will continue its charitable activities, and all current members will remain as members (but without paying any further subscriptions), until all funds have been
depleted. As this may take several years, AAMSL will continue to have AGMs and to
issue regular reports, including financial reports.
Alternative concrete and detailed proposals are invited and will be entertained, but they must be made no later than the end of May 2013, in writing (preferably by email) to the President of the AGM, John Levitt, at colev@net.novis.pt , or to me at
mailto:helga.hampton@btinternet.com to allow them to be communicated to the membership prior to the EGM.
We would, however, urge anyone considering proposing an alternative solution to speak first with Helga Hampton (email: helga.hampton@btinternet.com) and Michael Savage (email:michael.savage@sapo.pt) to discuss the administrative, legal and financial implications involved.
It must be borne in mind that there are significant differences between AAMSL’s patronage of CCSL as our concert venue to date and AAMSL acting as the actual organizer of events.
If the Committee’s recommendation/proposal is accepted at the EGM, the current
committee (which has been elected to serve until the 2014 AGM) will continue to be chargedwith disposing of the only fixed asset (the piano) and disbursing the remaining funds of the AAMSL.
Best regards,
Helga Hampton
helga.hampton@btinternet.com