4 May 2016, 2 pm
It is the Annual General Meeting of the CIPA Benevolent Association. This august body was established many moons ago, in the days when patent attorneys still had it in them to be benevolent. It manages a small fund with which it helps troubled CIPA members in their hours of need. There are not many troubled CIPA members, or at least not in the financial sense, but those who have arrived at the doors of the Benevolent Association have been grateful for its support. Meetings of the Association are not usually busy affairs. Today’s comprises the Secretary; Mr Davies, who is one of the Trustees; the CIPA President, who is me; and Unlucky Gary, who is writing the minutes so that the many people who missed today’s momentous proceedings can read about them later. The CIPA President has to be there because she has to be asked if she would like to chair the AGM, which invitation she should politely decline in order that the proceedings proceed properly. The Secretary has to be there because he wrote the agenda and so is best placed to get through it quickly. The Treasurer should also usually be there, but today he is not; we are hoping he is busy being benevolent as opposed to having absconded with the small fund. There is a quaint precision to the meeting. First the Secretary asks if everyone approves the minutes of the last meeting. Mr Davies proposes a motion to approve the minutes. I second it. It is carried unanimously by all three of us. Gary writes this down. Then to matters financial. I propose a motion to approve the accounts. Mr Davies seconds it. It is carried unanimously. Gary writes it down. We do the same thing with the auditors’ report, only this time it is Mr Davies’s turn to propose and mine to second. We are on a roll. This is easier than steering a Congress. Next we need to appoint a new Secretary. Mr Davies proposes the current Secretary. This seems sensible, in view of the not many other people queueing up to fill the role, so I second him. This is carried unanimously. As Treasurer for next year, I propose the current one, who is not there to argue but should have known better. This too is carried unanimously. Gary writes furiously. By which I mean he writes a lot, not that he is cross about it. I wish all meetings involved this much consensus. We are supposed to finish by electing a Council of Trustees, but we have to concede this is not practical since everybody in the room already has a job. We decide the existing Trustees are probably OK for another year, assuming they are still alive. The meeting is closed. The unanimously-elected new Secretary goes to find the VeePee, to explain to him how, when he is Pee, he will have a key part to play in meetings of the Benevolent Association. This is an aspect of the Presidential remit which they often forget to warn you about. After that, he will have to go find the Treasurer, and the small fund. Then they can get on with doing what they do best, which is not meetings at all, but benevolence.
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