 We're nearly core rate and we'll get underway in just about two minutes so I'll start with housekeeping announcements in a moment. We are going to get underway with some housekeeping announcements so before we start with the AGM and we particularly want to welcome our online participants and everyone who is using their proxy voting rights. We've already received I think close to 20 proxy votes so if you are joining us online a very warm welcome and in a moment I'm going to hand over to our chair Helena Solomon to start this year's AGM. This is the first time in quite a while that we are able to vote in a room in person so we are going to rather archaically appoint a teller in order to help us count votes independently. Is there anybody in the room who would like to volunteer? Thank you James. James Clay will be our teller for today's AGM. Now in order to be more eco-friendly we've been emailing everybody the reports and you will also be able to download all the reports on the ALT website so if you haven't already done so please head to our AGM page now and have a look at the reports all the papers the AGM agenda the annual accounts and the impact report are all available via this web page. Now if you're voting today you're most welcome and if you're voting for two in capacity of two memberships in your own right and for an organisation please raise both hands or if you're unable to raise both hands please let us know that we count your vote twice or that you want to vote twice please let James know that in particular so you can vote for both as an organisation and as an individual and then last but not least if you are voting online and if you're joining us online we will register your participation via the voting form which will ask you for your details so please complete the voting form this is open now and you can start engaging with the proxy voting form postal voting closed yesterday at 5 p.m. so please only use the online form. Okay Helen I think that's the housekeeping so I'll hand over to you. Thank you very much Marin so welcome everybody to the AGM thank you for coming I'm Helen O'Sullivan I am the chair of the Board of Trustees and it's my great pleasure to chair this AGM in person Marin said this morning when we did the the first panel session that I took over as as chair of the Board of Trustees in June 2020 and this is my first opportunity to to be at the AGM in person so I'm really thrilled about that. I'd like to just start by on behalf of the members thanking Alts the the colleagues that work for Alts and also my fellow trustees because those two years as you can imagine have been quite sizable in the terms of challenge and difficulties that have been faced and Alts is a fantastic organisation as you know run for its members but the executive in the lights of Marin and the new chief operating officer Kerry over there they do fantastic work as do all the colleagues at Alts the Board of Trustees will give their time and their energy and their expertise voluntarily and they're a great bunch and I've really enjoyed working with you all thank you very much so without further ado we will get on to the first item which is the approval of the minutes of the last annual general meeting and matters arising so the last annual general meeting was 2021 15th of June and I'm going to ask for a proposal and a seconder to approve the minutes as an accurate record of the meeting so do I have a proposer thank you and a seconder thank you very much there so no matters arising from that and I don't think we need a formal vote do we so those meetings minutes of the last meeting are approved thank you very much item three is the annual report and accounts and Shona Douglas who's the honorary treasurer of Alts will report the meeting and take questions we will then vote on the proposal on the resolution that we accept the report and the accounts so over to you Shona thank you thank you Helen so I joined Alts just a year ago but have been here for a full year so being able to review the financial position on a regular basis throughout the year as well as the financial statements that are presented here today a couple highlights from those financial statements I think though first of all to confirm they were appeared and examined on a timely basis and keeping with last year the board agreed on an independent examination and that process didn't identify any errors key highlight I think from those financial statements was a really pleasing performance and a real improvement from last year's position that last year the height of hopefully COVID we saw a 91 thousand pound deficit overall this year we have moved to 11,000 pounds surplus so a really good positive improvement there and I think you know all credit to Marin and her list of our team for achieving that in what was still really difficult operating circumstances going forward I think we'll need sort of careful financial management to build on these initial steps to full recovery but you know I'm confident those steps are being taken and they are being managed effectively so you know on that final note just a thank you to all the team for what they have done to achieve what they're doing last year and going forward as well if I was any questions on the financial statements then I am more than happy to answer them so do we have any questions would any come in online though no that's fine okay so in which case I would like to ask for a proposal and a seconder for the resolution and the resolution is it is hereby resolved that the 2021 2022 annual report and accounts be approved proposal thank you very much seconder thank you very much so we do now need to take a vote so can members please vote for the resolution raise your hands if you would like to vote for the resolution okay any votes against any abstentions thank you and we've got the online votes you're going to add those in okay so item 4 appointment of an auditor for the 2022 23 accounts what we'd like you to do is vote to reappoint David Cadwell other and co accountants with their details there and so we will I think you're supposed to hear by solve that David Carl Cadwell under and co limited accountants of Chesterton be reappointed as auditors for the 2022 23 accounts so to ask for a proposer and a seconder thank you and then for the members to vote on that resolution so those who vote in favour of that resolution thank you very much any against that proposal and any abstentions okay thank you Kerry if you could now let us know what the votes were that came in online by the proxy voting form and if you could just tell us the number we'll read that out loudly so for the first vote on the approval of the accounts were there any abstentions we're just waiting for the proxy votes to be updated before we move on so the total vote Helen for to approve the accounts online and in person was 50 sorry 48 votes for known against one abstention resolution thank you and then Kerry the second resolution excellent so that is no votes against in total one abstention and that is then for 51 votes okay so again that resolution is carried so thank you very much to the AGM for those count those two resolutions thank you so item five Marin chief executive of alts will present the impact report to members thank you Helen and hello everybody I am really delighted to share with you our impact report 2022 that is launching today and I hope very much that from this AGM you will hear a lot more about the impact our community and our members have had over the past year and particularly how we have an association help and support our members in their endeavors I just want to spend a few minutes sharing a few of these highlights with you and I also want you to spot those things that you've been involved in that we have been supporting and championing over the past year the impact report charts the progress on a whole different number of levels including the growth of our membership and our special interest groups our certified membership and all other areas of our operations our membership is growing and while we are certainly through challenging times we feel that we're making really good progress in stabilizing our operations the board of trustees has been working very hard in a complete governance review of our association including all aspects of the work that we do we've reviewed every governance policy and in the process that lasted over 12 months we have reviewed and reflected on how we reflect and how our practice reflects best practice set out by the charity commission but also by organizations that are operating similar to alt and we've had a whole host of measures that have come out of this governance review overall we were delighted and I think felt reaffirmed in our approach to governing the organization and supporting our members that much of what we do does already conform to best practice however there were quite a few areas as well that we identify in which we want to do even better so we have continued to introduce a number of measures already this year including a self assessment exercise on board effectiveness that is now being carried out annually and it's being carried out by the board this year overall has been a really positive exercise and I don't know Helen if you wanted to mention anything on that exercise in particular but I'll hand over to you in a minute if you do we've also implemented a new plan for a quality diversion and inclusion in alt this is one area that we feel very strongly about and we've had very helpful input from our community and this is one area where our practice really should be above and beyond what we're seeing in the sector already so we are working very hard in implementing to begin with also some baseline monitoring of how our board of trustees and our members assembly reflect the diversity of our membership this will be a huge strategic priority for us going forward there's also something we've already been working on for quite a long time so certainly one area for me that I'm very focused on that we're making progress on now a host of other areas in which we're making progress and you can find a lot more information about this on the website and so I hope that you'll be delving in and finding out more what sort of behind the scenes has been happening to improve the way we operate Helen did you want to mention something about the board effectiveness exercise I think I well I found it really really helpful as I mentioned in my introduction the board of trustees is a fantastic group of people we come from a different range of backgrounds and expertise and experiences and they're often lively discussions and on the whole we reach consensus very quickly and we are able to to move things forward and what I found about the the review process the government's review process was that it gave me confidence that that coherence and that consensus is born out of critical reflection and evaluation and an ability for people to speak up if they feel they need to rather than you know you could have a situation where that consensus could come out of people not feeling able to speak up or not really feeling motivated to speak up or challenge situations so so I felt that that really that really reinforced my view that it is an effective board because there's evidence that people challenge and feel able to do that and that makes the the sort of the sort of lively discussions and the challenge and the consensus that we reach even more I think satisfying and and and very reassuring so I thought it's a great exercise and if any of you are on boards in other parts of your professional personal life the resources are all free available aren't they and the Charity Commission website we adapted them slightly and it really was a fantastic exercise. If you're as enthusiastic about Charity Governance policy as I am I'm sure you will delve in and have a look. One of our strategic aims is obviously broadening the access to the expertise within our membership and as we heard in the opening plenary this morning and as I've seen in many sessions across the conference one of our challenges that is growing is that we have a much wider audience of educators, parents, policymakers and others who need access to that expertise and you can see above some of the facts and figures around how many different activities our members have led this year in order to make that expertise available from sharing posts on the ever-popular just mail list, our perennial favorite with members, to webinars, conferences, online resources and more. It is very impressive I think to think how much our impact has grown through open knowledge sharing. I also want to highlight some of the more strategic partnerships that we have leveraged as a very small independent charity in order to broaden our reach and increase our impact. Some of the partnerships that have really shaped our impact over the past year include working with the U of 5 Vok Tech Trust in a strategic partnership since 2020 to support a growing network of FE and vocational education practitioners called Amplify FE which now supports 1,800 practitioners. I know there aren't 1,800 FE delegates here at the conference but there is an Amplify FE strand and they are Amplify FE voices and engagement here at this event even though it is the start of term and even though this isn't a good year of time for FE and I'm so proud to see that partnership making some progress in what has been a very big strategic priority for us as an organization that represents members from across all sectors of education and training. Our other partnership which we've been exploring is with ITN Business to help bring the voice of learning technology and some insight and visibility in what is achievable to a much wider audience, an audience that wouldn't usually hear about the Association for Learning Technology. The future of learning was last year's collaboration and has been shortlisted for Best Association Award this year and this evening we're launching this year's collaboration on digital transformation. And I also want to mention the partnership with GIST that's led to the establishment of a new award for digital transformation. As many of you will know GIST and I'll have long been in active collaboration in a number of ways as we collaborate with other sector bodies and we do make every effort to contain these collaborations and make them very fruitful but I think it's been very difficult for many bodies particularly small ones like ourselves to keep active collaboration going over the past two years where everybody's been in crisis mode. So I'm really thrilled that we've had GIST's engagement to launch this new award last night and I'm looking forward to seeing that go from strength to strength. Now our members assembly which I know many of you play an active part in is really at the heart of our governance and I know it is where every month key issues are being discussed but also a lot of the different dots across the Association are being joined up. We've launched new special interest groups since our last annual general meeting and we now have the maximum number of special interest group and members groups that we can support. This area of activity has grown exponentially and if you have a look at some of the figures you can see how many different events we have supported in the past year. Many of our members groups used to be very active our mailing lists and maybe met once a term in person for more social get-together. They now run very often weekly and monthly activities online with hundreds of participants. I know one of our special interest groups has got their own conference running tomorrow and I hope the Coolsake have a fantastic ice pops conference but it is amazing to me to see how many of our groups have an independent community that is going from strength to strength. So with that I just want to close now by giving you a little preview of some of the things that are ahead because whilst we've achieving a lot we do have new challenges and we do want to continue evolving our offer for our members. A lot of the work we've been hearing about at this conference is around the ethical framework for learning technology and this is obviously a key strategic priority for us to develop but also an importantly C-Mult and that is one area that the board has thought about a lot this year and we have two things that particularly keen to address. One of them is to finally find a way to enable active member organizations and institutional members to accredit members of staff in-house to gain C-Mult with a robust quality assurance process behind it and the other is for us to develop an official formal C-Mult course that can support cohorts and individuals synchronously and asynchronously to gain the accreditation. C-Mult is one of the biggest areas of growth for us as an association and we're now very much investing time resource and imagination into hopefully what will be a very exciting few years of C-Mult development. Now I urge you all to have a look at our report and see what's in store but also reflect on all we have achieved as a community and with that Helen I'm going to hand back to you. Thank you. Thank you very much. So item six on the AGM is the trustee elections appointments and of the new trustees. So this year we had an election for two new trustees carried out by Civitas and we had a fantastic range of nominations for that and the elections took place and successful trustees are Puyen Wong and David Hopkins. So Puyen's here in the audience. You're very welcome. It's great to see you in person. Hello everyone online. Hello everyone here. Thank you. Thank you. I had them prepare a speech so just... Do you want to say just a couple of minutes about your current role and why you put yourself forward for... Yes so I'm a learning technologist from the Royal College of Art and I'm also a PhD student researching TEL from Lancaster University and the reason I put myself forward was actually at the back of a conversation with Myron about wanting to really join the TEL Connect between TEL researchers. So I'm here because of Myron's encouragement so thank you very much and yeah I'm just looking forward to working even more closely with a lot of you. Thank you. I look forward to working with you as well. That's great. Thank you. And you as well Helen. Sorry. Yes. And then the other successful trustee is David Hopkins who is not able to be with us but he's online so let's all wave to David. Hello. We look forward to working with you and to seeing you in person at some point. I have to say that you have very very hard act to follow and big shoes to fill because I knew David because the two members of the Board of Trustees who are leaving us have been you know personally when I joined it was I felt like everybody knew each other and it was quite that everybody had their expertise and their understanding and everybody knew so much about alts and I was a little bit intimidated joining the board and Bella and Lorna you've just been so you were so fantastically welcoming and supportive and just helping me feel my way and I'm just I'm really sorry that you're leaving us. I'm sure you're you know I feel like once you've been associated with alts it's like a lifelong commitment isn't it? There's no getting away from us so I hope we will still see you and you'll still contribute to things but on behalf of the members and behalf of the board I would like to thank you both very much indeed and welcome you up onto stage so we can give you a round of applause. Can I just say I am terrified to be filling in honest shoes but I would try my best but I'm not gonna be as glamorous as this lady's sorry to disappoint. So at this point it would be great to say well we have some a carefully chosen gift and we have but it's just not here so that's another reason for keeping in touch because we have to give you the gift at some point so yeah so that's it thank you I don't know if you've got any closing reflections or comments as you as you leave us. It's been a huge honor to work with alts on the Board of Trustees for the last six years I mean it's been a really fulfilling experience for me personally I've got to work with so many amazing people and to work at you know in such a different capacity for my own role within the university and yeah it's just been a really positive experience for me and just I am absolutely you haven't seen the last of me yet I'm looking forward to continuing working with alts through the the Alts Scotland SIG and I'm sure through lots of other roles as well so yeah thanks for giving me that opportunity. Thank you hi everyone so I feel like I've come full circle from when I started I was co-opted because I was in FE at the time so I was at Hall College and I've had three jobs which in the time that I've been a trustee at Alts working before that I only had one job in 15 years so obviously alts maybe do lots of different things but working in FE seeing how technology was being used when I was it's the first trustee role I've held up with us now but and being able to shape and inform how this fantastic member organization supports people across all of education in the UK is completely fantastic and all of our international links as well but actually now coming back and looking at the Amplify FE thing which has been stuff that I've been chance ring on the whole time I've been here even when I did join HE it's just really fantastic so I think it's really exciting and as long as it says you haven't seen the last of me so I will be here as well and so thank you for everything and thank you Helen and thank you Marin. Well thanks. And the whole old team. So yeah we haven't seen the last dude because it's only halfway through the conference isn't it? It's not like you go drift off into the distance now. So yes so thank you very much everybody and with that if there's no other business we will close the meeting.