AGM

Special General Meeting

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Monday 8 September 7pm
Community Space Upper Floor of Hyde Park Picture House

Unfortunately there was not a quorum for our Annual General Meeting on the 10th of August so we will be holding a short Special General Meeting on Monday 8th September at 7pm to formally approve the recommendations made at the AGM.

As per our constitution the quorum will be the number of people attending after 15 minutes rather than a set figure.

You will need to be a member to vote at the Special Meetings but you can join now online or in person before the meeting for as little as a pound.

An initial draft of the minutes from the inquorate AGM are now available online.

More Details

Annual General Meeting 2025

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Sunday 10th August from 2pm
Hyde Park Picture House Screen 2

Our Annual General Meeting covering the financial year from April 2024-25 will be taking place in Screen 2 at the Picture House on Sunday 10th August after a screening of Gianni Di Gregorio’s modern Italian classic Mid-August Lunch, “a wonderfully patient, delicately observed film; warm, generous, never for a moment sentimental or patronising, never exploiting dottiness and eccentricity” (The Observer).

“Mid-August Lunch is a film of rare benevolence that treats its subjects with dignity and playfulness.”
Catherine Shoard, The Guardian

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Schedule

  • 1:30pm – Doors open
  • 2pm – Film: Mid-August Lunch (U, 2008, 71mins) introduced by the Friends
  • 3:20pm – Break for refreshments and membership payments
  • 3:50pm – AGM
  • 5pm – AGM concludes

We would be glad to see as many of you as possible there but you will need to be signed up to our Pay What You Decide membership scheme in order to vote at the AGM. You can join online now or there should be opportunity to join in person during the refreshment break.

The agenda and links to the relevant documents can be found on the AGM 2025 page on our website.

If you are planning on attending please let us know by completing this form.

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Special General Meeting

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Monday 24th June 7:30pm – Hyde Park Picture House Community Space

Unfortunately at our recent Annual General Meeting we didn’t have the minimum number of members constitutionally needed to make any formal decisions. We decided to go through the agenda as planned but all the votes were advisory and will be ratified at a Special General Meeting this Monday 24th June at 7:30pm in the community space on the upper floor of the Picture House. An early draft of the minutes from the Annual General Meeting are now available here on the website.

We hope to keep this SGM brief to approve the 2023 minutes, accounts and election of trustees which can be found on the AGM 2024 page of the website.

Following the meeting we’d like to use the time to have an open discussion about some of the things the Friends should be doing, including the work on the mural which was discussed at the AGM. Or you might be interested in the new typeface for our logo, or in choosing a film for future Friends’ screenings. If you would like to get more involved this would be a great way to start.

It will also be a chance for us to start building on the social side of the Friends and give members a chance to get to know each other and discuss any films they have seen recently which is something we’d like to do more of in the future.

We hope you’ll be able to join us.

Annual General Meeting 2024

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Sunday 9th June 2pm

Our Annual General Meeting covering the financial year from April 2023-24 will be taking place in Screen 2 at the Picture House on Sunday 9th June. The AGM will begin promptly at 2pm but doors will be open from around 1:15pm to allow members to talk to each other and the committee whilst enjoying some complimentary refreshments. After the meeting has concluded we will also be showing a short film.

We would be glad to see as many of you as possible there but you will need to be signed up to our Pay What You Decide membership scheme in order to attend. For full details please see the AGM Page of our website which includes the agenda and relevant documents for review.

If you are planning on attending please let us know by completing this form.

My Childhood (1972) at the AGM

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Black and white photo of a boy in shorts and torn jumper sitting on some curved steps
My Childhood (1972)

Following the formal business, elections and discussion at our Annual General Meeting on Sunday 24th September, the Friends are putting on a free screening of My Childhood. We are delighted to bring you a rare opportunity to watch this classic on a cinema screen.

My Childhood is a 45 minute film directed by Bill Douglas, made in 1972. Filmed in 16mm, it draws on his experiences as an 8 year old boy in a Scottish mining village as World War 2 comes to an end. My Childhood reflects the austerity of his everyday life through its use of location, non-professional actors and powerful black and white photography. “A harsh, unsentimental, but also intensely felt and moving portrait of childhood”.

We look forward to you joining us to watch this treat from the comfortable seats of the recently opened Hyde Park Picture House Screen 2.

Please note that all Friends memberships from 2020 and earlier are expiring before the AGM and you need to sign up to our new Pay What You Decide scheme in order to attend the AGM. If you would like to attend the AGM please let us know by completing this form.

How To Become A Friend
AGM Registration Form

Special General Meeting – 1st March 7pm

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The Friends of the Hyde Park Picture House online Annual General Meeting on February 1st 2021 was attended by 42 people. It was good to have so much interest. However this number fell below the quorum we needed to make formal decisions. We went through all agenda items and recorded your views in the draft minutes (which will be available soon).

We have arranged an online Special General Meeting on Monday March 1st at 7pm to take the formal decisions needed, guided by the AGM discussions. This time the quorum will just be the number of people attending rather than a set figure.

This shorter than usual Special General Meeting will be followed by discussion of ways ahead for the Friends over the next few years and beyond. We look forward to your contributions on ideas for future activities, working groups and Committee membership, the relationship of the Friends to the Picture House, and what membership of the Friends means. If you would like to raise anything ahead of the meeting please contact us.

Instructions on how to join the meeting will be sent to members via email nearer the time.

Annual General Meeting

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When we postponed our AGM (which was originally planned for May) we hoped that we would still be able to hold it later in the year. Unfortunately that has not been possible and with no clear sign of when we would be able to hold a meeting, we have decided it move it online.

Our ‘2020’ AGM will now take place on Monday 1st February 2020 at 7pm as a Zoom meeting. We will provide further details in the new year but you can find some of the documents that will be presented on our AGM page now.

Friends’ Update For Members

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Since the initial lockdown for Covid-19, the Friends of the Hyde Park Picture House have effectively been in hibernation. This was always planned to an extent given that the cinema was due to be closed for its Lottery-funded refurbishment during 2020. This work has now been unavoidably delayed due to the pandemic and the cinema is likely to stay closed for at least another year.

The Committee has met remotely using the wonders of digital technology and it has been decided given present circumstances to postpone the AGM (though the draft minutes of the 2019 AGM and the Accounts that were prepared for the postponed 2020 AGM, are available). The Accounts includes a brief report on the Friends’ activities since the 2019 AGM.

The Committee have also decided, given the unavoidable continued closure of the cinema, that the current Friends’ membership from 2019, which has already been extended at no charge to the membership, though 2020, will be extended further through 2021 as well. The Treasurer is happy that the Friends can afford this move.

The Committee is continuing to meet and is now engaged on discussing an agreed future for the Friends, given the intention of the cinema to launch its own membership scheme involving discounted tickets, running in parallel to the Friends. The Committee anticipates that this will result in a smaller Friends membership, with potentially a greater focus on volunteering and actively helping to promote the work of the cinema.

The Committee wishes all members and their families well at this difficult time and hopes that everyone has been able to keep safe and to maintain their love of film, even if cinema attendance has been severely curtailed. We look forward to seeing you again soon in happier circumstances.

Committee of the Friends of the Hyde Park Picture House
November 2020

A Report From the AGM

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My first time at Hyde Park Picture House (HPPH) was to see Much Ado About Nothing in 1993 – I was still at High School. I’m a huge Keanu Reeves fan and because this film was not to be shown at the former Odeon or ABC cinemas, off I went to the HPPH feeling exceptionally cultured to watch my true love play a plain-dealing Shakespearean villain.

I’m sure there are many of us who have similar first-time memories of visiting the HPPH. I took the opportunity to volunteer to contribute blog posts to the Friends of Hyde Park Picture House (The Friends) and was really excited about being invited to attend the AGM and to write a report from the perspective of a new volunteer.

The AGM

The meeting started with committee member Ian Sanderson giving a tribute of a founding member and former Chair Peter Chandley who died last year. It was nice to hear about Peter and how passionate he was about the cinema.

10% of members needed to be in attendance at the meeting to be quorate (having the necessary number of people present for decisions to be made). There were only 49 at the meeting out of approximately 700 members. I wondered how well it had been advertised and if the importance of being in attendance was stressed, especially if decisions were to be made.  Fortunately there were only procedural matters that required a vote this year and these will be carried over to a Special General Meeting on July 15th.  The Friends are now a registered charity and the committee wanted the group to stay focussed and relevant to members (who pay an annual membership fee) and recognise the importance of getting more people to attend future AGMs.

The purpose of the committee and The Friends was discussed at length and to me, it was not as clear as it should be (something the committee acknowledged and want to work on). When the cinema was in danger of closing, The Friends are the ones who saved it. Now it’s thriving and from January 2020-December 2020 the cinema will be closed and massive renovations will take place. Plans will be to add a second screen, meeting rooms, to extend opening times, to increase programming and the number of film-related activities.

Where will The Friends fit into this new phase of specialist film showing in Leeds? One way is to ensure that HPPH continues to deliver a good variety of films. Should the HPPH be doing more or something different?

Wendy Cook (Head of Cinema) continued the meeting with an informative presentation on what had been achieved throughout the past year such as showing 374 different films and hosting 1172 private events. Two new members of staff have been recruited to join the small team – Creative Engagement Officer and Young Audience Officer. The HPPH is expanding into a new entity and the committee of The Friends would like to expand with it. There was a call for more volunteers to join the committee that reflects the community of Leeds. The Friends ultimately are the voice of the community who love and appreciate specialist films.

It’s an exciting time of change.

All ideas and names of potential committee members should be submitted before the 15 July 2019 via the contact form, Twitter (@friendsofhpph) or Facebook (FOHPPH) which is when there will be a Special General Meeting.

Meeting Highlights

  • The membership scheme is under review (suggestions are welcome)
  • Volunteers are needed to help sift through the archives
  • The topic of reinstating film appreciation clubs and group discussions was suggested
  • A variety of alternative venues will be used throughout the temporary closure
  • More blog contributors are needed

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