Another year, another AGM! Believe it or not, this is our 33^rd. We'll be heading for a Uranus opposition soon.

But before we get to our mid-life crisis... Uranus has now finished conjoining our Mercury by transit. Pluto is busy conjoining our natal Moon, off and on, and later this year, Saturn will oppose our Jupiter, MC and Sun. I’m looking forward to the Saturn oppositions, as I hope the committee will stage a coup d'etat and I won't have to be Chair anymore!

The Moon in most mundane charts represents the people, the membership. She's especially important in the SAA chart as she's the Ascendant ruler. And she's in our natal 6^th house. Lately I've been referring to us as the Scottish Ailing Association!

Joking apart, we have had more members than usual being unwell Audrey Tennant has had a couple of operations, not altogether successfully. Cameron Greig has had a couple of spells in hospital also. I've accused him of having a fancy for one of the nurses, but he tells me that there are two or three he has his eye on He can't be with us this evening, for health reasons, but he sends his very best wishes to everyone. This is the first AGM he has missed. Robert Stokes, while healthy himself has had family health matters to tend to, as have some other members Jacqui Calder is having another run-in with cancer, and I expect that she'll win again. Bob Mitchell astonished us all by having a stroke, but seems to be doing remarkably well. And several committee members keep on harassing the NHS. We wish all these people strong recoveries.

Steve Livingston had to step down as Vice-Chair due to a new course in herbalism taking up a great deal of his time. Let's face it: we need people who can cure the rest of us! David Owen is standing down from the committee as he has joined a new choir, but he will be attending the SAA (and the pub!) occasionally.

In the past year, we have had a selection of guest and overseas speakers. Unfortunately Geoffrey Cornelius had to cancel - because of illness! - and Branka Stamenkovic, also, due to family matters. Some of our outstanding events have been Derek Walters giving a day workshop on Chinese Astrology, and it was a shame that so many of you had to miss that. Also memorable was the surprise birthday party we threw for Gloria Star last September - oh, and the talk was pretty good too. We've also had Kim Farnell back from London, Graeme Tobyn from Lancashire and Christian Borup from Denmark. And how could we forget young Star's debut performance at the Winter Solstice Party?

However, due to increasing costs and decreasing attendance, we're cutting back a bit on guest speakers in the next year. We've had requests for more experiential events, and we're trying to accommodate them.

We've also had requests for feedback forms, and we will have these, just as soon as the committee can agree the wording. And we've introduced membership cards, so that we can continue our reciprocal agreement with Aquarius Rising There are also new books in the Library, many of them donated, including a batch from a deceased gentleman down south, called Arthur Oram He asked Mick O’Neill to ensure that his astrology books went to good homes, and some were offered to us. David Owen has designed some commemorative bookplates for them so that this generosity is not overlooked.

Here's to another successful year!

Caroline Gerard, Chair
14th February, 2007