Long Eaton & District U3A Minutes of the AGM Meeting on 15th May 2019

At West Park Leisure Centre, Long Eaton

1 Apologies for Absence – Sally Welch; Christine Breakwell; Margaret Dales

2 Minutes of the last AGM ( 18th July 2018)

Were read, agreed and signed - Proposed by Hilary Wells and seconded Keith Oseman. There were no matters arising

3 Chair's review of the past year

Report given by Stephen Bowley. See attached.

4 Report from the Treasurer

Figures were distributed to all members and there have been no queries submitted from members. Copies of this documentation are attached. Accordingly, the figures were adopted, being proposed by Mary Cearns and seconded by David Bartlett. There were no votes against and no abstentions

5 Interest Groups Co-ordinator's report

Hilary Wells gave a report, a copy of which is attached

6 Secretary's Update

David Barradell gave a report and this, too, is attached.

7 Election of the new committee (see below)

All nominees listed below were elected – carried, with no votes against nor any abstentions

8 Any previously notified questions

None Submitted9 Nominees for the 2019/2020 committee

The following have been nominated and seconded and have agreed to stand for the new committee

Officers

1. Chair – David Barradell2. Treasurer – Joan Morris3. Secretary- Andrew Savill

Committee Members

1. Helen Baron2. Ann Bennett3. Mary Cearns4. Chrissie Dore5. Pat Kelly6. Bob Owen

There were 108 attendees out of our total membership of 467 (23%), together with 3 visitors.

Chairman’s Report – AGM 2019Both the IG Coordinator and the Secretary will be giving their reports later so I will restrict my comments to other matters.

This is my last report as Chairman as I am standing down after today’s meeting having been in the role for 3 years. It has been an enjoyable term and I have learned a lot about the or-ganisation and its members. I have to admit that, basically, you are not a bad lot. Whilst there have been one or two issues the discussions have been polite and sensible and I thank you for that.

Once again we have had a busy year as a committee and I am very grateful for the hard work they have put in to making the organisation run smoothly. I know I am often banging on about recruiting to the committee but I am also very much aware of the amount of work done by other members who beaver away, often behind the scenes, and without whom we could not function. The whole ethos of our organisation recognises that no one member is more important or valuable than any other and we rely on so many of you in so many different ways.

I want to take this opportunity to say a big thank you to the two committee members who are also standing down today having served for 6 years, Keith Oseman and Marlene Morris. Again two people who work rather behind the scenes but whose input has been invaluable.

We look forward to the coming year with a new committee and a new Chairman and whatever surprises and challenges it may bring.

Treasurer’s Report

Long Eaton & District U3ANotes to the accounts for the year ended 31 March 2019

1 Membership The number of renewals for 2019-20 received from Jan 2019 to mar 2019 was approx. £7000 an increase from last year of £2200. This situation provides us with a clear financial situation moving into 2019-20.

2 Analysis of Social Events

Receipts PaymentsHalifax 162 911GIG Yarn 2019 1,075 720GIG Waterperry 599 582GIG Ryton 670 687Sudeley Castle 1,320 1,315Bakewell 1,100 1,100GIG Kew Gardens 4,185 4,180Hoggs Xmas meal 797 790GIG Xmas meal 433 430Canons Ashby 704 704GIG Middleton Hall 0 50GIG RHS Spring Flower Show 1,060 0Saltaire 435 50Fine Dining 8,596 8,244Theatre Group 2,594 2,291Total 23,729 22,054

The major discrepancies between receipts and payments arise where events cross over two financial years. In the interest of transparency the Fine Dining and Theatre Groups have now been added.

3 RefreshmentsThis covers refreshments at Interest group fairs, Interest Group Leaders meeting and the Christmas general meeting. West Park Leisure Centre have provided the refreshments at our general meetings. However, this is set to change in the coming year but the details have yet to be confirmed.

4 Interest GroupsWhere interest groups have transferred surplus cash to the treasurer these amounts are recorded and car-ried forward in the overall cash balances. When a new group is set up there are grants available to assist with any costs incurred – new groups in 2018/19 included Rambler and Crime Book club.

5 Room HireFees to West Park Leisure Centre for use of the hall for our monthly meetings and Erewash Voluntary Action Centre for hire of rooms for Coffee mornings and committee meetings.

6 Equipment

We successfully won 2 grants from Erewash Borough Council and Derbyshire County Council totalling £1500. This was used to replace our sound system.

7 Postage

For newsletters, AGM papers and membership renewals. Postage has been considerably reduced by the in-creased use of electronic distribution of documents.

8 Photocopying and printingThis has decreased over the year for the same reason as postage. The Committee try to ensure that wastage is kept to a minimum.

9 StorageStorage facility for sound equipment, display boards, books and catering equipment.

Interest Group’s Co-ordinator’s report 2018/2019

This is my final report in my role as IG coordinator as I now hand over to Chrissie Dore and Pat Kelly. I wish them every success and hope they enjoy the role as much as I have.The role is exciting and interesting, from setting up new groups, to supporting existing groups. Ideas for new groups come from new and old members and if there is interest then the group goes ahead. Sometimes if there isn’t enough interest from Long Eaton then membership for the group is advertised at local cluster groups like Beeston, Ilkeston or Stapleford. Existing groups luckily continue without needing much input and we have had very few groups closing. Those that do close may have run their natural course or illness may prevent the group from continuing.

Groups vary in number from 3-4 people meeting in a member’s house to groups like Fine Dining with over 120 members. New groups either starting this year or just into their second year include, a book group, current affairs 2, comparative religions, ramblers, crime writers and thrillers, drama, jukebox and Churches and Cathedrals has restarted after a break last year.

We have 8 language groups covering 4 languages. Our garden group is still attracting new members lured by exciting visits to gardens and holidays, having been to Kew, Holland and Sussex and plans to visit Somerset and Ireland.

The quarterly outings have been interesting and varied as have the theatre trips. The singing for fun group have had a number of ‘sing outs’ entertaining a number of local people. The photography group regularly take themselves off to take photograph in houses, gardens and museums around the East Midlands. The art groups are arty, the various games groups are serious, the music groups are musical and the craft groups are talented. The various science groups are geeky and the philosophy groups are philosophical.

It’s surprising how much ‘food’ is involved in Interest Groups. Apart from dedicated food groups like Fine Dining and the 2 cook book groups I know food and eating features sometimes or regularly in the photo group, outings, churches and cathedrals, current affairs, garden group, ramblers and MOTO.

Another successful interest group’s fair was held in October and a meeting and lunch for all IG leaders was held in January where, health and safety and insurance was discussed among other topics.

All in all the varied interest groups provide the opportunity for learning and social interaction for all our members whatever their interest and I am sure enjoyment for all members.

And finally I’d like to say a big thank you to all lG leaders and their members who make such a success of all our groups by sharing their skills and expertise.

Hilary Wells

Secretary’s update

Well, the past twelve months have been very busy, but I feel that we have achieved a lot over the last year.

Following comments made by members in the past, I am pleased to say that we have upgraded both our sound system and OHP and, from comments received from many of you, these seem to have overcome a lot of the problems. We do accept, though, that there are times when our guest speakers occasionally do seem to be ‘distorted’ when giving their presentations, but I am afraid that this is down to the speaker themselves and how close they hold the microphone that they are using. There is very little that we can do about this, but we do, of course, talk to them about the use of the equipment before they use it but, obviously, once the speaker takes the stage there is very little that we can do about things.Funding for this equipment – which cost us around £1,500 – was achieved following successful ap-plications for grants from Erewash Borough Council and Derbyshire County Council and we are grateful for their support.

We have also recently achieved charitable status which we are now coming to terms with, but one of the main advantages to this is that we can apply for Gift Aid which will enable us to claw back from the tax people some of the annual subscriptions that you make, which means that there will be no in-crease in these subscriptions for this year.

A lot of work has been going on behind the scenes with regard to how we publicise what we do – both amongst ourselves and our members, but also within the wider community of Long Eaton and beyond. Over the coming months, we expect there to be a number of developments in this area.We are also looking at completely re-vamping our website and Ann Bennett has already started on this and is doing a very good job. The website will obviously be used to assist with the publicity ini-tiatives that we are looking at – but we also understand that not all of you have access to the internet and we will be looking at how we can we also produce information in ‘paper’ form.

Introduction of the new Data Protection regulations have also involved us in a lot of work and even though we only have around 120 of you at the monthly meetings, we have well over 500 members and we have to look after all of their needs and ensure that all of our records are fully up-to-date.This, together with our charitable status and the way the world is evolving at the present time, means that we have a lot of ‘admin’ work to deal with to ensure that we fully comply with all of the various regulations.

This takes up quite a lot of our time and we are therefore looking at introducing a new computer sys-tem to help with this work. It is a system widely used by the U3A nationally and a lot of branches use it to assist with their work, including those in Nottingham, Derby and Beeston with Ilkeston also looking to use it over the coming months.

The system is called ‘Beacon’ and we are looking to introduce this and implement it fully over the next twelve months. It should have no real effect on our members’ activities, but will enable us to have all of the information that we need ‘at the push of a button’ and should allow us to meet all of the legal requirements and submit all of the information to the U3A National Office much more eas-ily than is the case at present.

We are also very mindful of costs and, as I have said, we have obtained grants to meet the cost of the new equipment and are looking to use Gift Aid to our advantage. We are also trying to make more

use of ‘electronic’ communication rather than having to post information out to you and this also helps us to reduce costs of printing etc.The vast majority of you do allow us to use e-mails, but a number of you are not on the internet and some others are – understandably – reluctant to open various communications you receive by way of e-mails. In this respect, we are hoping to arrange a session at one of our meetings given by the Fraud Protection department of Nottinghamshire Police on this matter which should allay a lot of fears that people may have regarding this. If anyone does have any immediate concerns on this, though, please have a word with us as the more people are willing to accept this form of communication the lower our costs will become.

I could go on, but this gives you a flavour of what we have been doing and what we hope to continue with over the coming months.

However, if anyone does have any thoughts or comments as to how we can further improve on how we op-erate or any suggestions for the future, please don’t hesitate to let us know.

In closing, though, I would thank you all for your support in attending the meetings and generally supporting the U3A and the committee (and other officers) in their efforts to provide you with what you want.

I would also remind you of the Picnic to be held at Hardwick Hall on 10th July 2019 and look forward to see-ing as many of you as possible at that event, but for more details, please have a word with Andrew Savill.