5th September, 7.30pm at Royal British Legion
MINUTES OF HCT 2018 – AGM, 5th September 2019
Welcome by Ruth McChesney, Chair of the Hawkhurst Community Trust 2018.
Apologies for Absence: Astrid Miller
Presentation of Annual Report: Ruth McChesney
First of all, I should like you to meet the other current Trustees: Ellen Neville, our Treasurer; Anita Stevens; Margaret Skeet, Sally Thomson, Jacqueline Schalburg and Chris Schalburg. They truly are a marvellous bunch of people and things just couldn’t happen without them. Thank you all so much!
I must also give my thanks to three previous Trustees – Marie Thomas, Gary Barker and Ian Humphreys – who each, for personal reasons, had reluctantly to step down as Trustees. We thank them also for the work they did. We are also fortunate to have help on an informal basis from some other local people.
The Hawkhurst Community Trust 2018 was formally registered as a Charity on 25th September 2018. Our Constitution requires that we work to enhance the provision of leisure and recreation facilities for the people of Hawkhurst. In particular, this means assisting the Parish Council with bringing forward a new Community Centre – and then running that Centre. You will hear more of this in the informal presentation, after the AGM.
As Trustees, as volunteers, we feel privileged to be involved with bringing a new Community Centre to Hawkhurst, the place that all of us call home. There is a lot to do. But we know how important the project is and are happy to give our time and energy to it. Over the past year we have met monthly to discuss our approach to the task and our communications strategy. We’ve been successfully involved with some community events. We have also worked closely with the Parish Council’s Community Centre Working Group. As Trustees, we work well together and will soon welcome additional Trustees to join us. We look forward to the challenges and progress of our next year as a Trust.
Presentation of Accounts: Ellen Neville
As I present the Treasurer’s Report it gives me great pleasure to reflect on the amazing goodwill and generosity of the people within HCT 2018 and its supporters. On behalf of the HCT 2018 I wish to thank each and every one of you for the wonderful support you have given to the Trust throughout this year. We have been able to grow in so many ways; to pay memberships, supplies, and legal
commitments, as well as support our mission to improve the well being of other groups too. I think we’ve been responsible for a few smiles along the way too.
I must highlight that the AGM was promised to be within our first 12 months and this means that a full financial year has not yet closed for us. The independent examination of accounts will happen after I have reconciled and posted all transactions for the period. We have changed the year end date from 31st March to 30th September as, in my experience of AGMs, in order for accounts to have some tangible meaning they need to be fairly recent in presentation. So, next year’s AGM will be soon after that year end date.
My thanks go to the Parish Council for our first donation which springboarded us in to launching our recent successes – you will hear more of that later. We also have to extend a huge thank you to the Iddenden Trust for their generous donation to Play Day. In addition to these donations we have had a Waitrose token box which provided £185 towards play. Of note also is that the Summer Fete and Playday were both not designed to generate profit and yet we made nearly £60 at the Fete and tea donations at Play Day were of similar value.
Our bank account was opened in March 2019 and we have a small amount of transactions
to view. I will keep the summary brief and ask you to look at graphs attached to the agenda…
Net income.
We received total income of £2,147.82 which included the two donations as mentioned. General expenditure amounted to £313.13 (although not all expenses are in yet) giving a provisional surplus of £1,834.69. Some of this will have to be retained for further events in the name of which they were intended. Restricted funds, if you will. Wrapping this up… HCT 2018 is a growing, outward looking charity. We have kept to our commitment to providing a range and balance of community events while continuing the work towards building and running the community centre. We did it!
I have included a cashflow forecast for your observation and must point out that this is, in my opinion, a modest estimate of our financial position next year. In the very near future we are focusing on developing a robust team of expertise to work on our financial plans. This is because the scale of the business plan will require more than a Treasurer and I am sure you will all agree with me that two heads are better than one. Always.
The Parish Council are funding the build of the community centre and we are tasked with filling it and running it. To this end, I anticipate over the next 12 months, making grant applications, fundraising and we will have to have some level of book-keeping although that could be for the year after.
Election of Elected Trustees
We have two sorts of Trustees in the Trust – Nominated (who serve for 3-year stints) and Elected
(who serve for 1-year stints). Since this is our very first AGM, all the Elected Trustees are required to stand down. The four current Elected Trustees – Margaret Skeet, Sally Thomson, Jacqueline Schalburg and Chris Schalburg – are happy to stand for re-election.
Margaret Skeet, proposed by Norman McChesney and seconded by David Veale
Sally Thomson, proposed by J.M. Stewart and seconded by P.D. Patterson
Chris Schalburg, proposed by Donal Brady and seconded by Peter Martin
Jacqueline Schalburg, proposed by Susie Armstrong and seconded by Beryl White
Carried unanimously by a show of hands.
There being no other business the AGM closed at 20:00.
HCT 2018 