Minutes of the Committee Meeting

10.00 am 27^th April 2007 at the Village Hall, Frampton

Present

  West:    Michael Stevenette, Pat Pullen, Oscar Winsey
  South & Purbeck:  David Vevers, Mary Mathers
  East:  Baird Oldrey
  Poole & Bournemouth: Hazel Clifton
  Invited : Bill Crumblehome – Upwey
 

  Apologies from Marian Eldrett        , Tina Jackson, David McKinna, Lois Rose

Minutes

The minutes of the previous meeting were approved and signed by the Chairman.

Matters arising (not covered elsewhere)

Definition of Membership Areas

We need to formalise the outlines of the Areas, by reference to our original map.  Action: Baird to clarify onto publishable map

Registering our membership database

It appears that the requirements of Registering Databases has changed.  Action: Baird to investigate need to register.

ACRE Datasheets

These are available from the DCA who pay the ACRE membership.  Could the DVHA hold the stocks of the ACRE datasheets and distribute these when requested, and charge non-members where required.  Lois will check with ACRE that they would allow this sort of arrangement.  Consider at next meeting

Chairman’s report

David said that he felt the AGM had been a success, despite the low numbers caused by the lack of notice given.  He asked for thanks to be passed on to Sue Oldrey and Tina Jackson for providing the buffet lunch.

Secretary’s report

AGM

Kate Hall’s talk on Energy Efficiency was well received, and Baird has a paper copy of the slides used during the talk, and some spares of the handouts.  These were distributed to those present, but are available by contacting Kevin Lindegaard of DCC on 01305 228530.

Erik Bengtsson’s talk on using radiant heaters may well be of interest to some halls.  It was shown to be very good as installed at our host hall in Cerne Abbas.

We have received a donation of £50 from Erik’s company, Scanlock Ltd, and the management of Cerne Abbas have waived their charges.  Buffet costs came to about £45, so we even made a small profit.

Treasurer’s report

As the Treasurer was not able to attend, we believe there has been no significant change since his report at the recent AGM. 

Election of Officers

As this was the first Committee meeting after the AGM, we elected the Officers as follows:

Chairman:        Baird Oldrey – Proposed by Hazel and seconded by Pat

Secretary:        Mary Mathers – Proposed by Oscar and seconded by Michael

Treasurer:        David McKinna – Proposed by Mary and seconded by Hazel

Membership Secretary:          Tina Jackson – Proposed by Hazel and seconded by David

Organisation, Regions & Membership

Membership

The Group Membership of £150 to the NVHF is now due.  This entitles us to 2 voting representatives at meetings.

We have reasonably complete records of the Dorset halls, but not the Poole & Bournemouth area ones.  Hazel offered to try and get a list of Community halls from these Authorities.  Action: Hazel to contact Local Authorities

When we have the topics for the next Area Meetings, we will mail all non-members in our Areas, and encourage them to join the DVHA and come.

David McKinna had mailed in pointing out that postage was likely to be a significant cost if many members were not contactable by e-mail.  He offered to contact these by phone and see if he can get an email address, as he is on a scheme where he has fixed telephone costs per month.  This offer was gratefully accepted.  Action: Baird to give membership details to David who will phone out.

Subscriptions

Baird had sent different calling notices for the AGM to halls which have joined and paid, those which have said they want to join and those who have not yet said anything.  David has been receiving subs from some of the unpaid members.

Michael has produced Membership Certificates for Western area members.

Action: Tina to get updated membership details from David and produce/send Certificates to other paid-up members.

In 2008, DVHA will take over collecting subs for both DVHA and DCA (subject to further discussion at our next Committee meeting).

Committee meetings

We discussed putting down a schedule of meetings for the next year.  We agreed that we should have quarterly Committee meetings in September, early December, February and April. 

Area Meetings

The aim is to have 2 Area meetings in each area and 1 combined AGM (with talks) for members to attend each year.  Spring Area meetings in February/March, Autumn Area meetings in September.

Judging by the success of the Western area, meetings are most popular when they have an outside speaker of relevant interest at the time.  Current topics are:        Licensing
            Energy Efficiency & Grant possibilities
            Fire Risk Assessment
            Hiring Agreements
            Health & Safety

Perhaps we could persuade Lois to give a general talk on “Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt – Running a Hall legally” to cover a little introduction to all of these.

Next AGM Planning

We agreed that the AGM should be at a Hall near the middle of the County, to minimise travel for all.

The programme should include DVHA Business, one or two speakers of general interest, and end with a buffet lunch to encourage ‘networking’.

We have pencilled Saturday 10^th May 2008, with the possibility of holding it at Hazel’s hall at Canford Cliffs if this is thought to be central enough.

Current Projects

Dorset Strategic Partnership (DSP)

We are members of the ‘Active Communities Group’, although the initiative is undergoing some reorganisation.

The Group will be launching the results of their deliberations as ‘Shaping our future’ at the Springfield Hotel in Wareham on 7^th July.  Action: Mary (and Baird if possible) to attend.

Connecting Dorset – IT Project

The good news is that this has now got its funding to cover all the Parish Councils, and 120 Halls in Dorset.  Jane Raimes, the Chief Exec. of DCA has asked us to promote this and find 30 Halls who are willing and suitable to be in the first round of implementation.

Jane has organised 4 meetings for interested halls, with details in the latest Dorset Community News.  We should try for at least one Committee member of DVHA to be present at each one.  They are:

  19^th May am at Fontmell Magna
  22^nd May at Frampton – Oscar will be there
  24^th May am at Stoborough – Mary will be there
  24^th May pm at Holtwood – Baird will be there

Any Other Business

Website

We invited Bill Crumblehome to the meeting so we could discuss the scope and requirements of a DVHA website with one of our members who knew about the possibilities and how to achieve them.  Bill has been developing websites for groups of craftsmen like himself.  We are delighted to accept his offer to investigate and build a website for us.

We have registered the name ‘dvha.org.uk’ for our use over the next 2 years.  Currently, the name is ‘Registered’ to myself, but as the fee for changing this was £10, we decided to leave it as it is for the moment.

We agreed that we needed a ‘public face’ which told everyone what the DVHA was about, its aims, objectives and organisation.  This could also include a Diary of forthcoming events/meetings. We might be able to give a separate page to any Hall to publish Facilities, Hiring Charges and booking Contacts.

We also need a ‘Members Area’ accessible to paid-up members by a password.  This should provide access to our ‘Knowledge base’ on topics of  mutual interest, Details of Member Halls & contacts, Minutes of recent Committee meetings (?) etc.

The site should also provide Links to other relevant sites such as NVHF, DCA, ACRE, DCC, Member Villages etc.

We have registered with www.Ruralclick.com who can host our website, and who also provide a readymade structure and facilities for publishing and updating web information.  Bill will check this out to see if it is preferable to crafting it himself.

Action:  Bill to report recommendations at the next Committee meeting.

Hiring Agreements

It appears that the Model Hiring Agreement provided in the ACRE is unrealistically detailed, and that we should consider developing a more practical one for our members.

Next Meetings

We agreed moving to a regime of one AGM and 2 Area meetings per year.

Spring Area meetings are now due, but Western Area have had a meeting in February, and plan for their second in September.

Purbeck Area have booked 10^th June at Studland for their next meeting.

Committee – Thursday 13^th September at 10.30 am at the Canford Cliffs Hall.

AGM – Saturday 10th May 2008

David Vevers thanked everyone for their participation at the meeting.  Baird thanked David as the Retiring Chairman for all his work in getting the Association going over the last 2 years.

The meeting closed at 12.45 pm.

Baird Oldrey
Secretary, Dorset Village Halls Association

Abbreviations:

As we seem to be accumulating abbreviations, I thought I would start a list:

ACRE     Action with Communities in Rural England

BLF       Big Lottery Fund – for Lottery grants to 2008

Community Matters aka  The National Federation of Community Organisations            – the urban equivalent of ACRE(?)

DCA      Dorset Community Action – suppliers of the VHAS

DEFRA   Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs

DSP      Dorset Strategic Partnership – DCC Initiative

DVHA    Dorset Village Halls Association

NVHF    National Village Halls Forum – National VH representation

VHAS    Village Halls Advisory Service – supplied by Lois Rose

Contacts:

Jane Raimes – DCA Chief Exec

Lois Rose – Village Halls Advisor

Kate Hall – Energy matters - Sustainable Development Manager, DCC