Minutes of the Committee Meeting
10.00 am 21st September 2006 at the Village Hall, Morden
Present
West: Michael Stevenette, Oscar Winsey
Central: Tina Jackson
South & Purbeck: David Vevers, Mary Mathers
East:
Poole & Bournemouth: Hazel Clifton
DCA: Lois Rose
Apologies from Pat Pullen, David McKinna, Marian Eldrett
Matters arising (not covered elsewhere)
In the absence of the Treasurer, Baird reported that the Bank Account would be opened next week. (Post minute note, this has now been done)
Carried forward from previous meetings:
Definition of Membership Areas
In view of the lower number of members in Poole & Bournemouth and the South-East Area around
We need to formalise the outlines of the Areas, by reference to our original map.
Action: Baird to clarify onto publishable map
Jane Raimes of DCA wants to know what information we will have on our Databases. We agreed that information will only be released after agreement of the Committee. Action: Baird to write
Baird said that we needed to register our databases with the Data Protection Agency, and that he needed to get a book costing about £15 which gave the details. This expenditure was approved. Action: Baird to register.
Chairman’s report
Dorset Strategic Partnership (DSP)
David has attended a meeting of the Dorset Strategic Partnership. This is supposed to be ‘setting the template for Voluntary Services in
The DSP are appointing a coordinator, and building a database of Voluntary organisation in the county. The aim is to increase the number registered by 33% by 2008.
As David missed the last meeting, we agreed that in future, we would try and get at least 2 of David, Hazel and Mary to attend each meeting.
Dorset Community Action (DCA)
The Chief Exec. – Jane Raimes – is due to be retiring in November 2007, and Lois Rose is due to retire in November 2008.
There is a working party looking at potential re-organisation at the moment.
Actions: Baird to write to Jane Raimes, confirming continuity of Lois’ role, and a plan for handover to new people.
Action: All Committee (and members) to write to their Dorset County Councillors to emphasise importance of Grants to Village Halls. Note that
We need to make an economic case for aid to Village Halls, pointing out what they save the Councils.
Secretary’s report
Correspondence on Renewable Energy
There is a Central Government Fund to help up to 11 halls in
Lois is organising courses to explain what is involved, with the first on 13th October at Morden.
The DCC have appointed a ‘Renewable Energy Coordinator/Officer’, who is funded for the next 3 years by the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister.
Emails
We need to coordinate with DCA to avoid sending out duplicate emails to our members who are also members of DCA. Action: Baird to liaise with Lois.
Ruralclick website
This is a new venture being set up by Simon Bland, who is also connected with Allied Westminster, masters of the VillageGuard Insurance scheme.
Treasurer’s report
David was unable to make the meeting, due to prior engagements.
Organisation, Regions & Membership
Subscription Year
After discussion, we agreed that the Membership year would run from January to December, and that the subscription would include Group membership of the NVHF for their year from April to March (?).
We realise that this appears to give little benefit for membership this year, where we operated ‘membership for all’ up to and including the last round of Area meetings. This means that the only difference to being a member will be to receive the AGM Minutes and Area Meetings Notes, and any ‘members only emails’ that we may send between now and the end of the year. We agreed that is anyone felt sufficiently aggrieved to complain, then we would offer to roll their membership fee into paying for 2007 instead.
Committee
Central need one more Committee member, ideally to help Tina & David McKinna.
The North needs two Committee members. We should try and encourage Jean & Bill Miller to at least host the next Area meeting, and check with Colin Rhymes for any ideas.
Mailing List
Currently Baird is maintaining the mailing List, and updating with email addresses as they become available.
Tina will take over once she has her new PC, printer and email address sorted out.
Meetings
We agreed moving to a regime of one AGM and 2 Area meetings per year.
Area Meetings
All Areas have had their meetings, except for Central who were meeting in the evening of the Committee meeting.
Baird will publish notes in due course. West had a good attendance, having got a speaker on the new Fire Regulations. Others were less well attended.
NVHF
The NVHF have their AGM on
We agreed that David Vevers and Helen Clifton would be our representatives.
We will need to pay the Group Membership for 2006/7 from our funds when the Bank Account is live. Action: David McKenna
DCA
Lois is keen to ‘get DVHA on the map’ with more Halls, and made some suggestions which could do this and help her with her administration:
DCA Subscriptions
Could DVHA collect membership subscriptions for DCA as well as DVHA (and effectively NVHF). DCA has a membership of about 120 of the 200 halls in
We discussed this briefly, and agreed that Baird should write to David McKinna to see if our Bank Account would allow handling this sort of arrangement. We agreed to discuss in greater depth at the next Committee meeting.
ACRE Datasheets
These are available from the DCA who pay the
Lois will check with
Consider at next meeting
Current Projects
Connecting Dorset – IT Project
We talked on this at the Area meetings.
DCA have published a Feedback Questionnaire to be returned by the end of September. These were distributed where possible.
Other joint buying
Michael is working on the supermarket chains who might be willing to give discounts for purchase of event catering needs, in return for promotion within DVHA. Most likely at the moment is Tesco.
Any Other Business
Next Meetings
Central Area – Monday 21st September at
Committee - Tuesday 14th November at 10.00 am at the Village Hall, Frampton.
AGM –
David Vevers thanked everyone for their participation at the meeting.
The meeting closed at
Secretary, Dorset Village Halls Association