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 Minutes of the Committee Meeting

10.00 am 11th November 2006 at the Village Hall, Frampton

Present

  West:    Michael Stevenette, Pat Pullen, Oscar Winsey
  Central: Tina Jackson, David McKinna
  South & Purbeck:  David Vevers, Mary Mathers
  East:  Baird Oldrey
  Poole & Bournemouth: Hazel Clifton
  DCA: Lois Rose
 

  Apologies from Marian Eldrett       

Minutes

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

Matters arising (not covered elsewhere)

Carried forward from previous meetings:

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

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 mailing/emailing database 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.

Action: All Committee (and members) to write to their Dorset County Councillors to emphasise importance of Grants to Village Halls.  Note that Devon have recently axed these grants.

We need to make an economic case for aid to Village Halls, pointing out what they save the Councils.

 

Chairman’s report

David was unable to make the last DSP meeting, but attended the NVHF AGM.

Secretary’s report

Committee

Central need one more Committee member, ideally to help Tina & David McKinna.

The North needs two Committee members.  Baird said he had been in contact with Brian Shirley of Longburton VH, and might be able to involve him, and check with Colin Rhymes for any ideas.

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.

Website

Baird has registered with Ruralclick.com, who are able to help with our Website, and have already set up a skeleton home page for us to complete.  This was shown to the meeting.

We agreed we wanted a website with a public area to describe our aims and objectives, benefits and details of when meetings were coming up.  Also a Private area for members only, which could include a Forum for people to post Wants and items for disposal.

Treasurer’s report

David reported that the Bank Account was set up with HSBC (despite their efforts to confuse).

We have £365 in the bank, with expenses of about £200 to come from AGM catering and mailout costs.

Organisation, Regions & Membership

Membership & Subscriptions

After further discussion, we confirmed 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, as agreed at the previous meeting.

However, we reversed the previous subscription agreements in favour of the following:

The DVHA will take over paying for the Group membership of the NVHF (£150) from DCA for the year 2007/8.

The DCA will charge £15 for Affiliation for 2007, and the DVHA £5.  These will be paid directly to each organisation.  Lois will be mailing DCA sub requests in January, so if we can get our Sub requests out by then, these could be mailed at the same time. 

For those halls which have already paid £5 as part of their AGM charge, or at Area meetings since, this will be taken as their sub for 2007.

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

Membership & mailing List

Tina is now maintaining the mailing List, and updating with email addresses as they become available.  Please address any changes that you know of to thola.jackson@hotmail.co.uk and she will update us as necessary.

Hazelbury Bryan wish to join.  Michael also supplied a list of others who came to the last Western Area meeting and want to join.  Holwell should be West not North area.

Tina to produce Membership invoices for 2007

NVHF

The NVHF have their AGM on 21 November 2006 in London.

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

Dorset Strategic Partnership (DSP)

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.

The next meeting is this afternoon, when David and Mary will be there.

DCA - Dorset Community Action

Baird wrote to Jane Raimes, The Chief Exec., to confirm continuity of Lois’ role, and the plan for handover to new people.

Jane’ reply was read out and discussed.  We agreed that this gave as much reassurance as we could expect, and so no further action was required at this point.

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

Area Meetings

Baird will merge the report from the Western area and publish the notes to Members with the AGM Minutes.

Current Projects

Connecting Dorset – IT Project

Mary reported that DCC are moving to the next stage of appointing COSMIC - a partner to implement some of the trials.  They are trying to establish a profile for suitable halls, and get a feel for how the uses might develop over time.  They are also looking for how Halls might gain income from having the facility

Joint buying

Michael has had little success in exciting supermarket suppliers to discount due to low volumes.  He will keep an eye out for opportunities

AGM Planning

We agreed that the AGM should be at a Hall near the middle of the County, to minimise travel for all.  Baird to try Cerne Abbas, Frampton & Morden in that order.

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

Cost of £15 last year was thought to be a bit high.

Lois suggested that we might get a County Councillor to come and speak on ‘The Future of Village halls in the County’.  Lois will sound out potential speakers. 

 

Any Other Business

Lois reported that DCA are looking at the feasibility of ‘pay-as-you-go’ mobile phones as the best arrangement for Hall Booking Agents.  The advantage is that these can be passed to others to cover when the Booking Agent is not available.

Next Meetings

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

AGM – Saturday 3rd February 2007

Committee – Thursday 15th February at 10.00 am at the Village Hall, Frampton.

Spring Area meetings in March-June – possible theme of ‘Renewable Energy, and its role in attracting funds’

Autumn Area meetings in September

Post meeting note:  The AGM has been fixed for Saturday 10th March at Cerne Abbas.  The Committee meeting has also been postponed, unless we need a meeting before the AGM.

David Vevers thanked everyone for their participation at the meeting.

The meeting closed at 12.35 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