Annual General Meeting
Scroll down on this page to read the 2020 reports of the Chair and Treasurer
The annual meeting for election of trustees and approval of the accounts of Haverhill u3a was held by zoom on Tuesday 27th April.
The following questions were asked of the current membership of the Haverhill and District u3a.
Of the 402 members, 36 voted by post and 184 voted online.
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Do you accept the Report from the Chair?
Do you accept the Report from the Treasurer and the Audited Accounts for 2020?
Do you agree to elect Lesley Metcalfe as Chair?
Do you agree to elect Dilwyn Roberts as Treasurer?
Do you agree to elect Barbara Lavender as General Secretary?
Do you agree to elect Peter Tatam as Vice Chair?
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The results are shown in the charts.
In summary: voting was almost unanimous to accept all the reports and the committee officers.
A majority of the membership, for the proposal, was achieved.
During this process 99 members signed up to this website.
That is 45% of those who voted and 25% of all members.
Annual Report From the Chair
April 2021
Well, my last year as chairman has been strange to say the least! No meetings unless via Zoom and trying to achieve something significant without leaving home.
Recent Zoom meetings with the Suffolk area of u3a’s and also one with nationwide u3a’s has shown that we in Haverhill & District have fared rather better than many others. We did lose some members, which is understandable, but many u3a’s lost a far higher percentage putting many on the brink of closing down. Our adoption of Zoom came quite late and I wish we had taken the plunge earlier as several groups have made use of the licence to allow them to hold virtual meetings. The monthly talk to replace the get together in the Arts Centre has been well received with over 100 members logging in. However, no virtual meeting can ever replace the social contact chat and interaction of the Arts Centre.
My committee have served me very well during my three year stint as chair. Dilwyn Roberts the treasurer has managed the finances with care and diligence so that we are in a very healthy situation. Barbara Lavender wears many hats being membership secretary and editor of News & Views together with acting as assistant treasurer and carries out each one with her trademark vigour and dedication. Jean Lansdown as handled her secretarial duties with care and conciseness. Rosie Campbell our minutes secretary created brief and clear copy and Marie Caulfield has communicated well with group leaders on our behalf. David Caulfield accepted a new role in charge of publicity creating the Haverhill & District Facebook page, which many use on a regular basis together with helping the committee with IT issues. I want to thank each one of them for their sterling work during my tenure. Unfortunately, our Events Committee after many years of organising the Xmas Party and special events such as the 25th Anniversary celebrations decided to step aside. I thank them for all of their hard work over the years.
By now we should have had the benefit of a new bright and useable website, but the pandemic has delayed its introduction until late this year at the earliest. It is a shame, but if that is the worst effect of Covid we cannot complain.
In closing I must turn my thoughts and pay my respects to those members who sadly passed away over the past three years, each one will be remembered by us all. Now it is time to echo Looney Tunes and say, “That’s All Folks!” and Goodbye. I enjoyed every minute of my time as chair and look forward to being able to serve at some point in another capacity.
Peter Tatam
Treasurers Report on 2020
2020 has been a strange year for us all but thankfully we appear to be coming out of the Covid crisis.
We entered 2020 expecting to need to increase our membership subscriptions but because of the low activity and subsequent drop in expenditure we exited the year £1004.42 better off despite a drop in member’s subscriptions of £1531.50
In accordance with the Charity Commission’s rules we have a current account and a reserve account. We are required to keep sufficient funds in reserve to cover 6 months operations. On a normal years operations this would be about £5000 however after consultation with the committee I decided to put as much as we could afford into the reserve account to gain interest. As they say the best laid plans etc. the banks decided to drastically cut the interest rate. We have however made £1.77 in interest.
At the year-end we had £8501.87 in reserve and £1000.09 in the current account. As both accounts are with Lloyds funds can be moved quickly between them.
We now subscribe to Zoom so that we can hold virtual meetings and lectures. Zoom costs £14.39 per month and speaker costs are in the region of £50.00 per speaker. The Zoom gives the groups the opportunity to get together virtually and I advise that you take every opportunity to re-start your groups using this tool.
This year expenditure is expected to rise slightly as activities restart but this will be a slow process I am not expecting any great increase until the 2nd half of the year when the 2021 subscriptions will start to flow.
Dilwyn Roberts
