Jan 2025 - Committee Meeting

Committee Meeting Friends of Osborne

6th January 2025 at 18.00 in The Prince of Wales

Members present:   

                 A. Rogers, H. McComb, A. Johnson, M. Moorman,

                          D. Wisden, J. Phillips, M. Watson, M. Cheal.                        

Apologies:         F. Bourn, J. Douse, L. Hopkins, C McCormack, A. Pickard

Allison welcomed all those present and wished everyone a Happy New Year.

Item 1 Previous Minutes and

Item 2 Matters Arising.

1.    The Minutes for approval were passed

2.    The Matters Arising are to be dealt with in the relevant sections.         

Item 3 Chairman’s Report:

AR informed us of Frances’ resignation from the Committee.

Frances stated that, “I have needed to reapportion my volunteering time this year and have sadly made the decision to resign.”

AR wished Frances many thanks for all her efforts over the years, and that we appreciated her time and energy. AR to find out if John will stay on as our website administrator.

Item 4 Treasurer’s Report:

1.     AJ has been doing a lot of hard work regarding how to change our registration with HMRC so that we can submit a Gift Aid claim at the end of the financial year.  

2.    Therefore, we must complete a Chv1 form. AJ explained that the form asks for details of responsible persons (trustees) and an authorised person (person submitting the Gift Aid claim). Both these people need to submit date of birth, address, and NI number.

3.    The Guidance document states that ‘HMRC needs to know who the responsible persons are for your charity. You need to nominate a minimum of two responsible persons. Together with the authorised official, they will be the only people allowed by HMRC to change details on your organisation’s tax records.’

4.    With these considerations in mind, it was decided that we need three Trustees added as ‘responsible/authorised persons. We agreed they will be AJ, MM and HM. MM and HM will pass on the necessary details of birth, address, and NI number. AJ to email MM and HM after the meeting.

5.    AJ wanted to know the date when Marja Tolley had resigned, as her address was still on HMRC’s records as the FoO address. HM to check from our Minutes. HM/DW offered that her resignation was not a written one, but verbal to PP, c. December 2021. The correct address for FoO should be Osborne House. Additionally, AJ stated that in his telephone call to HMRC he explained that none of the old officials were with us. HMRC replied that they would check the Charity Commission data and accept the current Trustees.

6.    Regarding the laptops, Currys suggested a HP laptop at a cost of £249 with a 14inch display and 128GB of storage on a solid state drive and 8GB of RAM. AJ to explore license options etc. ahead of purchase.

7.    Our current balance stands at £81,694.80 and AJ distributed the financial papers to all in attendance.

Item 5 Membership Report:

 1.    MM reported that we currently have 1,139 members. Therefore, we discussed that the cap of 1,200 members needs to be addressed. To that aim DB will be contacted, but that we do recommend and accept the EH cap on FoO members.

2.    AR to highlight the cap in her next Newsletter, and that defaulters of membership renewal will go to the back of the queue.

3.    MM stated that there had been no issue with the new members paying the £5 p.p. joining fee.

4.    The Christmas trees had been taken down and the decorations were put in the Education Suite for MM to check on those that could be recycled for Christmas, December 2025.

Item 6 Future Events:

 1.    It was emphasised that we need a July date (3rd?) urgently from EH. The events we hope to organise and hold are as follows:

·       March – Talk (AR).

·       April – Walk (DW/HM) & Talk AR).

·       May – Outside event, e.g. Farringford etc. (AR).

·       June – C. W-L ‘Hidden Tour’ x 2 (DW/HM).

·       July – Walled Garden Drinks Party (MW/DW/HM).

·       August – Nothing.

·       September – Talk (AR) Quiz Night (ALL) Buckingham Palace 21st September, charge of £70 p.p.? (JD).

·       October – Walk (DW/HM) Workshops for Christmas crafts (MM plus others).

·       November – AGM (ALL) Daytime, Monday, or Tuesday.

·       December – A daytime Christmas function with Carols, to be discussed with GW with help from JD and her husband, Michael.

Item 7 School’s Trophy and Garden Furniture Updates:

 1.     Trophy - JP had nothing to discuss as Marcus is on holiday.

2.    Garden Furniture – MW gave a broad outline of his work to source suitable garden furniture for the Terrace Restaurant. The email trail had gone awry with EH. Therefore, to proceed with this project MW to develop a SOJR with his newly crafted form, which is in draft form. He distributed a copy to all present. We agreed it will be a suitable format for EH’s purchase of goods with the invoice to be passed on to AJ. MW gave a ballpark figure of £20,000 for the furniture and he would embark on the next stage of the format of the SOJR.

     AR thanked MW for all his hard work.

Item 8 AOB:

 The Trustees rotation will have to be explored. To that end, the Trustees are to meet a quarter of an hour prior to the next meeting in February.

The meeting closed at 19.35.

Date of next meeting:  3rd February 2025 at 18:00.

 Helen McComb Secretary