Report by David Hacker VP
The Executive Committee met using Zoom on Saturday 19th October.
The Master opened the meeting by reading out the names of all the members who had died since the last committee meeting. We had a short period of silence to remember them.
The routine business of accepting apologies for absence and agreeing the minutes of the previous meeting was quickly dealt with which allowed us to move on to discussion on relevant topics. Ken Webb, one of our Vice Presidents, had produced a paper which shared feedback on the initial roll-out of MemberMojo and offered suggestions on how we were accounting for receipts and payments in the annual accounts to make reading them clearer for members. Most of the items highlighted had been dealt with prior to the meeting with two requiring further consideration.
It was announced the Guild Festival and AGM for 2025 will be at Canford Magna in the East Dorset Branch, the date for the AGM in 2026 has now reverted to the second Saturday in May and will be held at Calne.
The LEBRF Open Day had been very successful. It was emphasised the LEBRF Open Day was not only a fund-raising day but should be seen as an opportunity for enjoyment and engagement with other ringers from across the Guild and beyond.
The Guild Striking Competitions had been successful although there was some comment about the size of the hall and the distance from the Church. The Master and Secretary are to discuss next year’s competition and find suitable towers with a hall nearby and make the arrangements early, as availability of towers was a problem with organising this year’s event.
The Central Council representatives had written a report of the CCCBR AGM which is available on the Guild website. One of the decisions taken by the CCCBR at their AGM was to increase the levy paid by affiliated guilds and association from 20p per member to 40p per member in 2025 and then to £1 per member in 2026, this will increase our Guild’s levy from £350 paid for the current year to approximately £1400 in 2026 depending on our membership numbers. A lengthy discussion followed on this topic with suggestions ranging from the Guild disaffiliating from the CCCBR to us paying the increase and encouraging our representatives to become more active in the work of the CCCBR and hold the CCCBR Executive to account for the money they receive and spend. We agreed we could not make any changes at our meeting as disaffiliation would require rule changes, therefore we were obliged to pay the increase in 2025.
A draft Expenses Policy was presented by the workgroup set up to investigate expenses paid to Officers for carrying out Guild business, the Policy was accepted subject to some minor tweaks and will be published on the Guild website.
The Treasurer presented a healthy balance sheet for the year so far.
The President introduced the proposed revised Guild Rules which the Way Forward Workgroup had put together for approval to circulate to the membership for feedback, the committee agreed to the circulation. The Secretary undertook to circulate the document to the Branches for distribution to members and the Communications Officer agreed to display the document on the website.
Progress was reported on the work which the workgroup is doing in creating a Welcome Pack. A card for presentation to New Members is currently in the process of being printed and a video to be hosted on the website is in the pre-production stage.
David Hacker
