**MINUTES OF THE TWENTY SIXTH AGM OF THE SOCIETY OF FRIENDS OF THE ROYAL NAVY SUBMARINE MUSEUM, HELD AT THE MUSEUM AT 1800 ON FRIDAY 16 SEPTEMBER 2022**
## **President’s Address**
1. Admiral Sir Mark Stanhope GCB OBE ADC DL was unable to attend owing to Covid-19; his remarks were read by the chairman, Rear Admiral Jonathan Westbrook CBE. He opened by mentioning the passing of HM Queen Elizabeth II, our Commander-in-Chief for the past seventy years, indeed the only sovereign that most present can remember. There followed a one minute silence in Her Majesty’s memory followed by a declaration of loyalty and best wishes to our new sovereign, King Charles III.
2. He extended a welcome to our principal guest, Commodore Paul Dunn, the new Commodore (Submarines) as well as Matthew Sheldon, Executive Director of Operations at the NMRN and other members of his team. He mentioned his appreciation of the work done by the chairman and the committee noting the complications imposed by Covid-19 over the past two years. He also mentioned the work of Peter Wilkinson and his team for their extraordinary speed and success in establishing the new Submariner Memorial at the National Arboretum with a particular mention for the efforts of Tommy Herman
3. Finally, he mentioned the tremendous work done by the Friends in the production of the Online Book of Remembrance (OBOR) which is a key feature of the Submariner Memorial, and in particular the efforts of Barrie Downer, Jock McLees, Peter Jeanneret, Malcolm Blenkinsopp and Tom Herman who all contributed to this exceptional resource.
## **Attendance**
4. 41 members, 13 members’ guests and 6 official guests attended the meeting.
## **Apologies for Absence**
5. Apologies received from: Sir Mark Stanhope, Sir Tim McClement, Pat McCaw, Lewis Whittaker, Phil Higgins, Tim Forth, Colin and Linda Barker and Valerie Le Marchand. The Mayor and Lady Mayoress of Gosport also apologised as they were withdrawing from all public events until after Her Late Majesty’s funeral.
## **Minutes of the Twenty Fifth AGM**
6. The Minutes of the twenty fifth meeting were circulated in _ARL 2022_ accepted nem con.
## **Chairman’s Report**
7. The chairman then presented his report:
- a. **Membership** . Membership is currently healthy with 811 members, 44 of whom have joined under the Submarine Family initiative.
b. **Museum** . It has been a very busy year for museum and Friends with a lot going on with the restoration of normality post-Covid and the Submarine Family established.
c. **Archive.** The archive hitherto held in Torbay block at Gosport has now been transferred to the new facility in Storehouse 12 in Portsmouth Historic Dockyard co-located with the NMRN library. Still a lot of work to do in cataloguing and recording but volunteer project started up and making progress. The retirement of the RNSM archivist George Malcolmson will be a challenge as George’s encyclopaedic knowledge of the archive is irreplaceable.
d. **Acquisitions** . There has been a steady stream of material arriving in the museum over the last year. These include:
- The HMS Alliance Visitors’ Book donated by the Nixon-Eckersall family – Contains some legendary signatures.
- Wartime charts from Lt Hancock of HMS Salmon.
- Correspondence from a PoW camp from the family of Tel J S Nevitt HMS Shark.
- Photograph album of AB Pearson HMS Truant (1939-45).
- Log books from HMS Vulcan – Submarine tender 1920s.
- Photographs from George Armstrong featuring HMS Aeneas, Trump and Talent.
- A brass railway locomotive nameplate commemorating X-24.
e. **Other Improvements** . Other improvements include a new atmospheric control system for Holland 1 gallery and the new VTC suite paid for by the Friends which enables Gosport staff to liaise rather more easily with their colleagues on the other side of the harbour. It has also been of great benefit to the Friends committee whose meetings are now hybrid with real and virtual attendance from further afield. The memorial garden has been further enhanced by the provision of audio benches.
f. **HMS Alliance** . The deep clean and cofferdam work is now complete while the Conservation Management Plan first draft is expected later in the summer. Other work on Alliance has included replacement of floor tiles following water ingress and repairs to the fin following pigeon infestation. Work was also required on X-24 following visitor tampering.
g. **HMS Urge** . There were two events in the spring to commemorate the loss of HMS Urge – One in Malta attended by COSM which had a very profile locally and another here at the museum. Both were masterminded by Francis Dickinson, grandson of her CO Edward Tomkinson, who has put himself forward for election to the committee. It is hoped the Urge events may be a template for further such memorial activity.
h. **Submariner Memorial (1)** . The Submariner Memorial at the National Arboretum was dedicated by HRH the Duke of Cambridge on 18 May. While not strictly Friends activity, as decided by the Memorial Committee, the Friends will administer any funds remaining at the time of the winding up of the Memorial fund. This will be approximately £140,000 and be hypothecated to:
- Enhancement of the Embankment memorial includng provision of QR codes
- linking to OBOR.
- Refurbishment of memorial wall at RNSM.
- Faslane heritage.
i. **Submariner Memorial (2)** . The Friends were recognised by the trustees of the Navy Club (The RNVR Officers’ Association) as a suitable recipient of a proportion of their funds upon dissolution. The Club donated £50000 towards the refurbishment of the memorial wall at RNSM, itself carrying many RNVR names.
j. **Museum Strategy** . The major focus of the next two years will be on securing financial stability and consolidation in the wake of the Covid shocks rather than on development and the news that MoD approved further funding above Grant in Aid (GIA) for FY22/23 was very welcome. On the future of the Fort Blockhouse site, the NMRN has been engaging with DIO, NCHQ and other Gosport stakeholders and in particular on boundary issues. Of particular interest for the Friends is the Memorial Chapel - The museum will bid through NCHQ for its preservation as an adjunct to the RNSM. The committee will keep a close eye on this.
k. **OBOR** . The Submarine Online Book of Remembrance went live in May on The Submarine Family website and is already attracting public interest and contribution. It has been the fruit of a vast amount of work by Jock McLees, Peter Jeanneret, Barrie Downer and Malcolm Blenkinsopp whose efforts have been rewarded with a handsome user-friendly application, and to whom the Friends are most grateful. It was supplied by the Submarine Family website contractors MindWorks for the sum of £12000 and we have earmarked another £2000 earmarked for future development. The committee feel this represents excellent value for money.
l. **HMS Courageous.** The boat has completed her post dock set to work with her brand new lighting and is hosting private tours. We anticipate greater NMRN involvement in due course particularly in the area of public engagement and attraction management.
m. **The Submarine Family** . The Submarine Family is now in existence as under the aegis of RN and RM Charities (RNRMC) and the Friends, along with _We Remember Submariners_ (WRS) and the Submariners’ Association are elements of it although it is to be emphasised that we retain our independence as a charity. For every submariner who joins the Submarine Family and opts to become a member of the Friends, we receive a financial grant from RNRMC equal to our annual membership fee. We would encourage those Friends members so qualified to maintain their Friends membership, join the Submarine Family taking _the ‘I am already a member of the Friends_ ’ option, making an additional donation to the Submarine Family if they so wish.
n. **Harbour stations** . The autumn newsletter is no more following retirement from the committee of Mike Bates. Minutes of the AGM will be posted ASAP on the Friends website, then be published on the Charity Commission website as the annual report, and further promulgated in the following year’s _All Round Look_ .
## **Election of Committee Members** .
8. Francis Dickinson, Tim Forth, Vince Dobbin and David Mincher were elected to the committee and Phil Higgins, Peter Christmas and Jock McLees were re-elected. All candidates were proposed by Justin Hughes, seconded by Guy Sitwell and elected nem con.
## **Adoption of the Accounts** .
9. The accounts were published in ARL 2022, together with the financial report for the year, and there have been no comments. Income during the period has been nearly £83000. This includes a donation of £50000 from the RNVR Officers’ Association following the sale and winding up of the Naval Club, which is intended to provide a grant to the museum for the procurement of a new memorial wall. The production of an online book of Remembrance is complete with the first payment to contractors of £6000 showing in the accounts. This year somewhat less than £6000 has been expended in grants to the museum including the purchase of audio benches and VTC equipment to enable the conduct of hybrid remote/physical meetings. The meeting voted to accept the accounts nem con.
## **Appointment of Independent Examiner** .
10. Giles Fletcher was proposed for appointment as independent examiner of accounts and was accepted by the meeting nem con.
## **Amendment to the Constitution** .
11. As advertised in _ARL 2022_ . Given the growing importance of the role of the membership secretary and Digital Lead, particularly in the light of The Submarine Family initiative, the committee
felt that these roles should be recognised formally as Officers of the Association. The following amendment to the constitution was proposed and accepted nem con.
_5.a. The Officers of the Association shall comprise a Chairman, Vice Chairman, Honorary Secretary, Membership Secretary, Digital Lead and Honorary Treasurer. The Committee shall consist of the Officers of the Association and up to ten Ordinary Members. The Committee Members comprise the Trustees of the Charity._
_5.e. In addition to trustees elected at the AGM, the committee will have two non-trustee members, one nominated by the Chairman of the Submariners’ Association and another nominated by Commodore Submarines (COSM) representing serving submariners._
## **Any Other Business** .
12. The Heritage Malta limited edition print of HMS Urge was presented to the NMRN by the Chairman and received on its behalf by Matthew Sheldon.
13. The date of 15 September 2023 was proposed for the next AGM.
## **Guest Speakers**
14. Commodore Paul Dunn OBE gave an update on the Royal Navy submarine force and its current activities and Matthew Sheldon gave an update on the NMRN’s current vision for the Submarine Museum.
## **THE SOCIETY OF FRIENDS OF THE RN SUBMARINE MUSEUM**
## **Financial Statement for Period 1 April 2021 to 31 March 2022**
|**Income and Expenditure**||**2021-2022**|**2021-2022**|**2021-2022**||**2020-2021**|**2020-2021**|**2020-2021**|**Balance Sheet**||**2021-2022**|**2021-2022**|**2021-2022**||**2020-2021**|**2020-2021**|**2020-2021**|**2020-2021**||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|||**Expense**||**Income**||**Expense**||**Income**|||**Asset**||**Liability**||**Asset**|||**Liability**||
|Expenditure||||||||||||||||||||
|All Round Look|£|2,406
|||£|1,795
|||RBS Current A/C|£|2,861
|||£|7,998
|||||
|Committee expenses|£|32
|||£|-
|||RBS Deposit A/C|£|61,093
|||£||821
||||
|General admin|£|191
|||£|101
|||Virgin Money|£|52,912
|||£|39,147
|||||
|Grants to RNSM|£|5,633
|||£|23,355
|||PayPal|£|518
|||£||952
||||
|Harbour Stations|£|104
|||£|113
|||Stripe|£|-
|||£|1,337
|||||
|Book of Remembrance|£|6,000
|||£|-
|||Petty Cash|£|50
|||£||196
||||
|Urge Commemoration|£|50
|||£|-
|||Unpresented Cheques|£|30
|||£||442
||||
|Online Payment Fees|£|139
|||£|105
|||RNSM GM Float|£|400
|||||||||
|Other expenses|£|-
|||£|80
||||||||||||||
|Website|£|1,010
|||£|913
|||Net worth / Capital|||||||||||
||||||||||Balance on I&E|||£|66,971
||||£||4,391
|
|Income|||||||||Opening Balances|||£|50,893
||||£|46,502
||
|AGM|£|105
|||||£|-
||||||||||||
|Bequests|||£|500
|||£|-
|Totals|£|117,864
|£|117,864
|£|50,893
||£|50,893
||
|Christmas Cards|||£|919
|||£|499
||||||||||||
|Donations|||£|52,540
|||£|1,902
|This Financial Statement has been prepared from the records of the Society of
Friends of The Royal Naval Submarine Museum and I certify that it is in accordance|||||||||||
|Gift Aid Tax Claim|||£|5,172
|||£|4,405
|||with those records.|||||||||
|Interest|||£|54
|||£|182
||||||||||||
|Subscriptions|||£|22,177
|||£|22,180
||||||||||||
|Unity Lottery|||£|1,279
|||£|1,051
||||||||||||
|Zoom talks|||£|-
|||£|634
||||||||||||
|Totals|£|15,670
|£|82,641
|£|26,462
|£|30,853
|Peter Jeanneret|||||Giles Fletcher||||||
|Net Income|||£|66,971
|||£|4,391
|Treasurer|||||Ind|epende|nt Examiner||||
Giles Fletcher Independent Examiner
## FINANCIAL REPORT
Income in this period has been nearly £83,000. This includes a donation of £50,000 from the RNVR Officers Association following the sale and winding up of the Naval Club, which is intended to form part of a grant to the Museum for the procurement of a new Memorial Wall. Annual subscription donations by members was the same as in the previous year.
The production of an Online Book of Remembrance (OBOR) is almost complete and the first 50% payment to the developers of £6,000 is showing in the accounts.
This year somewhat less than £6,000 has been expended in grants to the Museum, this including the purchase of audio benches, and VTC equipment to facilitate the conduct of hybrid remote/physical meetings.
There is still considerable scope for supporting new bids for funds, having made allowance for current commitments and normal retained reserve.