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← Brighton Explorers Club

2024-03-31-accounts

Registered Address - 108 King’s Road Arches, Brighton BN1 2FN

Brighton Explorers Club Minutes of Committee Meeting

Tuesday 14th May 2024 19:00 Venue – Brighton Sailing Club Online Via Zoom Link.

Join Zoom Meeting https://us06web.zoom.us/j/86165437967 Meeting ID: 861 6543 7967 Passcode: 246019

Annual General Meeting 2023 of the Brighton Explorers Club CIO (Charity No. 1156361)

Tuesday 14th May 2024 at 7pm - Sailing Club

1. Apologies & Registration of members in attendance

Apologies: Steve Lucas Mark Fairweather Peter Graham Tom Harrison Mick Raffe Peter Wallace

Attendees:

Damian Tow Martin Allen Sarah Ball Colin Glenny Tom Gifford Pat Morfitt Stuart Gibbons Elizabeth Kemp Susie Llewelyn Guy Roebuck Val Yuen Susie Browning Tim Perkins Ciara Green Alice Denning Chetan Padia Stephen Wilmot Mark shearing Felix Embery Tatti McNally Hena Rohman Anita Lower Stefania Rosso

Zoom attendees:

Chris Lindsell John Williams Richard Smith

2. Welcome (TG)

3. Review of nominations for the Committee, the Committee Monitor and Section Leaders

(TG)

Role Current(2022-2023 Standing (2023-2024)
Committee
Chair Thom Gifford Tatti McNally
Vice Chair Pat Morfitt Pat Morfitt
Treasurer Ciara Green Ciara Green
Club Secretary Stuart Gibbons Stuart Gibbons
New Members Secretary Val Yuen & Lea Stracquadanio Thom Gifford
Social Secretary Felix Embery Felix Embery
YoungMembers Secretary Alice Denning Alice Denning
PR Secretary Kieran O’Malley Val Yuen
Webmaster Chetan Padia Chetan Padia
Committee Monitor Damien Tow Damien Tow
Sections Leaders
Arch Managers GuyRoebuck & Brian Orsola GuyRoebuck
Badminton Hena Rohman Hena Rohman
Caving Antonio Emmanouilidis Antonio Emmanouilidis
CavingDeputy Mat Budgen Mat Budgen
Climbing Stephen Wilmot Stephen Wilmot
Climbing Deputy Colin Glennie and Alastair
Macgregor		 Colin Glennie and Alastair
Macgregor
Cycling/ MTB Susie Llewelyn Lisa Carrington
Cycling / MTB Deputy Road – Stuart Gibbons
Tue – Martin Packer
Thu – JudyEaton		 Road – Stuart Gibbons
Tue – Martin Packer
Thu – Susie Llewelyn
Kayaking Pat Morfitt Peter Graham
KayakingDeputy Thom Gifford & Brain Orsola Thom Gifford & Pat Morfitt
Mountain Sports Damian Tow Damian Tow
Mountain Sports Deputy Vacant Vacant
Running Wairimu Njuguna Chetan PadiaMcNally
RunningDeputy Lea Stracquadanio Vacant
SUP Stefania Rosso Stefania Rosso
SUP Deputy Colin Garbo Colin Garbo
Surfing Tim Perkins Tim Perkins
SurfingDeputy Cat Visor, Rufus Dummett Cat Visor, Rufus Dummett
Tennis Simon Gunn Vacant
Walking Simon Brooksbank Anita Lower
WalkingDeputy Elizabeth Kemp Elizabeth Kemp
Windsurfing GuyRoebuck GuyRoebuck
WindsurfingDeputy JudyEaton JudyEaton

4. Approval of minutes from 2023 AGM – Thursday 23[rd] May 2023 (TG) - Approved

5. Committee Reports

Chair Report (TG)

Hello Explorers, and good evening to you all! It’s been a very sad year for the club with 3 long standing members; Nick Harwood, Joel Colk and Neil Pattinson all sadly passing away. Their presence is deeply & sadly missed.

Can I ask you all to stand and join together in a minute's silence in their memory. BEC members past and present attended Nick’s funeral in Stanmer, we are hosting a memorial to Neil here in the arch next month and a memorial for Joel here in early July.

I am pleased to say that BEC continues to evolve and develop and while we saw a few personnel changes on the committee over the year they have all been committed, supportive and hard-working

making running the club day-to-day a largely pleasant experience. I would like to take this opportunity to thank the committee along with section leaders, section deputies and all other contributing members who continue to make the club a fun and welcoming place. Many thanks to you all.

Over the past year various sections organised successful trips to places like North Wales, South Wales, Mid Wales, Devon, Cornwall, Dartmoor, France, the Maldives and even further afield! The diary has been full of mountain biking, climbing, walking, kayaking, paddleboarding, surfing, social events and many more.

The website continues to operate well and a massive thanks to Chetan and the team of contributors who continue to add features, streamline processes and work through each issue as they crop up. Thanks also to those who have helped get the BEC archive sorted through making relevant parts available on the website.

BECs relationship with the Sailing Club continues well with members sharing social activities & joint parties happening over the year. We did, due to no fault of our own, miss their maintenance day this year so I hope we can make a little extra effort to help out where we can and assist in keeping their premises ready to use. Merely picking up the odd empty glass and taking it to the bar is a great place to start. I think it's worth adding a reminder that all affiliate clubs can freely use the changing facilities over the weekends (assuming you can get access) and there are other benefits that BEC members also have access to so its worth checking out the affiliate agreement if you’re interested in what those might be.

The clubhouse has always played a big role in BEC and this often where trip ideas are conceived, planned and realised. Explorers can often be found here on Wednesday evenings throughout the year planning trips, greeting new members and generally socialising.

New Members meetings have once again proven consistently popular, even in the colder months. Thanks to Val and Leah for running them so well and to all the members that socialise with the prospective members afterwards. It all helps to make a friendly and welcoming introduction to the club.

Our charitable aims are to encourage people of all ages and young people in particular to participate in outdoor activities. BEC continues to meet these aims and we have made progress raising our visibility to a younger demographic and working alongside the charity Esteem. My thanks to Cat Vizor & Val for organising that.

Paddlesports continue to be popular retaining almost 100 members from year to year. Thanks to all the leads, deputies and experienced club members who work together to make BEC water sports happen and special mentions for Pat, Colin & Steph who have worked particularly hard in their sections running inductions which raised nearly £800 for the club. Many club members come forward to assist in running both Paddlesport sections and with their help we can look forward to busy year of BEC Kayak & SUP.

Kayaking trips were again popular, and we have begun to build collaborative relations with other kayaking clubs to expand our range of Paddlesport opportunities including a recent joint trip to Snowdonia with members of Martlets Kayak Club. A run of 12 swimming pool-based training sessions helped the sections stay active through the winter and saw many members improve their skills, try out rescue techniques and learn to roll in a warm and safe environment.

Stephania continues to be our representative and liaison to Paddle UK (previously British Canoeing) and has put great effort into organising training courses for our water sections, getting the club accredited as a #shepaddles and #openaccessopenwater champion club, getting funding for club development and, alongside Pat, keeping us updated with the regulatory changes that are happening within Paddlesport Uk. Thank you, Steph and Pat!

Surf Section has seen a busy year with many trips including Cornwall, South Wales, Devon, the Bristol indoor wave and very recently the multi-sport trip to Pembrokeshire. Tim and Cat continue to do a great job running the section & making the trips happen and already have some in the works for this season.

In the climbing section they focused a bit more on climbing outdoors and a bit less on the regular Monday evening sessions at High Sports, valuable as they remain. They started the season with a sport-climbing weekend in Portland on 22-23rd April, and had two further weekends in Portland in August and September. In May we started heading to the sandstone in North Sussex on Friday evenings. Over the August bank holiday weekend 18 members enjoyed a wonderful few day's bouldering in Fontainebleau. There was also some climbing on a multi-activity trip to Sicily in October.

On a rainy autumn weekend we organised a visit to the Parthian climbing centre outside of Southampton. We also held a couple of film nights at the Sailing Club arch on dark Friday evenings in November and February.

Meanwhile, BEC members used the climbing Signal group as a starting point for off-platform trips and training, notably to learn trad climbing. This is turning out to be a focus of the current fiscal year. Members practised trad skills on a recent trip to Dancing Ledge near Swanage, and will do so again on an upcoming trip to North Wales.

As deputy section leaders, Colin Glenny and Alasdair McGregor were both hugely helpful. Colin provided boundless enthusiasm for climbing and patience with relative beginners, while Alasdair led the organization of the ever popular Fontainebleau trip, which is already booking up for this year. Many thanks to them and my thanks to section leader Stephen Wilmot for this report.

Caving section have started a long needed kit refresh and upgrade this year. They had a successful trip to Yorkshire and hope to run more caving trips in the near future including a planned trip to France in July that is now on the calendar. Thanks to Antonio and Matt for their continued support running the section.

As always, the mountain bike section has had a busy year despite one of the wettest & muddiest winters on record. They managed to run rides on Sundays and Thursday evenings all year round including night rides through the winter with the valiant few battling the dark and the mud. There have also been ad hoc rides on Tuesdays, both daytime and in the evenings and mountain biking is a regular feature on trips away, most recently on last weekend’s trip to Pembrokeshire. Unfortunately, as per usual, the MTB section seems to top the leaderboard with the club on the injury front with Tatti the most recent of our regular riders to come off and break her collar bone in style. Hopefully she will be back in the saddle in the not too distant future.

I’d like to thank Susie, Lisa, Stu and Judy for doing a sterling job running cycling over the last few months and years. Susie is stepping down as section leader this year but while she is handing over the reins she will remain in the background helping out and we’re very grateful to her for all she has done for the club over the years.

Walking section has continued to organise regular walks locally and further afield, highlights of this year have been trips to see the Seven Sisters, the bluebells, Jack and Jill windmills and many walks in the South Downs.

Special thanks to Elizabeth, Anita Lower, Steve Lucas, Sarah and many others for organising some fabulous routes. Simon is standing down as walking section leader and Anita has agreed to step up so thank you to them both for all they've done. There is always scope for more people to lead walks so do volunteer if you have some you would like to share.

Tennis and Badminton took place this year as usual with tennis running well attended regular Saturday sessions until September when the courts were demolished for the Hove seafront

renovation. We wait to see how this will affect tennis section this year. Badminton was also particularly well attended over the winter and my thanks to Simon and Henna respectively for organising. Simon is stepping down as tennis section lead this year so if you fancy having a go do let us know.

Angus stood down as social secretary part way through the year while Felix has continued in the role and, with the help of Val and Alice, organised some excellent parties. More will be coming with the Summer Party in August and Christmas party in December so get those dates from the calendar and into your diary. BEC is now only responsible for running the bar on the second Wednesday of every month & helpers are always greatly appreciated so please reach out to myself or Felix to get bar trained and get involved. Any ideas for more parties/events are also welcomed so please pitch those too.

There have been several changes to the committee during the year. Sumitra stepped down as treasurer, Suzannah stepped down as secretary, Angus stepped down from Joint-Social Sec, Saskia left as Young Members sec to move to Reading and Leah and Keiran moved on from their posts as Joint New Members Secretary and PR Secretary to study leopards in Botswana. I’d like to thank them all for their contributions to the club and to also extend my profound thanks to those who stepped up and took on their roles mid-term. Kira took on the Treasurer’s role with the help of Steve, Stu stepped up to be Secretary and Alice took on Young Members. The PR role is currently unfilled.

Committee Monitor Damian has been a great help in his role, and I am very grateful to him for agreeing to be nominated for a further year so that we can continue to rely on his advice and experience.

Arch management: After using the new arch for a season and collecting feedback from members and water leaders it has been slightly altered to accommodate some inflated SUP’s and a few extra kayaks. Our thanks to Tom Harrison for carrying out the modifications.

Please remember that those on the Committee, the Section Leaders & Deputies, the trip organisers and everyone else who contributes to BEC give of their time freely and we all do our best to keep BEC running smoothly despite other commitments in our lives. BEC is a member's club and as such each and every member should try to help in some way. This could be something as simple as returning your glass to the bar, helping tidy the arch, organising a BBQ, helping to run a trip etc.

This has been my second year as Chair. While there have been some intensely sad events, and a few unexpected personnel changes, it has still been a largely enjoyable year. At those times it has been difficult I am grateful to have had such a supportive & constructive committee around me to help put in the time and energy to resolve what we can, make plans for the rest and keep BEC looking forward with positivity. I’d encourage you all to think about giving a committee role a go at some point while you're with BEC, it's certainly broadened my perspective on the club and my enthusiasm to engage with the many many activities we offer. While I am stepping down as Chair this year to focus more on my business I intend to remain engaged with the club and I am interested in sharing the New Members committee position with anyone who’s up for it.

Vice Chair Report (PM)

I have updated the bursary guidelines in consultation with section leaders. Bursaries are now targeted at improving leadership and safety within the club.

It became apparent when Stu (secretary) filed the annual report to the Charity Commission that we need to update or add some BEC policies to comply with the requirements of the Charity Commission, so the committee will be focussing on this over the next year to ensure that BEC is compliant.

I have asked section leaders and deputies to review and update the risk assessments and safety guidelines for their sections. The Charity Commission, the insurers and sports’ governing bodies require us to have these in place. Thank you to everyone who is helping with this.

We are now required to have a safeguarding policy and we have created 2 new posts of Safeguarding Lead and Deputy, who will work with me on drafting our safeguarding policy and procedures.

New Members Secretary (VY)

We’ve had another successful year recruiting new members - thank you to everyone who has supported with bar and chatted to the potential new members, it is all very much appreciated!

At present, we have 305 members. This year we kept track of the number of people attending the talks - there is a noticeable decrease during winter and a sharp uptake when the sun makes an appearance! In fact, our last one in May had 14 people attending for the talk!

After two years of monthly talks, it’s time for a change and for someone else to chat everyone’s ears off about how good to club is. It’s been so lovely meeting the new members of the club! Thank you again to everyone who has supported us!

Club Secretary (SG)

The secretary role has been a steep learning curve, but it's as rewarding as challenging. I had little idea of the time and effort required to keep a club like this moving forward. The committee, section leaders and numerous other volunteers are a credit to all of us.

Behind the scenes The Charity Commission have expectations from us as a registered charity. The club is required to have all sorts of policies ranging from bullying and harassment to financial control. And of course, each section has risk assessments and guidelines to keep up to date. A massive thank you for all your hard work with all of these.

The requirement for safeguarding policies plus lead and deputy roles is new to the club and it's great to see volunteers takes this on.

Social Secretary (FE)

Summer party:

The summer party as always was a success had a fun late night of social activities while keeping it low key, enjoyed the sun and had a successful day

Christmas party:

Lovely to break up the winter and see people enjoying socialising down at the barely used club, nice to get everyone together before the winter period

Shutter incident:

Obviously wasn’t great as we lost nearly three months and it felt like something was missing during the winter this year, but as always, we came back, and the Wednesday socials have been busy as ever

Spring party:

Very laid back and nice to enter us into the busy water sports season and get used to seeing people’s faces again

Bar general:

Would appreciate if we could have a few newer members and those who haven’t before to show some interest in getting bar trained and helping out with the Wednesday nights and general socials so that we’re not always reliant on the same people. We’re down to one night a month again so would be nice if on new members nights we could get some different volunteers.

On a lighter note, as we enter into summer here are a few dates to look forward to:

Summer Party 20th July

Explorathon 31st August

These will be advertised nearer the time.

Further announcement is that Val will be partnering up with myself as Social Secretary, as anyone who knows Val knows she’s organised, which will make up for my lack of organisation. So, I look forward to working with her.

And to finish up reminder if the club is open anyone from BEC is welcome to come in when sailing club are down here, let’s enjoy the summer and look forward to having a few drinks in the sun. Responsibly of course

PR Secretary (Vacant)

Treasurer (CG)

BEC FINANCIAL REPORT 2023/24

Ciara Green, treasurer Steve Lucas, treasurer Pat Morfitt, signatory Independent examiners: Damian Tow and Antonio Emmanouilidis

Money in/out

Changes in fixed costs

The past year has been marked by inflation across our fixed costs, though we now pay less towards affiliations.

Membership income

Membership income was £13,973.10, almost equal to £13987 the previous year. Full memberships accounted for 67.8% of total membership revenues.

Transactional audit

Antonio’s transactional audit shows there is no significant amount unaccounted for.

Rise in membership fees

We believe we should increase membership fees in line with the current rate of inflation 4%

Full member £60 /56.70 Young members £36 /34 Full student £24 /22.70 Distant £24 /22.70

We want to keep low income / unemployed as the same - no increase to this £20.60

Statement of assets

Metro current account balance:

Investment account with Rathbone Unit Trust Management:

Savings account with Manchester Building Society (the club "reserves"):

Financial controls

The Charity Commission asked us in February if we have a financial control system in place. We plan to start doing this in the form of running this check-list once per year - downloaded from GOV.UK.

Appendix

Treasury update list of all transactions which anyone can dig into - personal/identifiable details removed BEC FINANCIAL REPORT 2022/23 Last year’s financial report for more detailed comparison

Webmaster CP

The website - managed by MyClubhouse - continues to work well despite being a little confusing in places. The committee rearranged some of the navigation which hopefully is easier for members, section leaders and the committee to find important information.

Symmetrics, the owners of MyClubhouse, continue to work in the background adding features we have been requesting; however, they have not been particularly good at letting us know what they have completed and when. The webmaster - I assume this will be me - should now see what can be streamlined with the latest features from MyClubhouse.

Thanks to Ciara and Martin (former member) for helping to plan and communicate these improvements initially.

The Signal chats seem to work well. Recently there have been a few issues with Signal not automatically adding a handful of new members to groups. This needs further investigation however, for most people, automatically adding/removing them from groups saves us a lot of time.

An idea has been raised to have an "announcements" Signal group for all members. I think this is a great idea and plan to implement in the near future.

Young Members (AD)

6. Close of Nominations for Committee, Committee Monitor and Section Leaders (TG) - Done

7. Motions (TG)

8. Election of Committee Members, Section Leaders, and the recording of Holding Trustees (TG)

2024

Chair – Tatti McNally New Members Secretary – Thom Gifford Social Secretary – Val Yuen PR Secretary – Val Yuen PR Deputy – Stefania Rosso Cycling / MTB Leader – Lisa Carrington Cycling / MTB Deputy – Susie Llewelyn Mountain Sports Deputy – Vacant Running Leader – Chetan Padia Running Deputy - Stefania Rosso Tennis – Vacant Walking – Anita Lower Kayak Leader - Peter Graham Kayak Deputy - Thom Gifford Kayak Deputy - Pat Morfitt

New Roles Safeguarding Leader – Cat Visor Safeguarding Deputy - Emma Bain

All positions successfully voted in unanimously

9. AOB (at discretion of Chair) - None

10. Proposed date for 2025 AGM – May 20[th] 2025

Annual Statement January 2024

Opening Balance 21.02.23 - £4479.49 Closing Balance 27.01.24 - £6579.21

Income - £4750.00 Expenses - £2650.22

Summary of Expense

Service Change & Commission - £81.90 EDF - £200.82 Pyne Gardens - £600.00 Insurance - £1767.50

Annual Accounts from 21/02//23 to 27/01/24

22/02/2023 Opening Balance £4,479.43
Expense Income
01/03/2023
 N Straiton £200.00
01/03/2023
 P Schetzel £200.00
01/03/2023
 N Hastings £200.00
01/03/2023
 M Ray £200.00
03/03/2023
 Service Charge -£7.00
03/03/2023
 S Gibbons £200.00
16/03/2023
 Insurance -£1,767.50
05/04/2023
 Commission -£0.35
05/04/2023
 Service Charge -£7.00
11/04/2023
 Pyne Gardens -£60.00
11/04/2023
 EDF -£26.46
27/04/2024
 Pyne Gardens -£60.00
05/05/2023
 Commission -£0.70
05/05/2023
 Service Charge -£7.00
23/05/2023
 Pyne Gardens -£60.00
01/06/2023
 N Straiton £200.00
01/06/2023
 N Hastings £250.00
01/06/2023
 M Ray £250.00
05/06/2023
 S Gibbons £250.00
05/06/2023
 N Straiton £50.00
05/06/2023
 Service Charge -£7.00
05/06/2023
 Commission -£0.35
09/06/2023
 Pyne Gardens -£60.00
03/07/2023
 Pyne Gardens -£60.00
05/07/2023
 Commission -£0.70
05/07/2023
 Service Charge -£7.00
26/07/2023
 EDF -£58.12
26/07/2023
 Pyne Gardens -£60.00
04/08/2023
 Commission -£0.35
04/08/2023
 Service Charge -£7.00
31/07/2023
 Pyne Gardens -£60.00
01/09/2023
 M Ray £250.00
01/09/2023
 N Straiton £250.00
01/09/2023
 N Hastings £250.00
04/09/2023
 S Gibbons £250.00
05/09/2023
 Commission -£0.70
05/09/2023
 Service Charge -£7.00
29/09/2023
 Pyne Gardens -£60.00
02/10/2023
 P Schetzel £250.00
05/10/2023
 Commission -£0.35
05/10/2023
 Service Charge -£7.00
25/10/2023
 EDF -£56.70
01/11/2023
 Pyne Gardens -£60.00
03/11/2023
 Commission -£0.35
03/11/2023
 Service Charge -£7.00
23/11/2023
 Pyne Gardens -£60.00
01/12/2023
 N Straiton £250.00
01/12/2023
 N Hastings £250.00
01/12/2023
 M Ray £250.00
04/12/2023
 S Gibbons £250.00
04/12/2023
 Commission -£0.70
04/12/2023
 Service Charge -£7.00
29/12/2023
 P Schetzel £250.00
05/01/2024
 Commission -£0.35
05/01/2024
 Service Charge -£7.00
15/01/2024
 EDF -£59.54
27/01/2024
 P Schetzel £250.00

Sum of Expense -£2,650.22
Sum of Income £4,750.00

27/01/2024 Closing Balance £6,579.21