The Friends of Dinosaur Isle
(A Charitable Incorporated Organisation)
Report and financial statements for the Year Ended 31[st] March 2021.
Charity Number 1170688
The Friends of Dinosaur Isle
Report of the Trustees for the year ended 31 March 2021 .
The Trustees present their report and financial statements for the year ended 31 March 2019.
Reference and Administrative Information.
Charity Name: The Friends of Dinosaur Isle CIO
Charity registration number: 1170688
Registered office and operational address.
Dinosaur Isle Museum, Culver Parade Sandown Isle of Wight PO36 8QA
Trustees Committee
Dr J Lockwood (Chair)
Mr A Peaker (Treasurer and Membership Secretary)
Mrs P Ash (Social Secretary)
Mr J Ash
Mr S Hutt
Miss T. Wilson Mrs P Lockwood
Mr S Smith
Mrs F Trowbridge
Mr T Trowbridge
Non-voting committee members
Dr M Munt
Mr P Pusey
Bankers: Lloyd’s Bank, 22 St Thomas' Square, Newport. Isle Of Wight, PO30 1SQ
Solicitors: Belcher Frost Solicitors Ltd. 3 West St, Emsworth, Hampshire. PO10 7DX
Our Aims and Objectives.
Our charity’s purposes as set out in the objects contained in the company’s memorandum of association are to:
To advance the education of the public in palaeontology and geology for the benefit of the public, in particular by assisting Dinosaur Isle Museum in developing and displaying its collections for the benefit of the public and promoting the study of the Isle of Wight’s palaeontological collections and facilitate contact between all interested persons.
Our aims are to see a greater understanding of palaeontology and a co-ordinated approach to ensuring that specimens are safeguarded for education and scientific research. We believe that our aims fully reflect the purposes that the charity was set up for.
Ensuring that our work delivers our Aims
We review our Aims on an annual basis generally during the first meeting of the Trustees following the AGM. We also review and feedback on all of our activities to ensure that they are fulfilling the aims of the charity.
The main objectives for the year have been to:
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Support Dinosaur Isle Museum by raising funds to support the acquisition of equipment and specimens, and to receive contributions to support Dinosaur Isle Museum’s projects.
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The Covid Pandemic has halted most social activities during the year to March 2021. The museum has been closed for long periods of time and the committee and events such as quiz evenings, talks and meals, Bone Day, Blast from the Past and Family Fun Day have had to be cancelled.
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A new and slick website has been developed thanks to Trudie Wilson which now needs to be populated.
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A news booklet has been produced outlining some of the exciting new discoveries that have continued to be made despite the periods of lock down.
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Practical help and assistance on a voluntary basis under the direction of museum staff has continued but patchily due to museum closure and concern for the safety of volunteers. However, preparatory work and cataloguing have continued.
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Support the Museum through the current process of its disposal by the Isle of Wight Council by working to ensure that the accreditation status of the museum is always maintained and that the collections remain safe, well cared for and available for scientific research.
COVID
The year ending March 2020 was a time of difficulty for many museums and charitable organisations. All our usual fundraising and social activities were halted due to the Covid 19 pandemic. At the time the vaccination programme hadn’t started, and we were seeing frightening daily death rates together with strict lock down rules. We had hoped that things would ease up once vaccinations were underway but at the time of writing the Omicron variant is sweeping through the country and many people still have strong reservations about meeting in crowded rooms. We are grateful for members continuing to pay their membership fees through this period.
CRETEACEOUS REPTILE DISCOVERIES
Despite the negative effects of Covid on the social activities and normal functioning of the museum, it was nevertheless a successful year for the identification of new species of Barremian aged Early Cretaceous reptiles.
An artist’s impression of the body of the new dinosaur Vectaerovenator inopinatus, floating out in an Early Cretaceous sea. © Trudie Wilson.
Vectaerovenator opinatus , a theropod dinosaur new to science was added to the museum’s stable of dinosaur holotype specimens. These also include three other theropods, Neovenator salerii , Eotyrannus lengi and Yaverlandia bitholus . Holotypes increase the importance of the collection and enhance its national and international recognition. For a provincial museum this is a good tally.
The artwork for this new dinosaur was provided by Friends of Dinosaur Isle Museum member Trudie Wilson. The picture of the dead dinosaur floating out into an early Aptian Sea was inspired and caught the attention of press agencies around the world.
Vectaerovenator inopinatus was a surprise find (inopinatus means the unexpected in Latin) as it came from marine deposits. The bones were discovered by three different collectors who donated them to the museum. On behalf of the Friends of the Museum we are extremely grateful to these collectors for their generous actions which demonstrate the importance of responsible fossil collection to the advancement of science.
James Lockyer and Right: Robin Ward who with Paul Farrell found and donated the material the museum.
Discoveries have also been made of two new pterosaurs. One was a small piece of the rostrum, discovered by Friend of Dinosaur Isle Museum, Will Thurbin, lying on the foreshore near Sudmoor Point on the south coast of the island. Two Spanish workers, Borja Holgado and Rodrigo Pêgas have now reclassified the fossil IWCMS 2014.82 as belonging to the closely related Anhanguerid pterosaur and called it Uktenadactylus rodriguesae , bringing yet another pterosaur holotype to the museum’s collection.
Will Thurbin in 2015 with his rare find.
Also discovered by local collector John Winch and donated to the museum by Mick Green was another fragment of a pterosaur rostrum. This one had evolved to have no teeth and was identified as coming from a group of pterosaurs call tapejarids. It was named by Professor Dave Martil and colleagues as Wightia declivirostris.
References:
Barker, C. T., Naish, D., Clarkin, C.E., Farrella, P., Hullmans, G. Lockyer, J., Scheider, P., Ward, R. K.C. & Gostling, N. 2020. A highly pneumatic middle Cretaceous theropod from the British Lower Greensand. Papers in Palaeontology, 1-29.
Holgado, B. & Pêgas, R.V. 2020. A taxonomic and phylogenetic review of the anhanguerid pterosaur group Coloborhynchinae and the new clade Tropeognathinae. Acta Palaeontologica Polonica 65.
Martill, D.M., Green, M., Smith, R., Jacobs, M.L. and Winch, J. 2020. First tapejarid pterosaur from theWessex Formation (Wealden Group: Lower Cretaceous, Barremian) of the United Kingdom. Cretaceous Research, 113: 1-12.
Promoting Palaeontology and Dinosaur Isle Museum.
We have issued a new letter to our members to keep them updated on significant finds during the lockdown.
Volunteers
The Friends have played an important role in attracting volunteers who continue to play a vital role in enhancing the collection, both by undertaking preparatory work and collecting specimens. Indeed, we now have a strong team of dedicated volunteers including Sandra Garbett, Martyn Hornett and Gabriel Hullmann who continue to make substantial inroads into the preparation, conservation and display of specimens, although this has obviously been hampered this year by extended closures of the museum and lockdowns.
Equipment
No equipment was purchased this year.
Organisational Structure
The Friends of Dinosaur Isle is a Charitable Incorporated Organisation. The Trustees Committee meet formally four times a year with other ad hoc meetings arranged as appropriate. The Trust is governed by its constitution. A maximum of twelve trustees are allowed by the constitution.
Conflicts of interest are assessed at the first meeting after the AGM which is usually early in the year using our conflicts of interest policy.
A third of the trustees must stand down each year and this is rotated over a three-year period. Trustees may stand again for office and voting is undertaken at the AGM which is usually held in December of each year.
A policy on how we control personal information has also been drawn up to ensure that we comply with The Data Protection Act 2018.
Future of Dinosaur Isle Museum
The Isle of Wight Council (IWC) have decided to dispose of Dinosaur Isle Museum. The process was formally initiated in September of 2017, when a soft market testing exercise was organised with calls for expressions of interest. The Friends initially put in an expression of interest and teamed up with Dinosaurier Parks, a German company with a great deal of experience of working with museums, helping to fund museums and their staff and also in promoting science. Our plan is to form a new trust to take over the museum which will continue to be supported by the Friends, while Dinosaurier will form a British company to run a dinosaur themed attraction with a strong emphasis on schools and ‘edutainment’. The two bodies will act as a consortium and ensure financial support for the museum and its staff. Our bid if accepted by the Isle of Wight Council will also ensure that the Museum retains its accreditation status, that the collection remains in public ownership and that the museum has longterm financial stability. We also expect that it will provide a major boost for the regeneration of Sandown and play an important role in promoting the sciences to young people. The latter two outcomes are an integral part of the plan. We see the new museum as developing into a national centre for British dinosaurs, which combined with a large area for family activities and plenty of interactive hands-on experiences will provide a major boost to the Sandown and Isle of Wight economy. Our main concern remains the slow progress being made by the Isle of Wight Council in making a decision about our vision.
Friends of Dinosaur Isle CIO Registered charity number 1170688
Statement of Financial Activities (including Income and Expenditure account) for the year ended 31[st] March 2019.
These accounts represent the fourth statement of financial activities that the charity has had to submit.
Values have been rounded up to the nearest pound.
We have no fixed assets (tangible assets or investments)
We hold no stock and have no debtors.
There has been no asset or investment sales or purchases in the time frame covered.
There is a single fund and there has been no transfer to or from other funds.
All our funds are unrestricted. We have received no restricted or endowment funds.
| Incoming resources | £ (2020) | £ (2019) |
|---|---|---|
| Membership Fees: | 1048 | 717 |
| Income from Quiz Evenings: | 0 | 250 |
| Charity Box Takings: | 0 | 223 |
| Income from Blast from the Past and | 0 | 452 |
| Family Fun Day1: | ||
| Income from other events2: | 0 | 131 |
| Miscellaneous: | 0 | 0 |
| Total Incoming Resources | 1048 | 1773 |
| Expenditure | ||
| Blast from the Past and Family Fun Day | 0 | 98 |
| expenses1: | ||
| Purchase for the Museum: | 0 | 0 |
| Other eventexpenses2: | 0 | 58 |
| Miscellaneous3: | 0 | 15 |
| Total expenditure | 0 | 171 |
| Net income | 1048 | 1602 |
Reconciliation of funds
Total funds brought forward £11849
Total funds carried forward £12409
Dr J.A.F. Lockwood Chair of Trustees