## **Minutes AGM Wordfest 26[th] July 2022** ## **for year ending 5 April 2022** Present; Ruth Hill, Nicola Heales, Louise Godwin, Steve Walters, Alastair Muir, Helen O’Gara, Mark Slocombe, Brian Gardner, David Harvey Apologies; Cllr Sam Pearce-Kearney, Marie Wykes, Jess Doidge, Lucy Havenith 1. Ruth welcomed everyone to the meeting and introduced all attendees 2. Minutes from the previous AGM held on the 13/07/2021 were accepted as a true record. 3. As Chair of trustees Ruth presented a brief summary of the annual report and accounts for the last financial year which will be submitted to the Charity Commission once finalised. 4. Officers were proposed and elected as follows: - a. Ruth Hill – Proposed as Chair by Helen O’Gara and seconded by Louise Godwin - b. Helen O’Gara – Proposed as Deputy Chair by Ruth Hill and seconded by Nicola Heales - c. Louise Godwin – Proposed as secretary by Ruth Hill and seconded by Helen O’Gara. Louise would like to stand down from this position. David Harvey has expressed an interest, further conversations to take place regarding a handover of duties. - d. Lucy Havenith – Proposed as treasurer by Ruth Hill and seconded by Nicola Heales. Lucy would like to stand down from this position so it has been agreed to begin the process of looking for a replacement for this role The following individuals will remain as trustees: Nicola Heales and Cllr Sam Pearce-Kearney. Mark Slocombe has agreed to be our accounts auditor. We are currently looking to recruit more trustees, as well as a young trustee and more volunteers. 5. Updates from our volunteer groups on the following projects: ## **Learn to Read** 10 people completed the individualised course that ran this year with good feedback received from all students. One learner is now in work following their attendance. The course was part funded by The Underwood Trust and Groundworks but the amount of paperwork required to obtain the funding was not initially anticipated. Although there is more money available from The Underwood Trust if we need it, Helen has proposed we include engagement time in the costing for this project if we do it again. We also need to start thinking about the processes much earlier on to avoid a repetition of the issues experienced this year. ## **Actions:** Helen to produce an update on the project for Alistair to share with the Underwood Trust. Testimonials from previous students and/or a blog from the tutor to be collected for use on the Wordfest website (with audio links). Helen to record a video for the Wordfest website on what the Learnt to Read course is so the link can be shared with parents of local children who have been identified by local schools and nurseries as potentially struggling with reading. Seven phonics videos have been created for Wordfest by the manager of a local nursery. These also need to added to the Wordfest website. ## **Tale Trails** The Blue plaque history trail was the first trail created for the web app. There is also a second trail available on the app, created in partnership with The Pocket Park. A story writing competition was held as a way to gather stories from within the community. One has been recorded onto the app already, with another three waiting to be loaded on. Phase 2 of the Tale Trails project is the continuation of story gathering from across the Calne community. As a seeding opportunity Marnie is going to run a story writing workshop for members of different community groups. ## **Actions:** Publicise Tale Trails better including asking Sam to add a link from the town council website to the app and requesting some permanent signage about the app at various community sites across Calne. Better incorporate the promotion of Wordfest into the app with a hook at the end of each tale linking back to Wordfest and what we do. ## **KGA Partnership** Helen reported on a work experience day for the year 9s that she supported by running an activity for students that involved getting them to help produce a community questionnaire that students then took out into the community. Jess Doidge also supported the students with the activity. A total of 150 questionnaires were completed to help us analyse how confident people feel about literacy. Fiona will be helping to analyse the research. ## **Young Peoples comedy project** Helen also reported on this project that she has obtained funding for. Working with Angie Belcher (who we worked with previously at the Wordfest festival in 2018) the idea of the project is to engage young people with comedy. Funding has been obtained for 15 young people to take part in a workshop with Angie who will help them build their comedy persona’s and write a comedy script. They will then be filmed performing their act as material for their own portfolios. Employees from The Rise Trust will also be involved with the project which will commence on a Monday evening from the 19[th] Sept. ## **Action:** Any volunteers wishing to get involved and support the project, please contact Helen. ## **Local Authors** David shared an update on the work he has been doing with Julie, our local studies librarian, to make available a shelf at the Calne library to display books for lending written by local authors. Some of the authors have already said they would be willing to donate their books for this, others may need to be purchased. Alastair has agreed to do some fundraising with some of the local businesses who have supported us previously. ## **Action:** David to provide an update on the project to Alastair who will use the information to appeal to local businesses for funding. ## **Wordfest Writers’ Group:** The writers’ group is well established and has a core number of writer’s who regularly attend the meetings. The group are now looking to expand with a 2[nd] group being introduced for new writers who would like to learn to write together using creative writing exercises etc. ## **Calne Music and Arts Festival** Wordfest have been asked to take part in this event again later in the year so will running a workshop with a storytelling theme. ## **The Future of Wordfest** Ruth’s ambition is for the group to work smarter not harder by, amongst other things, improving our processes and building more connections both between the different project groups and with other local community groups. A monthly newsletter could act as a mechanism for sharing a regular round up of what each project group is doing. This could be shared with stakeholders such as funders, volunteers and any other interested parties. We discussed festivals and whether we wanted to organise and run one again this year or next. It was agreed that even if we kept it small organising and running a festival takes a huge amount of work. With this in mind it was agreed we probably need to recruit some more volunteers before we think about doing this again. We agreed that attending other festivals (such as Calne Music and Arts) was a good way to maintain our profile for now. ## **Actions:** Speak to Jess (our social media volunteer) about producing the newsletter for us. All project groups to produce a monthly update on their projects to be shared with Jess for use in the newsletter. Help volunteers to understand more about what Wordfest does by inviting them to attend the quarterly trustee meetings (half hour for trustees followed by 1 hour for all). Ruth thanked everyone for taking part today. Meeting closed at 8.45pm. Ine Wordfest "naritv No 1179429 Audii Report Year to 5": April 202 -.he accounts have been prepared by Lucy Havenith and audited by myself. As part of the audit process I have made checks on the integrity of the information and the end of year balances. In addition to my work on the present period I have reviewed the previous 5UDmissions Dy knilne WordfesL In previous periods a listing of trdnsactions were filed rather than Accounts. I found that the income VRS overstated in eath Deri which I have documented below: Period End Filed Income Correct Ino | Explanation The brought forward bank balance (£7,303) was included in income. April 2019 £17,281 £9,978 April 2020 £17,106 £8,313 The brought forward bank balance (£8,793) was induded in income. April 2021 £7,764 £2,761 Transfer from the Savings account (£5,002) was induded in income. In each case the anomalies were &3sily identified as computational with no financial loss occurring. The savings account was used apparently to segregate a grant received that was p1anr￿d to be spent in the following year. There is a minimal balance in the savings account at year end. I do not regard these as being ￿riOUS Inadents- as defined by the Charities Commission and no fijrther attion is required. The intrcmjuction of accounts wtth checking prixedures will prevent a repetto . All expense items have been recorded, no Trustee received any benefits in the year. Considering the transaction processes, payments from the bank account are required to be authorised by a second person. Invol￿ and receipts for processing are not presently signed as approved, common for a tight knrt team but it would be goc(I practice for this to be on the document or attached to it. I confirm my willingness to assist and audfc the ￿coUnts in the next finanaal year. Mark Slocombe ACW GCMA June 2022 -￿Ine Wordfest Accounts harity No 1179429 Year Ending 2022 Row Labels B/Fwd Grants Donations Projects Exps ExDenses Grand Total B/Fwd £8,914 £0 £0 £0 £0 £8.914 Yr Income Yr Expenses Balance £8.914 £4,135 £100 -£3,388 -£407 £9.355 £4.135 £100 £0 £0 £4.235 £0 £0 £3,388 £407 £3.794 Prior Period5 in the same TOTrr 21 Year Endw.(E Row Labels BIFwd £11.359 £0 £0 £0 £0 £0 £11359 Yr Income Yr Expenses Balance £11,359 £2.560 £2(KJ £1 -£4,790 -£416 £8,914 £2.560 £2(Y) £1 £0 £0 £Z,761 £0 Donations Interest Projects Exps Expenses Grand Total £0 £0 £4,790 £416 £5206 Year Ending Row Labels B/Fwd Grants 2020 B/Fwd £8,793 £0 £0 Yr Income Yr Expenses Balance £8.79? £7,5CMJ £810 £3 -£5.496 -£252 £0 £11.359 £7.5(K) £810 £3 £0 £0 Donations Interest Projects Exps ExDerises Other Grand Total £0 £0 £0 £0 £8,793 £0 £5,496 £252 £0 £5.748 £0 £0 £0 £8313 Year Ending Row Labels BIFwd Grants Donations Artivities Projects Exps Expenses Grand Total 2019 BIFwd £7.303 £0 £0 £0 £0 £0 £7303 Yr Income Yr Expenses Balance £7.303 £7,fXh) £1.98 £993 -£8,179 -£309 £8,793 £0 £0 £1.985 £993 £0 £0 £9.978 £0 £8.179