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WORLD’S FIRST BUSINESS
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LEO Computers Society
Registered Charity 1182253
Annual Report: 2022 - 2023
As usual it has been a busy and rewarding time for the Society. Our National Lottery Heritage Fund project in partnership with the Centre for Computing History, Cambridge which has been a significant part of the Society’s activities over the past few years came to an end this summer. The main products of the project were the award-winning documentary film , the archiving of LEO material and the development of the Virtual LEO l . For the archiving, we were fortunate to recruit Luke Thorne to replace Jude Brimmer. He left us shortly before the end of the Project having done an excellent job and CCH volunteers are currently carrying on some of the archiving.
The Virtual LEO l display was shown successfully at our end of Project event which was held at CCH on May 18[th] . Around 60 people were there and it included a question and answer session with a panel of Georgina Ferry (author), Richard Hollingham (film-maker), Professor Martin Campbell-Kelly, Professor Jon Agar, Professor Tony Bryant and, chaired by Professor Frank Land. The event was very successful, as was the film which is freely available on YouTube and has now been seen nearly 12,000 times.
The virtual display of LEO l was created by Chris & Richard Monk is now available to view at CCH on their powerful PC. Despite some problems in getting agreement with Apple to launch the App on iPads, a resolution is close. We entered the virtual LEO into the UK IT Awards – ( charity (third sector) Project of the year), jointly with CCH. The Awards are run by the BCS in conjunction with Computing. Our entry was well received and has been put forward for the finals along with 6 other charities which takes place on 20[th] September. Chris Monk, will be leading our finals presentation along with Lisa McGerty.
Inevitably we must report the deaths of members this year. These members are sadly missed by the Society. Amongst those who have passed on are Ray Shaw (LEO I pioneer), Peter Hermon (LEO lll consultant, BOAC IT director, treasurer of LEO Foundation and supporter of the Society), Doug Comish (LEO Consultant) and Roy Farrant (organiser of the early LEO reunions before handing “the baton” to me).
We continue to attract new members and, as last year, we are pleased to have welcomed several who have no direct LEO connection. Neville Lyons continues to do an excellent job at both managing talks from other members, giving talks himself and getting articles published in various relevant magazines. The U3A has proved to be an excellent host organisation for talks, articles and even a podcast. The BCS magazine, IT Now , has also published an article about LEO as has the Shell retirees’ magazine. This publicity has led to quite a few new members joining.
We have continued to run Forum sessions by Zoom once a month . We have alternated the timings of these between 10 am and 5pm so that they can be attended by members in Australia and New Zealand for the morning sessions and by USA, Canada and the Caribbean etc for the evening sessions. We usually focus the sessions on a specific subject with a guest speaker and leave time for questions and discussion. Examples of topics include a tour of the Stewarts and Lloyds museum in Corby, an insight into the making of the LEO film from the film-maker and a look at potential developments on the site of Cadby Hall in Hammersmith. We have held 11 sessions with an overall attendance of 282 members.
The only face to face event this year has been the end of project event mentioned earlier in this report. We have decided to survey all our members about events for the future – both online and face to face - along with many other aspects of the Society’s work. We will use the results of this survey to guide our future activities. Following the completion of our NLHF project we are drawing up plans for the future which may well entail further fund-raising and certainly the help of members as active volunteers and as advisers.
The project to revive CLEO continues and is making slow progress.
Some of us were invited to Elisabetta Mori’s graduation ceremony at Middlesex University at the end of June where her AIT-sponsored thesis on LEO was rewarded with a PhD. Elisabetta has said she is willing to continue to help us, alongside her other activities. In particular, she is willing to assist with our Oral History work . This is an area of our work where we are anxious to ensure that we have captured as many memories as we can.
The second and larger edition of LEO remembered has been selling steadily and received glowing reviews from many academic and specialist IT journals.
The final section of my report is, as usual, about the engine room of the Society where all the work is done. First of all I would like to welcome Eric Dickens to the team as a new committee member.
We have had five board meetings since the last AGM. The number of trustees is unchanged at 9 : myself as chairman, Hilary Caminer - secretary, Frank Land OBE – historian who also organizes LEOpedia (the LEO history referencing system), Bernard Behr - treasurer, Neville Lyons – talks & publicity. (Neville has built a presentation pack about Lyons and LEO which he will send to any members willing to give a talk.) John Paschoud - Vice-chairman, charity issues & social media, Philip Cleary – assists with website, social media & publicity, John Daines - technical consultant and Vincent Bodsworth – website manager & membership secretary who also liaises with The National Museum of Computing. Committee members are Eric Dickens who will help with Oral History, Gloria Guy and Elisabetta Mori. Lisa McGerty is also a valued co-opted member of the Society’s committee. We continue to work in partnership with CCH.
We would encourage members to get involved in our activities. Areas where we aim to get more visibility for LEO include in school, further and higher education and in more targeted publicity. We also wish to institute a project to research LEO holdings in museums and other repositories in the UK and possibly overseas. We would like to offer some of these places equipment to run the Virtual LEO l and maybe other LEO items. All this requires funding and we will need to apply for funds once we have turned the basic ideas into a viable project. We also need to recruit another archivist to continue the work of Luke Thorne and Jude Brimmer.
I look forward to seeing as many members as possible in our zoom sessions.
Peter Byford, Chairman
September 2023
Charity Registration No. 1182253
LEO COMPUTERS SOCIETY
UNAUDITED FINANCIAL STATEMENTS
FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31 DECEMBER 20 2 2
LEO Computers Society Income and Expenditure 1st January to 31st December 2022
Charity 1182253
Jan - Dec 22
| Expense Bank Charges PayPal Service Charges Ordinary Income/Expense Income Bank Interest Received LLoyds Donations & Grants Donations - Heritage Fund Donations - Amazon Europe Core Donations - Gift Aid HMRC Donations - Subscription Appeal Grant - AITT Transcription Reimburse. (CCH) Total Donations & Grants Reunion Income Attendance Fee Merchandise - Sales LEO Tote Bag Total Merchandise - Sales Total Reunion Income Sales Book Sales & Publishing Book Sales Postage for Members a/c Total Book Sales & Publishing Total Sales Total Income Cost of Goods Sold Cost of Goods Sold Total COGS GrossIncome Total Bank Charges Computer & Web Expenses Domain Name Renewal Email - additional Security Certificate SSL Web Hosting Website Security Total Computer & Web Expenses LEO Plaque Cleaning Plaque Total LEO Plaque Newsletter/LEO Matters Postage Total Newsletter/LEO Matters Office Expense Postage & Stamps Total Office Expense Oral History & Heritage Project Oral History OH Transcriptions & Secretarial Total Oral History |
6.28 70.00 20.46 153.50 634.16 1,500.00 904.98 3,283.10 1,020.00 3.00 3.00 1,023.00 1,331.00 317.56 1,648.56 1,648.56 |
|---|---|
| 5,960.94 925.11 |
|
| 925.11 | |
| 5,035.83 12.94 12.94 0.00 17.88 59.99 100.66 311.99 490.52 19.25 19.25 49.35 49.35 4.73 4.73 1,001.03 1,001.03 |
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Charity 1182253
LEO Computers Society Income and Expenditure
1st January to 31st December 2022
| Total Oral History & Heritage Project Publishing Book Publishing & Printing Packaging & Stationery Postage & Carriage Postage Total Postage & Carriage Total Publishing Reunion Expenses Reunion Catering Total Reunion Expenses Uncategorized Expenses Postage & Stamps - Merchandise Total Uncategorized Expenses Total Expense Net Ordinary Income Net Income for the Year |
Jan - Dec 22 |
|---|---|
| 1,001.03 0.00 35.94 448.00 448.00 483.94 1,004.05 1,004.05 0.00 0.00 |
|
| 3,065.81 | |
| 1,970.02 | |
| 1,970.02 |
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Charity 1182253
LEO Computers Society Balance Sheet At 31 December 2022
| ASSETS Current Assets Other Current Assets Prepaid Expense Victory Services Club Total Prepaid Expense Stock LEO Remembered 2nd Edition Stock - Other Total Stock Total Other Current Assets Cash at bank and in hand Lloyds Bank - Current a/c Lloyds Bank - Savings a/c Total Cash at bank and in hand Total Current Assets NET CURRENT ASSETS TOTAL ASSETS LESS CURRENT LIABILI... NET ASSETS Capital and Reserves Accumulated Funds Restricted Funds Restricted Fund - LEO Plaque Restricted Funds - Preservation Heritage Project Oral History Total Restricted Funds-Preservat... Total Restricted Funds Unrestricted Funds Total Accumulated Funds Retained Income Net Income for the Year Available funds |
31 Dec 22 250.00 250.00 541.02 824.97 1 1,365.99 1,615.99 8,334.32 12,247.11 20,581.43 22,197.42 22,197.42 22,197.42 22,197.42 1,148.32 4,014.07 6,429.48 10,443.55 11,591.87 10,605.55 22,197.42 -1,970.02 2 1,970.02 22,197.42 |
|---|---|
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Charity 1182253
LEO Computers Society Balance Sheet
At 31 December 2022
| 1. | Mugs 376.26 |
|---|---|
| Tote Bags 448.71 | |
| ----------- | |
| 824.97 | |
| ======= |
| 2. | Year end adjustment Debit Credit |
|---|---|
| Retained Income 1970.02 | |
| Restricted Funds Oral History - Donation 70.00 | |
| Restricted Funds Oral History - Gift Aid 14.00 | |
| Restricted Funds Oral History - Transcription Expenses 1001.03 | |
| Restricted Funds LEO Plaque - Expenses Cleaning 19.25 | |
| Unrestricted Funds 2906.30 | |
| - ------------ ------------ | |
| 2990.30 2990.30 | |
| ======= ======= |
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