Darlington & District Talking Newspaper (DDTN) Annual General Meeting
AGM Agenda – 18 April 2026– 10.45am
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1 Pat Walker, Chair to open the AGM . Note members present and apologies received.
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2 Minutes of last AGM, all to read. Proposer, seconder.
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3 Trustee Annual Report and Financial Report 2025 Pat Walker & David Green
| 4 | Resolutions: a) To accept the Trustees Annual Report 2025.Vote. b) To accept the Financial Report 2025.Vote. c) To accept the Appointment of Raymond Morris as Auditor for 2026. Vote. d) Election of Trustees- Stefan Gleisner is resigning as a trustee, all other trustees are happy to remain as trustees.Vote for/ against each candidate: |
Resolutions: a) To accept the Trustees Annual Report 2025.Vote. b) To accept the Financial Report 2025.Vote. c) To accept the Appointment of Raymond Morris as Auditor for 2026. Vote. d) Election of Trustees- Stefan Gleisner is resigning as a trustee, all other trustees are happy to remain as trustees.Vote for/ against each candidate: |
Resolutions: a) To accept the Trustees Annual Report 2025.Vote. b) To accept the Financial Report 2025.Vote. c) To accept the Appointment of Raymond Morris as Auditor for 2026. Vote. d) Election of Trustees- Stefan Gleisner is resigning as a trustee, all other trustees are happy to remain as trustees.Vote for/ against each candidate: |
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| Candidates | Notes | ||
| 1 Ged Callaghan |
Current trustee | ||
| 2 Maureen Gorman |
Current trustee | ||
| 3 David Green |
Current trustee | ||
| 4 Kate Grogan |
Current trustee | ||
| 5 Ciaran Grogan |
Current trustee | ||
| 6 Margaret Harrison |
Current trustee | ||
| 7 Richie Hawkins |
Current trustee | ||
| 8 Paul Knight |
Current trustee | ||
| 9 Gill Moore |
Current trustee | ||
| 10 Pat Walker |
Current trustee | ||
| e) f) |
Election of Officials – David Green and Kate Grogan are current officials and are willing to stand again. Pat Walker is stepping down as Chair and Ged Callaghan has offered to stand.Vote for/ against each candidate: |
Election of Officials – David Green and Kate Grogan are current officials and are willing to stand again. Pat Walker is stepping down as Chair and Ged Callaghan has offered to stand.Vote for/ against each candidate: |
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| Ged Callaghan Chair |
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| David Green (current Treasurer) Treasurer |
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| Kate Grogan (current Secretary) Secretary |
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| 4 | Any other business | ||
| 5 | Thanks to members for their support, participation and attendance. Close the meeting. | ||
| PatW. | Tea & coffee. |
Registered Charity No: 1188452 Website: www.darlingtontalkingnewspaper.uk Telephone: 01325 465101 Email: dtnewspaper@outlook.com
Minutes of the Annual General Meeting Darlington & District Talking Newspaper (DDTN) on 5 April 2025 at Age UK Offices, Darlington.
PRESENT: Trustees: Ged Callaghan, David Green, Kate Grogan (Minutes), Richie Hawkins, David Smith (Chair), Pat Walker, Volunteers: , John Dunn, Maureen Gorman, Ciaran Grogan, Dave Kilvert, Kay & Roly Lang, Gill Moore, Margaret Reay, David Roberts, Felicity Stephenson.
APOLOGIES: Trustees: Stefan Gleisner, Paul Knight, Volunteers: Fran Bradley, Andy Brown, Stuart Connell, June Goodrick, Lynne Goodes, Jean Taylor, Alison Mannion, Jean Taylor.
David Smith welcomed everyone to the 2024 AGM of the DDTN and said it was his last AGM as Chair as he was stepping down as a trustee. Voting was by a show of hands if present at this meeting or by prior return of the proxy voting form. One proxy form was received.
The minutes of the last AGM on 13 April 2024 were proposed as an accurate record by RH, seconded by MG. All present agreed.
The Trustee/ Chairman Annual Report was discussed by David Smith. He thanked all volunteers for their hard work.
The Statement of Accounts was discussed by David Green. He explained that our previous auditor was taken seriously ill so another accountant, Raymond Morris, agreed to complete them. In 2024 AE Burts said they would increase our rent but have not actually done so. Income in 2024 was £1k down on 2023 which was a particularly good year. Our recording charges have been increased. Our assets have reduced by £1.7k as predicted at last years’ AGM and is expected to continue year on year. The Talking Newspaper is still in a good financial position. DG was asked if the Charity Commission was happy with us having a deficit each year. He said as far as he was aware yes, but he would ask Ray to confirm. We have now applied to HMRC to claim gift aid. If anyone is considering donating and is a UK taxpayer please sign a donation form so we can claim back tax; Ray is advising us further on claiming. We are also looking at changing bank accounts for a better rate of interest.
Members voted on the resolution to accept the Trustees Annual Report. There were no votes against or abstentions. Agreed.
Members voted on the resolution to accept the Statement of Accounts. There were no votes against or abstentions. Agreed.
Members voted on the resolution to accept the Appointment of Raymond Morris as 2025 auditors. There were no votes against or abstentions. Agreed.
Election of Charity Trustees
All current trustees were re-elected by unanimous vote; namely Ged Callaghan, Stefan Gleisner, David Green, Kate Grogan, Margaret Harrison, Richie Hawkins, Paul Knight and Pat Walker. Maureen Gorman, Ciaran Grogan and Gill Moore were also elected as a Trustees.
Election of Officers
Officers were elected by vote as follows: Pat Walker as Chair, David Green as Treasurer and Kate Grogan as Secretary.
Any Other Business
DR asked if it was time for the mixing desk to be serviced. PW will ask the company who installed it if they thought it needed doing, no problems have been reported.
PW expressed the thanks of the Committee to DS for his work as Chairman and to volunteers for their work over the last year.
The meeting closed with DS thanking everyone for attending and continuing to support our Talking Newspaper.
Chairman & Trustees Report 2025
2025 was a very busy year for Darlington and District Talking Newspaper. Our Talking Newspaper wanted to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the start of the Stockton and Darlington Railway and set about, at the beginning of the year, planning how best to do this. Several of our volunteers researched various articles from the archives, newspapers and books. In September we did two special editions of the magazine section on the recording dedicated to the railway celebrations, which were excellent. Ciaran Grogan collated all the information and produced the special editions. So a big thank you to Ciaran and we have awarded our ‘volunteer of the year’ award to him. Thank you to all the volunteers who contributed.
The most exciting innovation this year has been the Talking Newspaper Federation Talkphone service. This is very easy to use and the calls are charged at the ‘local rate’ (01325 238551). It is important for listeners to check if the ‘local calls’ are included in their phone package, otherwise it could be expensive to listen to an eighty minute recording.
We still send out the recording on CD’s and memory sticks and also upload it onto our website and onto the TNF website. There is some concern that our listener numbers are falling due to the reduced number of CDs and memory sticks that we send out, but it seems that many people have embraced the Internet and listen to the recordings online. Listeners who access our recordings directly online or on the phone do not need to register with us so sadly, we don’t know who they are!
Durham Talking Newspaper unfortunately has had to close as there are not enough volunteers to run the service. They have been in touch to ask if their listeners could get the Darlington and District Talking Newspaper and we are happy to accommodate them. We plan to expand our news to cover the areas of County Durham where listeners live.
We are very grateful to all the people and organisations who have given donations to the Darlington Talking Newspaper throughout this year. We are a charity run entirely by volunteers but we do need ongoing support to keep the service running, to pay for the premises, the telephone and website and other sundries such as CD’s, memory sticks and printing equipment. The Lions Club and Burts Property are very generous with their support. This year we have not had many opportunities to raise funds. We plan to collect at a Darlington Football Club match later in March and continue to look for new fundraising opportunities. We continue to do external audio recordings of the One Darlington magazine and the Housing Connect magazine, for Darlington Borough Council, who pay us, which raises some funds to help keep the service going.
Thank you to all the dedicated volunteers who make this service possible and thank you to all our listeners or their continued support.
Pat Walker
Chairman
Financial Accounts 2025 DARUNGTON & DisfRICT TAU(ING NEWSPAPER ASSOCIATION CHARITY NO. 1188452 RECEIPTS AND PAYMENTS ACCOUNT- YEAR ENDING 31 DECEMBER 2025 2025 2024 RECEIPTS Donations Paid Recordings Fundraisin8 6,457 1,3CM) 321 1.723 1,158 969 8,078 3,850 Bank Interest Received .629 728 8,707 4,578 PAYMENTS Meeting and Travel Expenses Equipment Maintenance Telephone and Internet Postage Printing, Stationery & Consumables Licences & Subscriptions Insurances Rent and Rates Sundry Expenses CDS and Wallets Professional Services 186 515 813 40 102 334 4,440 102 367 333 181 6208 343 296 6368 T PROFIT - LOSS FOR THE YEAR 2,499 -1,790
DARLINGTON & DISTRICT TALKING NEWSPAPER ASSOCIATION BALANCE SHEET AT 31 DECEMBER 2025 2025 2024 CURRENT ASSETS Petty cash Darlingtongton Bulling Society Barclays Bank 200 31,408 6,111 200 30,778 4,242 Total Current assets 37719 35220 Profiv Loss accumulated surplusses Brought forward 35,220 Surplusl - deficit this yei 2,499 37,010 -1790 Add TOTAL RESERVES 37719 35,220 SIGNEI David Green DCU Ray Morris Ind. Examiner