2023-12-31-accounts

PENTON RECREATION COMMITTEE

DRAFT AGM MINUTES of MEETING

Venue: Penton Village Hall Date: Monday 3rd June 2024 Time: 19.00

Initials	Name	Role	Present	Apologies
AC	Alex Carter	**Village **	N	Y
AJC	**Amanda Cavanagh **	Treasurer	Y
AF	Amanda Frisby	Secretary	Y
AGD	Ali Gwynne-Davies	**Village **	N	Y
AR	Alex Randle-Bissell	PCC	N	Y
AT	Alan Twigg	**Village **	Y
BK	**Barry Kavanagh **	Cricket Club	N	N
PB	Paul Booth	**Village **	Y
RJ	Ross Jameson	Technology Officer	N	N
VN	Vernon Needham	**Village **	N	Y
GW	**Glen Woodthorpe **	**Village **	Y
EG	Eric Gregory	**Village **	Y

Welcome

Apologies (see table above)

Minutes of the Last Meeting, 5[th] June signed by Acting Chair Paul Booth.

Matters arising

As no one from the village attended there were no matters arising.

Chairman’s Report (prepared by acting Chair)

It’s been a good year, with more and varied events being organised by more and varied people.

We started with a very successful July fete which raised nearly £6,000 towards the Church and PRC.

In September we had a skittles evening organised by Amanda Cavanagh involving 5 teams with the trophy going to the Hill Billies.

October saw the wonderful vintage model train display by Dennis Randall and friends. He hopes to repeat it this year too.

November was a stressful fireworks event because we had to change location and date so had no idea of numbers. We had so many people and the best display ever and a modest profit of around £400. We will need to rethink this event; do we throttle it back to more of a village event or do we continue to grow it including outsourcing the food and drink stall – and where, given that they are starting the solar farm installation.

The Christmas period was celebrated with wreath making, big Christmas trees, carols and drinks, linked with a full programme of celebrations by the Church. Glenn and Jo had the lovely idea to

PENTON RECREATION COMMITTEE

organise a Christmas Day Social Group for residents alone on the day. This turned into the provision of hampers generously funded with donations.

February brought an enjoyable Quiz night thanks to Eric Gregory and the A team Alison Needham, Alison Williams, Ali Gwyn Davis, Alison Gregory. He has promised us another one in September.

Vernon Needham arranged a First Aid presentation from St John Ambulance including seeing a defibrillator in action and having the opportunity to practice CPR on a training dummy. Some 20 people attended.

In March we tried out a Bingo night as Glenn has been donated a Bingo kit. It was fun, but not well attended so we need to think how a repeat event might attract more. After all, traditional events such as skittle and quizzes seem to appeal to our community.

May brought us the Penton Players performing two plays: Split Ends and Lockdown in Penton Mewsey. The audience of more than 120 people attended over three nights.

Lettings in the Hall have been steady, though we recently lost the monthly Andover Stroke Club as they wound up, as did our monthly “Lunch Club”. We briefly had a baby and toddler group using the hall due to the loss of their usual facilities but sadly they didn’t stay with us. It would be good to get a group like this restarted in the village hall if there is a mum out there who wants to organise it.

Special thanks are due to Glenn Woodthorpe whose work on improving the appearance of the hall has been admired by users all year.

Our regulars provide a fair spread of the type of activity for which the PRC exists; social, intellectual, and physical recreation.

· Painting

· Table Tennis

• Jakes Last Fandango band

• Coffee Mornings

· Mad Melodies choir

• Happy Puppy Company

· Sugarcraft

• Art Talks

• Pilates

It’s important for people to have a good place to gather to mark key life events (births, marriages, deaths), and Penton Village Hall is a vital asset for our community in this respect. We had a fair number of these this past year, and the bookings for birthdays continue to increase.

We had to cope with a birthday party which got out of control in January as the responsible adults were economical with the truth about age of the partygoers and the amount of adult supervision. Thanks to special efforts by Glenn and Jo who gave up a planned weekend, and Vernon who helped with the redecoration, we were able to get the hall back into serviceable state in time for the subsequent hires. We have now raised the security deposit and tightened further on the screening

PENTON RECREATION COMMITTEE

for party bookings to avoid teenage parties in future. Some discretion might be exercised if the family are residents in the Pentons.

We’ve had several working parties to tidy up the grounds and parking area, trim the hedges, paint the fences, and clear rubbish. I want to thank everyone who helped out with this, especially Vernon Needham who takes on a lot of maintenance and repair jobs. He and I repainted the front of the hall today.

Amanda Cavanagh has done sterling work as Treasurer and skittles supremo.

Amanda Frisby, our secretary, has kept control of the minutes and been an invaluable contributor to the events.

Alex Carter has helped especially with playground inspections and recently taking over monitoring of the recreation ground grass – liaising with our grass cutting contractor.

We have welcomed Eric Gregory onto the committee this year and he has already proven a valued member with his enthusiasm for organising events. He is a driving force with others behind the imminent Penton Medieval Midsummer Festival.

Alan Twigg after many years of service to the PRC including long tenure as Treasurer is retiring. Huge thanks to him.

Ross Jamieson has been our CTO for several years, winning for us the benefits of Microsoft charitable credit funding and setting up our IT and previous websites. He has asked to step down from the committee at this time. We are very grateful for all his support and hope we might still be able to call on him for occasional support.

Many thanks are owed to our flier delivery team who push vital messages through letterboxes. Your efforts are very much appreciated.

Looking to the year ahead, we have the Festival later this month, we have plenty of ideas for future events, we have a healthy balance in the fund and an excellent PRC team. It’s overdue for us to find a chairman since I retired from that role last year; the PRC needs new vision to take it forward.

Finance

Treasurer’s report on year to 31 December 2023

This is my first full year of looking after the PRC accounts. As always, I am grateful for the assistance of Alan Twigg who quickly authorises payments to keep things running smoothly. With Alan’s departure from the committee this year we will have new signatories who will, I’m sure, help run things just as well.

Lettings, our primary source of income, were up by a modest 3.5% over 2022 to just under £9,400. With the facilities being really spick and span now, thanks to Glenn Woodthorpe’s tireless work, 2024 may see a bigger increase. Our other large sources of income were the Auction of Promises early in the year which raised £1,948 and the summer fete which brought a profit of £2,832. Fireworks were not as profitable as in previous years, mostly because we had a hefty insurance premium to pay for the event due to the increasing numbers. The committee is discussing how we

PENTON RECREATION COMMITTEE

should move forward with this event; keep it more village-oriented and smaller scale or to make it a true fund-raising event. Rock ‘n’ Roll brought in a welcome £220. Rising interest rates meant that our income from investments was up by 75% to £694. Donations brought in £378 and we are in the process of registering with HMRC to enable us to reclaim Gift Aid on donations.

Aside from our regular caretaking expense, the major “regular” expenditure in the year was electricity which was £4,172. We can all relate to the tariff increases, which mean we have less control of these costs. The hirers obviously need to be warm for their sessions and we must also ensure any damp is kept at bay in an old building. Fortunately, the rates are coming down and we are about to renew our contract at a lower rate for the next 2 years. Hall rental rates were increased in the period to help towards these costs, but the committee are always mindful of keeping in line with other halls’ charges. The decision was made to write off a grass-cutting charge in relation to the cricket club for 2022 due to offsets of charges between us but they will be paying their share of the cost for 2023 onwards.

The most significant expense in the accounts was £9,936 for the retiling of the hall roof. Without this expense we would have made a surplus for the year but, overall, we had a deficit of £7,931. It is expenses such as these which, although irregular, are substantial and it is imperative that we keep up our fund-raising efforts to ensure that funds are available to maintain the fabric of the building. Notwithstanding the larger events, the hall is here for the benefit of the villagers and smaller, less profitable events are an important part of the village calendar to make life in our community more enjoyable.

7. Appointment of Charity Trustees:

To meet the requirements for the CIO, a third of the trustees need to stand down/change. These are AF, GW, RJ and AT.

AT stepped down as treasure after serving some 20 years on the committee. We are all very thankful for his time and dedication.

RJ stepped down as technology officer. We are grateful for his support.

GW was re-elected as a committee member nominated by AF seconded by AJC – Carried

AF was re-elected as a committee member nominated by PB seconded by GW - Carried

The following committee members who support the remaining roles have all agreed to continue and the AGM attendees agreed to re-elect them without further additional voting.

Committee:

Barry Kavanagh - Cricket Club

Amanda Cavanagh - Treasurer

Amanda Frisby – Secretary and Tennis Club

Alex Carter - Village

Ali Gwynne-Davies - Village

Vernon Needham – Village

Paul Booth – Village

PENTON RECREATION COMMITTEE

Glen Woodthorpe – Village

Eric Gregory – Village

The Chairperson position is vacant. The committee will look to recruit a new chairperson. It was agreed to produce a job description that could be shared as required.

Questions and comments from the meeting:

No questions arose.

8. Other business:

None

		INCOME				EXPENDITURE
?	2022		* 2023		? 2022		* 2023
	9,067.58	Hall Lettings		9,389.00		Village Hall
						Running Costs
		Playing field			3,110.44	Caretaking	3,147.07
	870.00	Cricket Club/PGPC/PMPC	945.00		1,544.40	Electricity	4,172.33
	20.80	Tennis Club Wayleave	475.00 20.80		1,030.39 482.74	Insurance Water	1,170.54 654.03
					37.10	Paypal fees	67.52
	890.80			1,440.80	373.12	Inspections	468.74
					366.04	Performing Rights	128.28
	2,667.00 211.70	Fund raising Grants TVBC Jubilee	141.40 0.00		20.00 180.00 223.00	Licences Advertising Sundries	110.00 200.00 453.18
	0.00	Fete	2,831.58		283.20	Printing	0.00
	1,204.67 Fireworks		134.97		250.00	Wifi and phone	120.00
	58.00 Skittles evening		54.71		336.00	Chirstmas events	350.25
	304.13	Donations	377.60			Grass cutting w/off	290.00
	630.00 327.97	ARC share Classical Christmas	0.00 0.00		8,236.43	Coronation expenses 105-28 11.43722
		Rock 'n' Roll	218.97
		Auction of promises	1,948.43			Repairs and renewals
	5,403.47			5,707.66	2,476.27	GW repairs/renewals 1,925.04
					0.00	Pavilion repairs	584.00
		Interest			365.37	Misc repairs	20.00
	395.17	Treasurers accounts United Trust Bank	693.71		1.20.00	Hall retiling	993600 12.46504
	395.17			693.71		Recreation ground
					1,160.00	Grass cutting	1,260.00
					130.26	Strimmer	0.00
					1,290.26		1,260.00
					97.62	Adjustment to UTB	0.00
	15,757.02	INCOME		17,231.17	14,369.95	EXPENDITURE	25,162.26
	£1,387.07	Excess of income over expenditure				Excess of expenditure over	income £7,931.09