2023-12-31-accounts

Minutes of the Annual General Meeting Stixwould Village Hall held at the Village Hall on 15[th] July 2024

Present:-

Mrs Annette Southcott Mr Mel Murfin Mrs Chris Haddock Mr G Byers Mrs Jenny Daft Mr Mark Hoyes

Chair and Trustee Treasurer and Trustee Secretary and Trustee St Peter’s Church Trustee Trustee

Nine other residents

1 Apologies:

Ms S Bradley, Mr G Southcott and Mr & Mrs S Anderson

2 Previous Minutes

The previous Minutes were proposed by Mrs Haddock and seconded as correct by Mr G Byers

3 Re-election of Officials

Mrs Southcott offered to stand as Chair Mr Murfin offered to stand as Treasurer Mrs Haddock offered to stand as Secretary

The meeting thanked the officers for offering to stand and all nominations were accepted and voted in.

4 Matters Arising from the previous Minutes

There were no matters arising/

5 Financial Report

The financial report for 12[th] July 2023 to 11[th] July 2024 is duly attached. The Treasurer reported that the main costs were insurance and heating, the latter currently costing £7 per hour. It is hoped that there will be a reduction in costs when renovation work is completed and better insulation installed throughout the building.

There was a discussion with regard to solar panels on a Grade 2 listed building and also whether they would be a cost effective exercise due to the use of the village hall. Agreed to explore further if we can obtain funding for a feasibility study.

6 Chair’s Report 2023

As noted in the Annual Meeting Report dated 7th July 2023, Stixwould Village Hall applied to lease the building from Lincoln Diocesan Trust who own the land on which the Village Hall stands.

A thirty-five year lease was signed on 19 December 2023 and this allows us to apply for grant funding from large organisations that demand applicants either own or have a long lease on buildings that they want to renovate. Under the terms of the lease, the church will continue to have free use of the building for ecclesiastical purposes by arrangement with the Hall committee

As we are now a functioning charity, we are required to submit an annual return which includes a financial statement and certain mandatory policies such as safeguarding, and managing risk.

Our first submission is due in October 2024 and will be available on the Charity Commission website for public view.

We have been successful in obtain two grants in 2023.

• UK Shared Prosperity Fund (UKSPF) , a government scheme administered by Lincolnshire Community Foundation. This was a contribution to the renovation of the six grade 2 listed windows at the front of the Hall.

• We received £5700 towards the renovation costs of £6720. The shortfall was covered by a contingency in the National Lottery Heritage Fund who gave their permission for this change.

• National Lottery Heritage Fund (NLHF)

• In September 2023 a grant totalling £9,784 was awarded for three specific purposes :

• to undertake an asbestos survey of the Hall

• to produce an exhibition on the early life of Major Jim Almonds, a founder member of the SAS, Stixwould resident and scholar.

• to work with Heritage Lincolnshire to project manage and evaluate the exhibition and use it as a baseline for applications for further grant funding to continue the renovation work.

• This exhibition opened on 4th October 2023 at the Cottage Museum Woodhall Spa and remained there until the Museum closed for the season. It was very well received and was set up again for two months during April and May. We have collected data and comments from visitors as part of the evaluation report The History Group managed to produce this exhibition in record time with assistance from Major Almonds’s daughter Gloria Almonds who kindly lent photographs and artefacts from her personal collection.

• The exhibition boards and artefacts will have a permanent home at the Village Hall once renovation work has been completed, it’s environmentally safe to do so and will go on display at regular intervals. The first being the Heritage Lincolnshire Open Day on 15 September 2024. We have received permission to use some of the money to construct a bespoke storage container and this is underway.

• Part of the grant was used to host a talk at International Bomber Command Centre Lincoln on 10[th] November 2023 by Major Almonds’s other daughter and biographer Lorna Almonds- Windmill. A spin-off from the exhibition and talk was a journalist contact who came to me for further information and resulted in a double-page spread in a national newspaper about Jim Almonds wartime exploits which coincided with the weekend of the talk. We received a

donation of £350 for the use of photographs from Gloria Almonds personal collection.

• Lorna Almonds-Windmill will be back at the Golf Hotel Woodhall Spa on 9th November to talk about their father’s incredible life after the end of WW2.

• Heritage Lincolnshire is currently producing the evaluation report of the project which is very positive.

7 National Lottery Heritage Fund

• Having established a relationship with the NLHF and Heritage Lincolnshire, we are keen to progress to the next stage of the renovation project, the total cost of which will be just under £250k. We will again be working with Heritage Lincolnshire to complete the application which we plan to be submitted by the end of July.

• In addition to the building work, we will be required to engage with the wider community on heritage activities. Preliminary discussions have been held with Bucknall Primary School and we are delighted that if our bid is successful we will be working with them on a joint project that fulfils some of their curriculum requirements as well as meeting the NLHF objectives.

More details will follow when the application outcome is known. We are still at the ideas stage and would like as many people as possible to be engaged in this project so please let us know if you are interested in participating.

The meeting drew to a close at 8.15 pm with the Chair thanking everyone for attending.

Stixwould Village Hall Cliarity number IICJCJG25 Accounts 1210712022- 3111V2023 Income Fund Ralsing all hire Grants (Non UK Gov backed) Gov. backed grants Donations TOTAL INCOME 2,365.49 557.61 11,913.76 5,700.00 512.60 £ 21,049.46 Expendlture Fund risin Maintenance Insurance & securit Refurbishment Bank Char es Electricit ital Ex enditure Granls Ex enditure TOTAL EXPENDITURE enses 115.91 292.84 1.294.80 395.00 48.78 987.12 86.38 3,678.89 6,899.72 Exces$ income over expenditure Bank account 1210712022 Bank account 2111212023 Cash in hand TOTAL £ 14,149.74 3.314.82 £ 17,464.56 50.(K) £ 17,514.56 Prepared by Melvyn Murfin Treasurer