NC Meeting. Wolverhampton, 27 November 2004-12-06

Present

Jan Lancaster (Publicity)

Jenny Patient (Nat Treasurer),

Janet Saunders (Nat Sec)

Dave Jefferies (IT)

John Shears (Nat Sec)

Barbara Segal ( Bristol and S West Region)

Arthur Howarth(Nat Trips)

Gill Cox( Regional (West Midlands)

Gill Platt (Membership)

Dave Symonds (Merseyside Region)

Dave Chanter (Access &Cons)

Charlie Fisher (North-East Region)

Nikki Finch (BMC)

  

Apologies

Anna (Bulletin)

Uta (Contact Sec)

Becky (Ramblers Rep)

Humphrey (Nat trip treasurer)

Titch (Training)

Andy Bateman(Archives)

Andy Philips (Alpine)

Mark (MIS)

Ian (Gear)

Chair for the meeting: Jan Lancaster

Secretary’s Report

  1. Wording changes from the AGM had been completed by Adrian and final copy in possession of secretary (Janet)

    2. ACTION: Janet to forward a copy of constitution to Dave J. for posting on Website.

  2. Secretary reported that the marquee was now with the repairers in Leicester and Adrian O’Connor was progressing this. Estimate had been circa £200. The marquee was the only Red Rope tent in existence.

  3. Items re. trip treasuring guidelines and national coach fare remitted from NC – Charlie suggested these were not real issues, and had been taken care of by the trip treasuring guidelines on the new treasuring form. Only practise would prove how easy the form would be to use.

Treasurer’s Report

  1. The practicalities of account holders and signatories were being sorted out and close to completion.

  2. (Paper provided concerning Treasurer’s ideas for budgeting, tracking and allocation of funds)

    3. The Treasurer asked for discussion re, the allocation of funds from national Red Rope back to the Regions. Jenny proposed that there should be a ‘national pool’ of money of (eg.) £600 (based on 10% membership income). This money would be available to regions proportionately to their Band A and band B members to claim, for help with funding trips or special projects. This would be on the proviso that regions notify National Secretary of the names and contact details of their local officers, hold local AGM’s during June, July or August and provide bank details and annual accounts by 1 September.

    Currently no established mechanism exists for doing this and this might be a way for regions to link in more with the national group.

    It was commented that some regions, for example Scotland, and some others, were largely de-linked and for example sent no members to AGM. There was some discussion on the dates at which regional AGMs would have to be held in order to be in time for motions to national AGM, and to avoid the summer holiday months. Also some discussion regarding whether relating this to Band A & B members would be fair or acceptable.

    It was suggested that Jenny write an article for the bulletin, with her proposals, to stimulate discussion in the club. Carried.

    ACTION: Jenny to write article on her ideas and send to Anna for next bulletin.

  3. Proposed by Dave J that £100 be provided to allow Treasurer to buy software to computerise Red Rope accounting. Carried.

ACTION: Jenny to buy some software as/when appropriate.

 

National Trips

  1. Janet read a brief note from Humphrey regarding National trip finances:

National trip finances look OK -- we are booking well into 2006, which means a lot of money has gone out as deposits, but I am encouraging trip organisers to pass early deposit cheques on to me to bank.  This may be seen as a change in policy, but part of the reason for doing this is that those early cheques often expire before the trip happens, which leads to endless time wasting.  Have just received Pounds 400 in cheques from the new year trip.

National Trip Treasurer Report

  1. Arthur stated trip planning was in a healthy state. All trips in 2005 had organisers.

  2. Nothing was booked yet for September. A weekend trip to the Roaches had been suggested. Any views? There was a suggestion this could be a training trip, i.e. climbing training trip – could get Titch involved in this as Training Officer.

  3. Discussion re. a specialist Easter trip to the Lakes. It was suggested that a four-day trip was better than a week-long trip from an organisational point of view.

  4. Arthur made an appeal to NC as committed RedRope members to come on National trips, and maybe become trip organisers. NC members replied that mostly too busy to take on National trip organiser roles, going on trips as per individual timetables.

ACTION: Nikki and Arthur to contact Scotland to perhaps help with organising National Trips in Scotland

ACTION: Arthur to send out an appeal in the bulletin for more national trip organisers

ACTION: Janet to check bookings for future NC meetings with Adrian/Angela

ACTIONS: Arthur re. Easter trip and September trip (climbers training?) left with Arthur to maybe get Titch involved .

ACTION: All. Arthur wanted everyone to think about New Year 2006/7 potential trip location.

Bulletin

Anna was absent, but had sent in an email reporting on activities so far and asking for points to be discussed as follows:

  1. Frequency:

    2. Anna suggested 2 per year, Jan/Feb and July/August. Jan/Feb was agreed, July/August prompted discussion: Committee suggested there needed to be a Bulletin run well in advance of AGM. Maybe July was better than August.

    Regional AGM May/June - Notified to members and NC by 1st May

    AGM Motions by 15 July for August MIS

    Bulletin available by 15 August to coincide with MIS stuffing

    Amendments deadline – a week before (?what)

    ACTION: Dave J to produce a calendar to cover, Regional AGMs, motions for AGM, and summer bulletin. To produce by 15 December for next MIS

     

  2. Content - How we present the AGM minutes

    3. Anna queried how much of AGM minutes needed to be in Bulletin. Decision: Only main points of AGM Minutes please.

    ACTION: Janet to edit AGM Minutes for Bulletin.

  3. Printing options

    4. Anna presented two options from Sheffield and Leicester printers. The problem with the Sheffield printer was they could only accept stuff in printed format, not electronic.

    Decision: Ask Anna to check the price of getting the Bulletin printed in Leicester, and then couriered to Sheffield. The convenience of electronic transfer to printer was very important, so long as cost of courier was not prohibiting. Can Anna send details of quote round to NC on email for final agreement?

  4. Contact Sheet

There should be a new one sent out in the Bulletin. Gill P. to look at producing one.

ACTION: Gill P offered to keep a contact list up to date. (But it is doubtful whether this will be in time for next Bulletin).

Joining Red Rope

Items remitted from AGM re.

Stable membership contact address -

Membership address & how to join instructions on MIS

Procedure check-over for joining and regional contacts

Membership address on web

It was pointed out that some of these issues were raised by Chester group who had problems because members had contacted Titch. This problem was now rectified.

  1. General discussion took place about sorting out the procedure.

Trip booking form and Membership form should be an insert that goes out with MIS on a regular basis (not necessarily every month)

Contact Sec to have a stock of mailings top send out

ACTION: Gill P to provide new Membership Form in Word to Dave J on one sheet to put on Web as well as printable copy to Anna for Bulletin.

ACTION: Dave J to look into generation of a letter from the database to the regional contact when a new member has joined, or at least to ensure that the current list will flag up new members.

Information Systems Review

Charlie provided a paper on current suggestions. (NB. This item concerns the information that Red Rope keeps and how it keeps it (it is not about the Website)

  1. Crucial to this discussion and getting information organised and maintained is ownership and maintaining of documents.

    2. ACTION: John Shears, Charlie and Dave J to produce a document listing each NC role, and what documents that person/role maintain to circulate to NC for next meeting.

  2. Circulating and getting access to documents online – one copy for group reference. Janet commented there was a way to do this on Yahoo groups.

  3. Archiving and Storage – the group above to contact Andy Bateman on archiving

ACTION: Janet S. to find out how files can be kept on Yahoo groups and consult with Dave J.

ACTION: Dave J, John and Charlie to discuss storage matters and include Andy B.

 

 

Publicity Report

  1. Jan is trying to set up web-links with like-minded websites. She passed round a list from the Morning Star Progressive Website listing. It cost £20 a year to register on this.

    2. ACTION: Jan L.. NC accepted her suggestion to try this for a year. Jan L. to action.

  2. The Constitution sheet is ready to go out to regional contacts for their Red folders. (Done)

  3. A publicity pack is on the web. Jan made a point that the contents of the Red Folder should also be there.

    4. Note. Some of the publicity pack is the same content as the Red Folder. Constitution will be on the Web.

    ACTION: Jan L. to follow up with Dave J.

     

  4. Press contacts. The paper-based publicity inserts had not brought a very good return so far. Approaches had been made to Country Walking Mag and Trail Mag for some content-based publicity. Adverts in mags at the same time as an article could be more useful. Jan had spoken to Trail and there was a possibility of submitting an article to them about RedRope and its unique approach.

    5. ACTION: Janet S. volunteered to write this and send to Jan L. by mid January.

    Website issues and publicity

  5. A brief discussion took place about publicity and the website. Publicity via the web was seen by NC as of high importance. Dave J has been putting National Trips list on Web. Discussion took place re. the question of putting organiser names and numbers on this, and decision taken that some trip organisers would not want this.

ACTION: Arthur to provide an edited version of National Trips list to Dave for publishing on Web.

AGM 2005

  1. If Edale is used next year, the main issues to solve here are having children’s indoor accommodation and proximity to the adult meeting. The Village Hall is reserved for us, makes good childrens’ accommodation because it it has good facilities and kitchen. Youth Hostel could be available for adult meeting but is 2 miles away, and too expensive at £11 per head for the weekend itself. Campsite owner had suggested the church for the adult meeting. Gill & John had got a quote from the church of £90, and seen it – it was suitable.

    2. After much discussion NC voted to go ahead and try to book church and confirm campsite and Hall.

    ACTION: John and Gill P. to book.

  2. AGM 2006: Nikki suggested holding an AGM further North to encourage more linking with Scottish members. Maybe and AGM in Scotland, or the Lakes. Sheffield itself was also suggested.

ACTION: John and Nikki to look into locations for 2006

 

Child-friendly matters

  1. Discussion re. child-friendly AGM – hopefully improved accommodation will solve this.

  2. Discussion re. point raised at AGM regarding single parents and disposable income – can carers take weekly childcare costs into account?

Point made that many types of carers for non-child dependents might have their own costs to consider as well. Question needed more thought.

Point made that there was already guidance for Trip organisers on single parents and trips, in the pack, re. that trip organisers should indicate whether trips were suitable or not for children.

ACTION: Gill Cox volunteered to consider these issues regarding single parents and how catered for in disposable income banding and in general in the club. To bring some ideas to next NC.

Alpine Trips

  1. There had been discussions online and also at AGM re. the possibility of Red Rope organising an Alpine Trip. This was remitted to NC for discussion.

Point was made that a feasibility study was needed before NC could make informed decision on this. There were many issues to consider, among them:

Point was made that RedRope might be able to run the risk of funding a certain amount towards an experimental trip, but also points were made that this could not be voted on unless there had been a proper feasibility study done and some concrete proposals to consider.

ACTION: Arthur to write – or ask some proponents of the Alpine trip to write - some paragraphs in the next Bulletin setting out some ideas and inviting discussion, including asking who would be likely to want to come.

ACTION: Arthur to ask Andrew Wordsley to come back with a proposal.

Access & Conservation

  1. David Chanter said he was preparing/had prepared an article for the forthcoming Bulletin.

  2. Jerry Matthews had volunteered to be Access part of the jobshare with David. Jerry’s offer was accepted.

Handbook

  1. The old handbook was an interesting starting point but mostly out of date.

  2. A list of contents for the new one would be a good place to start.

ACTION: Gill and Jan L. will bring a contents list for the new handbook to the next NC meeting.

Banner

Jerry had written email with a few ideas and suggested costs, some time ago. This email was not seen at the meeting, so could not be properly discussed. After some discussion it was decided to ask Jerry to get suitable quotes and bring details to next NC.

ACTION: Janet to ask Jerry to get suitable quotes and bring details to next NC.

 

Vacant posts

MC of S Rep.

ACTION: Nikki to continue trying to chase Scottish contacts for MC of S Rep

ACTION: Janet to put How to link more with Scottish Members on agenda for next NC meeting.

 

Hut officer(s)

ACTION: None – leave vacant for the time being.

 

 

Meeting ended at 4.00 pm.

 

Next meeting: provisionally Saturday 26/02/05 Bradford, West Yorkshire.