NC Meeting.
NB. These minutes have been pre-circulated and
some small amendments added in red.
Present
|
Jan Lancaster (Publicity) |
Titch Kavanagh (Training) |
|
Janet Saunders (Nat Sec) |
Gill Cox( Regional ( |
|
John Shears (Nat Sec) |
|
|
Arthur Howarth(Nat Trips) |
|
|
Gill Platt (Membership) |
|
|
Nikki Finch (BMC) |
|
|
Uta Praekelt (Contact Sec) |
|
Apologies
Dave Jefferies (IT)
Anna (Bulletin)
Jenny Patient (Nat Treasurer)
Charlie Fisher (North-East Region)
Humphrey (Nat trip treasurer)
Andy Bateman(Archives)
Gerry Matthews (Access)
Chair for
the meeting: Titch Kavanagh up to lunch/ Jan Lancaster after lunch
Minutes of last meeting were formally accepted.
Arthur had some minor points which would be
raised as appropriate during this meeting.
Secretary’s Report
Copy of the constitution had been forwarded to Dave
J. and is posted on the Website.
Contact Lists & communication
Secretary reported that the NC Contact list was
updated and had been verified by nearly everyone. The regional list was not yet updated, but
getting close.
ACTION: Janet to complete this and get it to MIS
person for printing and circulation with next MIS.
In connection with this Uta reported that she
does not get emails from the committee.
ACTION: Janet to follow up why Uta and also Gerry
Matthews do not get committee emails with Dave Jefferies. DONE
Future meeting Dates
Secretaries to book ahead dates for NC
Membership Sec Report
Status of members stable. Sheffield going up and
Membership form
There is a longstanding issue re. what should be
the definitive Membership form on the web and whether a new paper form is
needed.
Meeting agreed to use the Web Form if possible.
A discussion about names and number of children on the form concluded that date
of birth and number of children should be on the form. Names were not
needed. There is no reporting run on
this data, but the membership secretary can find out manually this information
if needed.
ACTION: Dave Jefferies to be asked to make this
change to the Web Form, and to try to use up less space so that the form prints
on one page only.
ACTION: Janet Saunders to produce a paper format
in Word with membership rates on the back so that forms could be printed off as
needed.
National Trips
Humphrey absent so no Nat Trips Treasurer Report.
Arthur Howarth gave his National Trip Secretary
Report. Bookings list had already been circulated.
The Alex Mac hut
This hut is under-used in the summer and would
be very useful to groups wanting summer trips to Glencoe area.
National Trip charges.
Although the National Trips Account is
satisfactory, Arthur warned the meeting that costs may need to rise in the next
year or so, as many huts were gradually raising their nightly rate.
It was suggested that Arthur wrote a short
notice for the next but one MIS to ask people for their views on this, in preparation for a
motion to the AGM.
Janet S. also made the point that huts were
becoming difficult to book unless groups could plan very much in advance, due
to a greater number of clubs using them. Alternative accommodation was more
expensive and maybe a higher rate would allow slightly more flexibility.
Arthur
expressed the view that there was no immediate necessity to increase rates but
agreed that it was prudent to consider it in the future and reasonable to
prepare a motion for the next AGM in case it were to be necessary - after a
close examination of trip finances for this year. Present indications are that
transport might prove more of a problem than accommodation,
It was noted that recent deficits on two
National Trips were largely to blame on transport costs – not accommodation
costs. There was a need to analyse the costs on the next 2 trips, and camping
trips may well balance out the costs over the year.
Action: Janet S, with help from Andrew Worsley, (and referring to Arthur
and Humphrey) to draft a motion for next
AGM on nightly rates.
Action: Arthur to write a short notice for the next but one MIS asking for views
– if
necessary.
Naismith hut.
The
question was raised by Arthur that, as the Naismith hut had only 8 places,
would it be prudent to make a partial booking of another hut in the area as an
overflow?
A
discussion took place regarding the undesirability of sharing a hut with other
clubs ( experience
related by Jan L. of being on an ‘overflow’ hut on a previous occasion) ,. Whilst we normally like
to book the maximum number of places, Arthur’s view was that to run the risk of
associating with other clubs on occasion might be quite useful but the
committee disagreed.
After much discussion the committee decided
unanimously that National trips should NOT be split between two huts.
New Year trip
Height Gate near
BMC Rep Report
Scottish Members
Nikki reported that she had been making efforts
to contact Scottish regional people. She had spoken to Brian Kerr, who was
currently v. busy but would have more time later on.
Nikki suggested that the November NC meeting
2005 be held in
There was discussion as to whether this meeting
should take place in the borders on the assumption it was easy to get to, but
everyone agreed that Glasgow and Edinburgh were better for public transport and
even flight links. Leicester Region have already agreed to host the November
meeting, but may be flexible.
Action: Nikki
to follow this up - this would need a Scottish member to facilitate.
National Secs will be setting dates for
forthcoming 2005 and 2006 meetings – to liase with nikki over this.
Nikki also suggested that there be a New Year
National trip to Scotland 2006, to bring together Scottish members and south of
the border members. Weekend National trips were not attractive to Scottish
members who could easily get to the mountains, and were not attracted to
southern trips. They might be more keen to come on a week-long trip at New
Year, which might draw in a wider range of Scottish members. She had made enquiries but the only place so
far found was agreed as too expensive by the meeting. The meeting agreed this
was a good idea in principle
Action: Nikki to keep trying to find a suitable
place.
Treasurer’s Report
Treasurer was not present but submitted a paper
report: Pasted below:
Admin Treasurer’s report to National
Committee
Regions
Have not had any specific response from regions to
my Bulletin article – but the first stage should be that the National Secretary
should get sent details of local contacts. If
we get details of regional treasurers I am willing to ring round and encourage
them to submit a financial report later in the year.
Action: To date (7 March) Secretaries have received full
updated details from
I’m not planning to push the July NC as a regional
treasurers’ meeting – I don’t think this is the most useful approach. However,
it would be good if we could get this
trip generally well-supported by reps from the regions, which would enable some
general dialogue about what support the regions would like. Unfortunately
the dates clash with some of the G8-related campaigning activities.)
Action: when phoning regions could be
encouraged to send a rep to July NC trip – Grindelford in the Peaks is booked.
Software
I have bought a copy of Quicken for £8.99,
installed it and am fairly happy that it does what we need. I may want to splash out on a training
manual (£15) or a course (£60) at some stage. Have been slack on the data
input to date but now that I have cheque-writing powers and am getting
statements I hope to get all this year’s transactions onto the system and use
it to produce reports for the AGM.
Club Affiliations
We have re-affiliated to the Ramblers Association.
Our affiliation to the MC of S ran out last July,
and our affiliation to the BMC is about to run out. To re-affiliate, I need lists of our members in spreadsheet
format – I have been waiting (and asking) for this since
I would like more support on these affiliations
from the respective NC reps – I don’t think it should be the Admin Treasurer
who has to chase all these things up. How
can we improve this process, please?
Dave Jefferies was not at the meeting, Gill Platt reported she
had got problems with generating the reports from the database and needed his
help, but could not get the database to him without help.
!!! Action: Dave & Gill to sort
this out somehow.
DONE (?)
Magazine adverts
‘High’ magazine and ‘On the Edge’ magazine have
been discontinued and replaced with a new ‘Climb’ magazine. We had a regular
lineage advert in both, which has transferred to ‘Climb’, and been updated to
Uta’s contact details rather than Titch’s. I propose that, as before, we pay
them a lump sum in advance (say £50), rather than issue a cheque monthly for
£3-odd. Please ratify.
Ratified
Similarly we have a regular advert in ‘
Ratified
I would like to keep Jan in the loop on these, but
don’t think it would help me to pass over contact to her – shall I just copy her in on relevant correspondence?
Yes Ratified
Publicity Report
RE. Website links - Jan L has contacted
organisations off the morning Star’s list. RedRope is on BMC and Ramblers Websites.
A link for MC of S is needed on RedRope Website
Action: Dave to get a link on the site to MC of S
Janet Saunders had written an article re.
RedRope for potential publication, that Jan had sent to Dale Bruton at Trail
advertising section. Trail had used some of the RedRope key words and photos to
mock up an advertisement, which would cost £120 per month for three months. However,
the dimensions were very small and there was no guarantee of any article being
published in association with this. Titch pointed out that national publicity
in the past had found us not geared up enough to respond to large numbers of
enquiries and could simply create a bad impression, not justifying the cost.
As this is a large amount of money the committee
thanked Jan(‘s) for their efforts, but voted NOT to take this advertisement
idea any further, for the time being.
Action: Jan L Instead Jan L. will send the article
to regions with a suggestion that they could use it as a template for local
publicity.
Existing Publicity material
Re. regional groups and publicity Jan L.
reported that she no longer had copies of the poster material that had been
sent out with the Red Folder – Geoff at
Action: Jan S. to check to see if she has it. Also to check with Adrain (and check his new
email) to forward to Jan
Dave Jefferies also to see if he has the disc or a
copy of the material.
Outdoor
show at the NEC
Nikki and
Titch asked the NC committee for funds that could be spent on the production
and distribution of RR flyers for within the Outdoor show at the NEC. After a
short discussion it was agreed that a sum of £100 (one hundred) could be
allocated for this task.
Action:
Nikki and Jan L. re. Flyers for outdoor show
Miscellaneous
John Shears suggested someone approach a uni or
college media studies department to see if we could get a FREE promotional
video or similar – that could then be used for telly news items etc. or maybe
look into funding for something like this.
Action: John to follow up his idea about approaching a college re
promotional video
Contact Sec Report
Uta said that she did not have any extra
bulletins to send to enquiries, and she also needed the regional contact
details.
Action: Gill to change the number of copies of
publications sent to Uta
Action: Janet S to get regional contact details to Uta
- ASAP.
Bulletin
Anna not able to be present but committee
unanimously agreed a vote of thanks should be recorded and passed on for such a
good Bulletin.
Alpine trip (proposed)
AH :
reported
That he had
done some research into an Alpine region trip. That the trip would be between
July 31th and
Based on
the current (interested members) banding and making an assumption of food
costs, using private cars (with an assumption of 4 to a car) to get to the
location (via
The
calculation estimated a potential deficit of £140 on transport arrangements
which could be made up by careful management of food and accommodation costs.
This would leave the trip very vulnerable if a couple of quite indefinite
enquiries from high band people did not materialise. However the final list of
people going is likely to be quite different to the present provisional one.
Calculation
criteria:
- Transport. Estimated at about
£00:06p PM to include ferry but not Autoroute charges.
- Autoroute charges would be
convertible to mileage and dealt with in the same way as ferry charges (decided at NC and clarified further post NC)
- Accommodation is Tents at
between £5 and £8 per day.
- Based on 14 people as stated
- Food be limited to £4:00 per
head per day
- NB Discussion post NC has clarified this to max of £3.50 per day,
based on figures that The average cost of food, per person per
night, on the four national
trips in 2004 was Pnds 3.35 – it goes without saying organisers should be careful in menu planning and estimating. - Cap Alpine transport at 6p a
mile for public transport
His main
concern was commitment of members taking up the trip, management of the costs
calculated within the RR transport and accommodation rules. He suggested that
this be overseen by either himself or Humphrey Southall (HS). It was stated
that the ferry would have to be booked no later than May (to get the best prices).
Therefore all of the estimated/trip details costs need to have been made before
May.
It was
agreed that the individuals would be responsible for their own personal and
additional car insurance. It was not agreed if the Autoroute fees were to be
included (estimated to be £70 per car)
It was
suggested within the following NC discussion that Andre w Worsley owned the trip
organization and that AH and HS keep a
close eye on the expenses. The trip had to follow all RR rules for
AH wanted
it minuted that he was not in favour of the membership subsidising the trip at
all.
NB. There has been some discussion post NC as to
where this deficit should come from – admin account or trip account. No conclusion has been reached.
Action
– AH&HS to monitor estimated costs of trip
Action
– Andrew Worsley to own trip planning
IT Report
Dave J not
present, but submitted a paper (filed with minutes) re the IT officer’s role (pasted
below) and the website, with notes on other officers’ roles re. Contact list,
Trip organiser pack, and membership form.
<<The
site has two main functions:
- Publicity for members &
non-members
- Point of reference for members
There is
sometimes a tension in objectives. Resolve by putting more mundane material
lower down structure.
Content
- This is the responsibility of
appropriate officer.
- The officer should check the
relevant pages from time to time and supply IT officer with updates where
necessary.
- If a general NC responsibility
then the secretary should collate and supply updates to IT officer.
Presentation
- This is the joint
responsibility of appropriate officer and the IT officer.
When IT
officer is supplied with updates she or he will implement them as soon as
practical then let the relevant officer know that the site has been updated.
The officer who supplied the information should check the site and, assuming
that the update is correct, inform the NC and any other relevant people that
the change has been made.>>
Principles
in this Document were agreed. See earlier discussion on membership form.
Actions:
ALL – Please check the website by end of March to see which pages or parts of
pages are your particular responsibility. Send a list of items to Secretary and
IT officer. Please note that you have responsibility for alerting IT officer
for any future changes identified .
Action - JL & DJ IT publicity discussion “on going”
Action - CF, DJ & JS Archives
discussion “on going”
MIS
Raised as a
concern that local groups might not be sending all their events in to the Is
Editor. Local groups should send their organized events to the MIS editor as
this will give members a bigger picture of events especially if travelling
within the regions.
Events that
are jointly organized with “other clubs/organizations” should be clearly
identified within the MIS.
No Action.
Red Rope Banner
The NC
committee commended Gerry Mathews’ work and research on the recreation of a new
Red Rope banner. Gerry reported via the Secretary that she needed some criteria
to cost the manufacture of the new banner.
The size and materials, print method, were now a critical issue to
obtain a price. It was suggested that the banner be 12 feet by 6 feet. The
material, the print method are to be furthered investigated.
The NC also
discussed if we needed more than one banner.
One design method identified was DIY arranged around an on site training
course. It was suggested at the meeting that if a number of regions attended we
could create local banners. More discussions will be needed to move this idea
forward.
Action:
Janet (S) to discuss the banner with Gerry (M)
in an attempt to move the production of the banner forward
Membership handbook
Action- GP to email JL a copy of
an old hand book
AGM
John (S)
reported:
That a
deposit has now been paid for the Edale village hall and the camp site has been
reserved for the RR AGM – Date 23th, to
The issue
of the child crèche for the night of the AGM was discussed. A number of
suggestions were put forward.
Action
- GC was to investigate and organize how we look after and find some
entertainment for our young members. A budget of £100 were allocated for this
element of entertainment.
Action
– Janet (S) to investigate and ensure that notice of the AGM’s dates and
proposals are circulated to all members via the bulletin/MIS in a timely manner
Action
– John (S) was asked to investigate if children were allowed to use the
facilities within the halls outdoors playground.
Action
– John (S) to organize the accommodation/hall access for the AGM
Next NC Meeting
Next NC is weekend of July 1st – 3rd.
Grindleford Hut is booked. Meeting itself will be
Motions for AGM need to be discussed at that
meeting if they are to be backed by NC.
Final Deadline for motions is 15 July for
publication and stuffing with the August MIS.
This has been notified to Membership in January bulletin, but would need
a reminder in an earlier MIS.
Titch offered to look into showing a BMC video
at the AGM, or another expedition slide show.
Action: Secretaries to ensure a reminder goes into
MIS.
Action:
Titch to look into BMC video’s.
Single Parents – review of the RR rules
After
considerable discussion within the NC meeting and a brief on the issue from
Gill Cox (paper submitted and filed with minutes) it was decided that the
committee did not have sufficient knowledge to make any proposals of
improvements to existing RR rules/assistance.
To move
this issue forward John (S) to ask membership if any experts on this sector of
our membership could help put forward ideas for improvement.
Action
– John (S) to ask membership for specialist help on this sector of our
membership.
Training
Climbing
training set to take place at the Roaches on the 16th and 17th
September 2005. Organizer to ensure
payment to accommodation for the event is paid in good time to alleviate a bad
experience suffered on a previous event.
Action
- Nikki F to organize the accommodation for 12 by no
later than Aug 2005
Meeting closed at