Minutes November 2020

Minutes of the committee meeting held via Zoom.

Wednesday 25th November 2020. The meeting started at 7.30pm.

 

1.      Welcome and apologies for absence:

 

ACTUELLE: David Atkins (chairman) DA, Tom Winn (vice chairman)TW, Marina Richards (treasurer) MR, Jacqui Chevalier (secrétaire) JK, Peter Fry PF, Barbara Fry BF, Trevor Skinner TS, Francis Knight FK, Cages Butler GB, Catherine Atkins CA, Kay Strain KS, Paul Badman PB

 

EXCUSES: Sally Wood and Claire Axten

 

2.      Minutes of the meeting held on 23RD Septembre 2020: TW proposed that the minutes were correct and seconded by TS. All agreed and the minutes will be signed at a later date.

 

3.      Matters arising not on Agenda - Guidelines for Event Organisation: This will not include risk assessments for foreign travel as our insurance only covers the UK. DA will re issue the guidelines and it will become a working document.

 

4.      Chairman’s Report: DA thanked everyone who made the AGM happen and also thanked everyone who participated.

 

5.      Secretary’s Report: JK sent an email to Cllr. Goater to follow up the request for a road named after Isny. In the email it stated that there had been a suggestion from a member for the road to be around trees and to be named an Avenue. Cllr. Goater replied that he will keep reminding developers on all major building developments going through planning permissions but informed us that there has been a delay.

 

6.      Treasurer’s Report: Please see the financial report at the end of the minutes. MR thanked members for their membership and lottery payments. JK has handed over all the cheques to MR et KS offered to collect the cheques and bank them which was agreed by the committee. A reminder that when making a BACS payments please change the reference so as it states what the payment is for.

 

Current and deposit account balances were provided.

 

7.      Membership & Member’s Welfare: JK thanked the members who have sent in their membership forms. Sadly Susan Mackenzie, one of our new members who had hoped to visit Gravenchon this year, will not be re-joining Twinning. The Wells family have also said that they will not be re-joining this year. It was agreed to put the Wells family on the supporters list and keep them in the loop with the hope that they may return.

35 members have renewed their membership (including two children) and receipts have been sent for all membership payments received.

 

8.      Visits in 2021:

 

GRAVENCHON: The visit was discussed and it was felt by many committee members that the proposed dates of Wed 5e to Sunday 9e of April 2021 would be too soon to travel abroad. It was agreed that DA will contact Sharon in France and suggest the 2e option of the later date Wed 2e to Sunday 6e Juin. This later date would give members more time to make a decision as planning wouldn’t need to start until possibly April. Travel at this time of year may be more expensive than the proposed April date but we would possibly have more members happy to travel. France will not be reviewing its lock down until Jan 20e including their restaurants and bars and so this later date will also give the French Twinning committee more time for making arrangements for hosting.

DA suggested a Zoom meeting with Gravenchon as the Isny meeting had gone so well. He will suggest this to Sharon.

 

ISNY: BF, TS and Wolfgang had dealt with the technical side of the zoom meeting very well. Wolfgang had given some lessons on zoom as many of their members hadn’t used it before. He suggested that a half yearly zoom meeting between visits would be good as it had gone so well. BF had received some lovely thank you emails from Isny for the greeting cards that were sent to all the families that had been due to travel over to England this year.

The Isny committee have informed us that they will need to make a decision in February as to whether they travel to England next year. This seems very early but hopefully we will all have good news by then in regards to the virus. With this in mind it was agreed that we will need to be contacting our members late January or early February to see who would like to host so as Isny can start making plans. BF will send JK the information about hosting Isny so as all members can be contacted. The proposed visit will take place during the first week in August but exact dates have not been agreed as yet.

Veronica, in Isny, has said that the plans for a road to be named after Street are going ahead.

 

9.      Fundraising and Events: DA informed the committee that he had cancelled the bric a brac stall for the 3RD Dec at the Street Market. It was agreed by the committee that it would be too soon to hold one this year and it will be re arranged for next year.

 

10. Site & Facebook: PF has updated the website with the AGM minutes and JK has posted on Facebook the lottery results and photos from the AGM and the zoom meeting with Isny.

 

11. Publicity: Claire Axten had suggested an article for Basis and DA has started a draft for the January addition. JK will send him the photos from the Isny zoom meeting.

 

12. Loterie: Congratulations to the winners of the November lottery draw. The numbers were drawn by Kay Winn and read out by TW during the zoom meeting.

 

1st Prize no.29 Milly Baily

2e Prize no.58 Kay Winn

3RD Prize no.34 Alison Rowton

 

TW reported that 8 people have bought 28 tickets so far. There is a need for more lottery tickets to be sold to enable the prize money to stay the same. KS offered to take over the lottery as TW had previously stated that he would like to stand down. DA thanked KS for stepping forward.

A reminder that all correspondence for the lottery needs to be sent to Tom until Kay officially takes over. He needs to have signed copies of the lottery forms so as there is evidence for the numbers sold. The wording on the form will be changed ready for next time so as this is clearly stated.

As there is no committee meeting in December it was decided that Tom and Kay Winn will draw the numbers on 23RD Dec. TW will then email the results to JK so as she can send out the results to all the Twinning members.

 

13. AOB:

 

FK reminded committee members to use WhatsApp as it is easier to follow the thread of a conversation rather than using email.

 

MR suggested a Christmas Zoom Quiz as there will be no Christmas meal this year. FK said that he had taken part in zoom quizzes during lock down and people had shared the load of thinking up quiz questions which had worked very well. TS said he has a quiz ready and it was suggested that five rounds of five questions would be long enough for a zoom meeting. This would be open to all members. It was felt by the majority of the committee that it shouldn’t be a fund raiser but more of a friendly get together at Christmas or in the New Year. The committee will use WhatsApp to arrange a date and then the members will be invited and given the Zoom details. CA suggested that a different theme other than Christmas would be appropriate if it is in the New Year.

 

GB et KS, who had not been able to attend the AGM, stated that they are both happy to continue as committee members. There are a total of 14 committee members.

 

14. Chairman’s Closing Remarks: DA thanked everyone for attending the meeting and TS or arranging Zoom. There won’t be another meeting until next year and so season’s greetings to all and have a safe New Year.

 

Meeting Closed at 8.25pm

Date de la prochaine réunion: Wednesday 27th Janvier 2021 at 7.30pm

To be held via Zoom.