MINUTES OF THE S.H.A.G.S. COMMITTEE
Meeting held on 8 January 2020 in the Ted Allen Room
In attendance: Mike Cobley (MC)(Chair); Carole Pamphlett (CP)(Treasurer); Peter Hicks (PDH) (Secretary); Roger Glanville (RMG)(Dep. Chair); Chris Overton (CO); Jim Machin (JM); Rod Cooley (RC); Chris Wilson (CW); Dominic Houlihan (DH); John Myres (JMy); Keith Davison (KD) and Tom Chichester-Miles (TMC)
Apologies: Irene Boogerman, Jane Keech, Linda Gahagan, Roger Gillett, Fraser Gordon, Geoff Bateman, Hazel Upton, Jenny Stevenson, Marcia Dorey and Roger White.
1.1 Review of minutes from December
No minutes have been completed due to the Secretary not receiving the meeting recording until three working days before this meeting.
1.2 Action Points from December meeting:
No action points have been noted due to the Secretary not receiving the meeting recording until three working days before this meeting.
2. Finance
CP distributed the year-end accounts that showed a surplus of £2,620.97 mainly due to increased rental fees. CP ran through some of the items in greater detail.
The committee approved the accounts.
3. Site Matters
See Reports circulated.
MC commented on the amount of rain that we have had over the winter and how many plots are currently saturated.
4. Lettings
JM reported that he had found a solution to the problem of keeping a record of plots where there are joint plot-holders with different surnames. Irene had suggested a way of entering the names so that the mailout part of the database prints the names as required.
There are still about 40 plot-holders who have e-mails but have not accepted electronic renewal. Jim is going to contact them by e-mail, attaching the renewal form to the e-mail as an example, to ask if they are prepared to change their mind.
CP told the meeting that we have decided to reduce the number of renewal mornings for this year, so we will only be renewing in person on 1st and 8th March. She also clarified that renewals would be sent out to all plot-holders as there had been no notifications of any “problem plots” for 2019.
JM suggested visiting RHS Wisley for the annual outing on 13th September as there had been a lot of change there recently.
However, he would be on holiday the previous week so would be looking for another volunteer to finalise the arrangements for the last week and the day of the trip.
JM confirmed that he would be sending a copy of the database to the council as required.
5. Machinery
CO told the meeting that servicing would be starting soon. He asked that site reps impress on their plot-holders to keep their site reps informed of any machinery faults, rather than notifying CO direct, so that all parties were kept in the loop.
One new strimmer has been ordered but has not yet been delivered.
6. Projects/New Developments
RMG confirmed that he would be attending a planning meeting of the Southdown Festival on the 16th January at the Plough & Harrow. A report to the committee will follow that meeting.
7. Shop
The stock-take was completed successfully, with nine volunteers assisting on the day.
8. Communications
RC confirmed that he had added some photos to an article MC had written for the Harpenden Forum. MC asked for them to be resent as the photos hadn’t been received by the council.
Am e-mail address has been set up for the photograph competition. RC suggested that we open an account on Flickr or DropEvent so that members can upload their own photos directly onto these photo-storing websites.
CW asked about the photo competition rewards and how it would be integrated into our annual Awards evening. The meeting agreed that we would not want anything taking the focus away from the existing awards, which exist to encourage active growing.
9. Newsletter
Irene had asked for articles for the 2020 edition of The Plot So Far. CP re-iterated that this would be the final year that Irene would be able to edit the newsletter so we would need a new editor for 2021.
10. A.O.B.
There was no other business.
Meeting closed at 20:20.
Date of Next Committee Meeting: 12th February 2020 at 19:15 in the Ted Allen Room