Minutes of the 26th Annual General Meetimg of Elmbridge u3a

Held at Claygate Village Hall

1.30 Wednesday 3rd April 2024

The chair introduced the Committee to the members. 

1.      Apologies 

Some members sent their apologies

2.      Minutes

Resolved that the Minutes of the 25th Annual General Meeting of Elmbridge U3A held on 5th April 2023 be approved and signed by the Chair.

Proposed by:  Stephen Black

Seconded by: Sylvia Rodway

Passed: nem con

3.      Matters arising

There were no matters arising.

4.      Chair’s Address on behalf of the Trustees (Committee)

Whilst on the subject of committee members I would like to pay our respects to Tom Appleton who passed away at the end of December. 

Tom Appleton joined Elmbridge u3a in April 2006 and became a committee member and treasurer two months later.  In 2008 he became both the Chair and treasurer and retained both roles until Andrew Craig took over as treasurer. Tom guided and grew Eu3a over the next five years until Janet Larcher took over as chair in 2013. During his time as Chair of Eu3a Tom also supported the growth of South East regional meetings of u3as and chaired those meetings.  Tom was made an honorary member of Eu3a in November 2016.  He was a highly respected and much loved member of our organisation.

2023/24 Recap

At last year’s AGM we defined 4 objectives for the following year: 

FIRSTLY - We would concentrate on helping new members integrate into the u3a.

• Peter Andrew was appointed to the role of New Members Secretary and based on his success in this role we propose today that he is elected to the committee. 

SECONDLY - We would attempt to minimise issues with full groups and waiting lists.

• We created a dedicated email address for the reporting of full groups and a committee member champion - Mark Dowdney – to manage the data and responses to members.  We can never completely solve this problem but we are doing our best to alleviate it.

THIRDLY - We would continue our public relations and recruitment campaign through marketing within the Elmbridge community and building relationships with other organisations.

• We continued our investment in marketing with attendance once again at the Esher Show and by providing permanent outlets for our publicity leaflets.  We created a very successful affiliation with The Riverhouse Barn Arts Centre and are continuing to grow our relationship with the Active Partnerships charity. 

FOURTHLY - We would continue to grow and provide opportunities for our members.

• With over 1400 members (at the end of December 2023) we again exceeded our previous highest levels. Many new groups have been formed throughout the year.  Opportunities have been created for members especially through our relationship with The Riverhouse Barn.

Additionally during the year we:

• Began to update our processes and documentation.  
• AND we have invested considerable effort in the development of our new website and in preparing to migrate to it later this year.

Thanks 

I want to take this opportunity to formally thank every one of our invaluable volunteers – quite literally we would not exist without you.

And that brings me to the demise of one of the two Spelthorne u3as.  This was wound up last year and its balance of funds was shared across local u3as, including ours.  What is pertinent is that it foundered because they were unable to get members to volunteer to replace committee members.

Looking Forward

Therefore, looking forward, our focus will be on increasing the number of volunteers we very much need to sustain our u3a.  To make roles less onerous we will examine how responsibilities can be packaged into small units which demand less effort from individuals.  This will reduce the significant workload on committee members and make their role more attractive at the same time.

That said we urgently need two new committee members to replace impending retirees.

Volunteering can be very rewarding and also beneficial to mental health, so please contact me or any other committee member if you would like to help.

Thank you.

Adoption of the Annual Report of the Trustees (Committee) for the year ended 31 December 2021

Proposed by:  Joanna Rand

Seconded by: David Warren

Passed, nem con

5. Treasurers Address on the Examined Accounts for the year ended 31December 2021

Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen and thank you for joining us for our AGM.   Printed Copies of the Annual report and accounts to 31 December 2023 have been put out for you although these have been previously posted on our website.  

I must stress that our accounts are very simple, showing receipts of the money paid in and payments the money paid out of our bank accounts   For example money received to renew your 2024 membership before the 31st of December 2023 is included in our 2023 receipts.   Similarly expenses are shown as and when these are paid.  In other words these are not related to the period to which those income or costs relate.  

There are 2 individual and a total columns in our accounts.  The first shows our receipts and payments on general funds.  These are the funds relating to the overall activities of Elmbridge u3a for the benefit of all members.  The second is for The Ring fenced funds.  These are funds, held by and on behalf of certain groups such as the theatre, choir and jaunts and whose activities have no impact on the finances of the General fund and relate exclusively to the groups concerned.

The good news is our Bank accounts in the General fund increased in the year by £4,800 to £38,000.  The Bank balance sounds a large figure but of this £17,000 relates to 2024 renewals received by 31 December 2023.  

These bank balances are higher than we anticipated at the time of the last AGM.  Our overall receipts were higher in 2023 by £5,700 whereas our payments only increased by £1,200 as the increase in costs was lower than expected this time last year.

Our principal source of income is our membership fees. 

Membership fees received were higher in 2023 by £4,300, of which £2,400 approximately relates to the increase in membership fee and the balance to the increase in membership in the year.

In addition we received a one-off donation from the winding down of a Spelthorne U3A, 

Of our Payments, those to the Third Age Trust account for some 44% which is a lower percentage than in 2022.   These payments are outside our control and are a function of membership numbers and the unit costs charged by the Third Age trust and are largely charged in arrears.

For example the affiliation fee is based on the number of members as at 31 March each year   The Third Age Matters is also based on the number of copies sent in the year.

The same principle applies to the Elmbridge Newsletter.  Higher postage and printing charges, increased membership as well as more activities to report pushed up the cash spend.

Elsewhere It was pleasing to see the numbers attending the monthly Claygate village Hall talks are on the rise and other costs were marginally lower than 2022.

Finally I would like to say we all owe a special vote of thanks to Adrian Searle for conducting an examination of the accounts and to all individuals, who behind the scenes make Elmbridge U3A so successful and vibrant.

Adoption of the Financial Report for the end of year 31^st December 2021

Proposed by: Christine Purdey

Seconded by: Stephen Black

Passed: nem con

6. Membership Fees for 2024

At the AGM we set the membership fee for the following year, in this case 2025.

Your committee has to look at our cash flow through to the December of the following year, so we have carefully looked at our projected receipts and payments through to December 2025.   

Although we are forecasting our payments will be higher than receipts in 2024 and 2025 we have sufficient funds to hold the membership at £14 for 2025.

Proposed by: Andrew Arnold

Seconded by: Sylvia Rodway

Passed, nem con

7. Election of Committee

The following members were offering themselves for election:

The Chair asked that these members be elected.

Proposed by: John Larcher

Seconded by: Noel Richardson

Passed, nem con

8. Appointment of Independent Examiner

Adrian Searle has indicated that he is happy to continue acting as Elmbridge u3a Independent Examiner for next year.

Proposed by:  Christine Purdey

Seconded by: Linda Tovey

Passed, nem con

9. Any other business

Q. Did any members of the disbanded Spelthorne u3a join Elmbridge.

A. Not known

A vote of thanks was given to the Committee for all their hard work.

The Chair closed the meeting at 1.55pm

The next AGM will take place on Wednesday 2ndApril 2025