Minutes of NADFAS NE AREA Spring Meeting Held

Minutes of NADFAS NE AREA Spring Meeting held

on Monday 24th February 2014 at New Earswick, York

Present:Mrs Jennifer Downey, NE Area Chairman

Mrs Elizabeth Evans, Deputy Chairman and Area Secretary

Mrs Joan Lawrence, Area Secretary elect

Mrs Maureen Jones, Treasurer

Mrs Sue Behrens, Church Recorders

Mrs Mary Grunwell, Heritage Volunteers

Mrs Alison Buckingham, Young Arts Representative

Mrs Jenny Cotton, Young Arts Representative

Mrs Chris Shepherd, Website

Mrs Helga Toon, Church Trails

Mrs Wendy Keeble, NADFAS National Trainer

and

Representatives from all 23 societies in North East Area

Chairman’s Welcome –Jennifer Downey welcomed everyone to the meeting and in particular the guest speaker, Mrs Wendy Keeble, NADFAS National Trainer. She was sorry to announce that Mr Shaun Pitt, the NADFAS Trustee, who had been planning to take questions on Finance, was not able to come due to ill health. He had provided written replies to the two specific questions submitted earlier. (Please see these answers later in the minutes.)

1.Apologies were received from Dr Virge James, Area Education Representative,

Carole le Duc and Eileen Davies, North Yorks and South Durham, Sarah Brierley, Sheffield, Judith Frattini, Hull & East Riding, Jessica Cathcart, Scarborough and Pat Campbell, Holderness, Michael Banks and Julia Oldfield, Sheffield.

2The Minutes of the Autumn Meting held on Monday 1st October 2013 were accepted and signed.

3Matters arising - none. Jennifer Downey proposed that at the Annual General Meeting in 2015, the Spring Meeting Minutes should be presented, rather than the Autumn Meeting, which is only attended by Chairman and Secretaries. Proposed by Monica Slater, Sheffield and Chris Shepherd, Website committee member.

4REPORTS

All reports were circulated with the Notices and Agenda for this meeting. Jennifer Downey invited all the committee members to stand up before the meeting and asked them to add any further comments.

(a)Chairman’s Report - (Jennifer Downey chose to take her report last.)

Jennifer Downey opened her report with regret for the sudden death of David Bell, NADFAS Chief Executive. North East Area has given £250 to the Memorial Fund , which she reported now stands at £21,000. It is planned to use this to encourage young people to explore a career in art and conservation.

She attends the Advisory Council and the Chairman’s Forum, who have addressed many issues including the growth of membership, management issues within the volunteering structure as well as Area Boundaries. The IT development is progressing rapidly through RikGadsby, the Operations and IT Director.

NADFAS House hopes to develop ideas related to the anniversary of World War One, through out all the volunteers as well as special lectures. There are 30 lectures in the Directory with World War One themes.

She has already enjoyed invitations to several societies and is looking forward to more in the summer. She appreciates the programme cards, fliers and newsletters and encouraged societies to submit them for the Media Award.

Jennifer Downey ended by thanking her committee, particularly those who are retiring and welcomed the new members.

(b)Education

Virge James had reported fully on the success of the Study Days for 2013, and has provided the programme for 2014 which has the theme of Behind the Scenes, with three lecture days and the speakers David Phillips, Anne Anderson and David Boyd Haycock. She is succeeded by Teresa Rose, who encouraged members to attend. As she is preparing her new programme, she asked the meeting to show their preference for meeting at Leeds City Art Gallery or the Bar Convent, York. There was an overwhelming vote in favour of the Bar Convent.

(c)Training

Meg Moore was happy to report 18 committee members from various societies had attended the Confident Speaker Days in November. She is now planning a Joint Information Day on 29th April also at the Bar Convent, York.

(d)Church Recorders

Susan Behrens reported a good year for Church recorders. The highlight had been a combined day with the North West Area at St. Wilfrid’s Church, Harrogate to celebrate 40 years of volunteering. She was pleased to list the 14 Societies who are actively preparing records. It was pointed out from the floor that Tyneside work with Hexham on Bywell St. Andrew.

(e)Heritage Volunteers

Mary Grunwell, Area Representative for the east of the area, had no new projects to report but existing work continues. York has four projects including Castle Howard and the Minster. She mentioned that Hambleton has completed their work at Shandy Hall. She had also received praise for the work done by Holderness on Wassand Hall. She feels these comments make volunteering so worthwhile.

(An HV Area Representative is needed for the “west” of the Area)

(f)Young Arts Groups

Alison Buckingham, the representative for the northern area, offered congratulations to Lois Ancell,the young artist from Northallerton College whose work has been accepted for the RBA exhibition at the Mall Galleries in London. She was pleased to welcome the young arts representative for the new York Evening Society. She also reported having great difficulty generating the “pink forms”. She hopes to follow this up with NADFAS House. She thanked all the Young Art representatives and explained she now hands over to Carole le Duc.

Jenny Cotton, for the South of the Area, thanked Michele Lewis for her support for Young Arts. She plans to discuss the activities for 2014 within the Young Arts group at this meeting. She helped to celebrate 40 years of NADFAS volunteering at Kensington Town Hall. She had also supported the Sheffield Young Artist A level exhibition at the Millennium Galleries in January when 300 people attended to see the work. New for 2015 North East Young Arts look forward to the announcement of the aims of the Guild of St. George to celebrate the John Ruskin achievements.

(g)Website

Chris Shepherd was pleased to give a short update on the North East Area web site: She encouraged members to keep sending in their information. She is helping RikGadsby at NADFAS House with the launch of a new national website. It is hoped this will be ready in the Spring.

(h)Church Trails

Helga Toon was pleased to report that there are now 8 completed church trails in this area with another 5 in progress. The cost to set them up is only £50. If any society is interested, she said she would be pleased to speak with them during the day.

5PRESENTATION OF ACCOUNTS

The Treasurer, Mrs Maureen Jones presented the Accounts, which had been distributed to members before the meeting. She explained the subscriptions were down due to falling membership. The Miscellaneous is the payment to the David Bell Memorial Fund. The creditors include the money from the study days and income from the Church Recorders day celebrated 40 years of volunteering. Susan Behrens pointed out that this sum is to be shared with North West Area.

The Treasurer plans to buy a bond in the United Trust Bank soon.

The acceptance of the Accounts was proposed by Helga Toon, Driffield Wolds and seconded by Andrew Green, from Derwent; they were accepted unanimously by the meeting.

6ELECTION OF OFFICERS

(a)ChairmanMrs Jennifer Downey

(b)Deputy ChairmanMrs Elizabeth Evans

(c)TreasurerMrs Maureen Jones

(d)SecretaryMrs Joan Lawrence

One representative from each Society was asked to complete a voting slip. When these were collected it was unanimously confirmed that these members should hold these positions for the next year.

The meeting approved the election of the following members of the Committee.

Mrs Meg MooreArea Trainer

Mrs Susan BehrensChurch Recording Area Representative (CRAR)

Dr Teresa RosEducation (ACE)

Mrs Mary GrunwellHeritage Volunteers

Mrs Alison BuckinghamYoung Arts (retiring September 2014)

Mrs Carole le DucYoung Arts (from September 2014)

Mrs Jenny CottonYoung Arts

Chris Shepherd will help with the Website and Helga Toon will develop Church Trails.

7VOTE OF THANKS to the Retiring Committee members Jennifer Downey expressed her thanks in her absence to Dr. Virge James, retiring ACE as well as thanking and making a presentation to Alison Buckingham, the Young Arts Representative.

8APPOINTMENT OF HON. INDEPENDENT EXAMINER.

Jane Baldwin was appointed the Hon. Independent Examiner. This was proposed by Jane Hedley, seconded by Mary Grunwell and unanimously approved.

9DATES FOR FUTURE MEETINGS

Annual Directory Meeting2014Monday 24th March

2015Monday 16th March

Annual General Meeting2014 13-15th May, Torquay, Devon

201520th May, Kensington Town Hall, London

North East Area Autumn

Meeting2014Monday, 20th October, New Earswick, York

North East Area AGM2015Monday, 23rd February, New Earswick, York

OPEN FORUM with Wendy Keeble, NADFAS National Trainer

She was delighted to be attending and impressed by the meeting with members of all 23 North East Area Societies present.

She first described what Training is not. It is not NADFAS House telling you what to do, but they can help with insurance and first aid. It is learning new skills, such as learning about an artist through the lecture programme, how to conserve a book as a heritage volunteer or how to stand up in front of a room full of people on a Confident Speaking course. Most Societies have similar problems, namely falling membership, finding volunteers and difficulty with new technology. She has found much information from the feed back forms and overwhelmingly they valued the opportunity to talk to their peers; in fact they asked for even more time and there are to be Follow-up Days arranged for New Society Chairmen..

NADFAS believes that training is a way of future marketing your Society. The Membership Recruitment and Retention day is packed with ideas and activities. She described how at the Treasurer’s Forum and New Society Chairman days they might explore risk assessment showing how to produce a simple one for a particular Society. Similarly the Programme Planners’ Day, which will consider the options if your speaker does not attend for whatever reason. Also it will consider the rising cost of lecturers. She had Newsletters to hand out, produced by Mail Chimp and on the National website

They are developing teams of presenters based all over the United Kingdom, who will collaborate with the Area Trainer so that it is not always necessary to go to London. She emphasised the importance of our Area Trainer, Meg Moore. Her next local training event is on 29th April in York and is a Joint Information Day.

In summary Wendy Keeble urged members to let her know what training they would like, and said it is her job to listen, be flexible, facilitate what you want and where you want it, as well as understanding what the members want to get out of the event.

Questions

York Evening wondered about the training of the speakers.

Sheila Bielby, from Saltaire, wondered if it was time to put the Directory Meeting on disk rather than gathering everyone in London.

Rodney Harris enquired about an IT course.

Before breaking for lunch Halifax and Beverleyasked if there would be any reply to the questions that had been forwarded to the Chairman before the Meeting. It has been agreed to print these questions here and to attach the answers provided by Mr. Shaun Pitt, the Trustee, who had unfortunately been unable to attend the meeting.

After lunch the members dispersed into groups depending on their responsibilities and interests with NADFAS, who each reported back to the meeting before it closed with thanks from the Chairman to the Speaker, Wendy Keeble and all the members for attending with particular thanks to the staff at the Folk Hall, New Earswick

The next North East Area AGM will be on Monday, 23rd February 2015 at New Earswick, York

FINANCE QUESTIONS SUBMITTED TO THE NADFAS NORTH EAST AREA ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING ON MONDAY 24TH FEBRUARY 2914 AT NEW EARSWICK, YORK

1. Halifax DFAS:

"Halifax is a small society, having fewer than 150 members. Under the present arrangements a disproportionate amount of our members subscriptions goes directly to NADFAS in one form or another. This is onerous - in fact not long ago we nearly folded for lack of funds partly caused by this burden. Why does NADFAS not apply graduated fees in the same way that NADFAS NE does so that smaller societies pay a smaller percentage than larger ones?"

Answer from Shaun Pitt, NADFAS Trustee with responsibility for overseeing the Budget.

I will now turn to the question that one of your societies has raised -in fact it is really two questions, the first around the costs of NADFAS affiliation and related charges and particularly the impact of these on the smaller societies and the second on the costs of lecturers’ fees and expenses.

In relation to the first issue let me deal with the issue of the affiliation fee (and other charges) in general and then I will also deal with the impact on smaller societies

The short answer is that the affiliation fee is the principal source of revenue that is used to finance the various activities that are carried on at NADFAS House.

The medium answer is then a matter of showing what those costs are and what proportion of the total costs they represent and I suspect that, for most people, this is probably the most useful analysis (based on 2012 the last complete year) and this is shown, in some detail, in note 4 to the annual accounts but, in summary, what this shows is that our expenditure falls into the following categories:

Education - lecturer assessment, monitoring, creating and maintaining the online and hard copy directory and staging and managing the ADM-13.8%

Volunteering-research, advice, monitoring and admin, grants for HV, CR YA and church trails - 18.1%

Membership services-membership records (manual and online), all aspects of setting up and running a society, legal, financial and secretarial advice, SST and NST and insurance - 26.7%

Governance - 10.7%. Other trading activities - 6.9%. NADFAS review - 22.6%

Courses, grants and transfers to designated funds - 1.2%

TOTAL £1540k=100%

Clearly not all societies will use all these services every year but this expenditure is designed to support all societies in the ways that are relevant to them at whatever stage of development they may be.

I would also make the point that we also have a rigorous budget setting and approval process, which I personally oversee, with a view to ensuring that we are getting the best possible return for societies affiliation fees. The budget is also presented to the advisory council before it is taken to, and approved by, the board.

However the question also referred to the particular issue, as that society saw it, of the impact on the smaller society and whether NADFAS has/was considering a form of graduated affiliation fees.

Of course, by virtue of the affiliation fee being a per capita charge it is already a graduated fee i.e. it varies directly with the number of members and I have already referred to the impact that rising member numbers could have on the affiliation fee. The society believes that the affiliation fee is disproportionately high because it is smaller - its affiliation fee represents 25.36% of its income; although I do not have the equivalent figures for all societies, I can tell you that my own society (Royal Leamington Spa DFAS - the 2nd largest in the UK) percentage is almost exactly 33% so, in general, I do not think it is the case that affiliation fees bear disproportionately on smaller societies.

The questioner also refers to the other charges and I will deal briefly with each of these:

-insurance (1.05%); I think if you were to search around and find the quality and level of insurance that the NADFAS central scheme provides on a society standalone basis, you would find the cost dramatically more - in fact I would say that the insurance is one of the real benefits of being part of NADFAS because we are able to pool risks and therefore achieve coverage at a much lower cost.

- fares pool (3%). Interestingly the fares pool structure was brought in at the request of societies and was specifically designed to benefit societies that are smaller and/or more remote from London. It is a graduated mechanism and does involve a substantial transfer from larger/nearer to London societies to the smaller/more remote societies.

- area fee (0.4%) Given that this is such a small sum I do not propose to say much on this except that most societies that I am familiar with find significant value in belonging to an area and I am sure that that would be the case here.