Report of the Half Yearly Meeting

REPORT OF THE HALF YEARLY MEETING held on

SATURDAY 24TH OCTOBER 2015 at 2PM, in the NOVOTEL, BIRMINGHAM

Present: ALEX VOLLER National President (Chairman of the meeting)

JANICE O’NEILL National Immediate Past President

PAULA FARNFIELD National Vice President

MELODIE BROOKES National Secretary

JILL HARRIS National Treasurer

SUE HILL National Sales and Regalia Officer

PAULINE CAMPBELL National Editor and Website Coordinator

JACKIE HAMPTON National Executive Administrator

This meeting followed the Tangent Club International HYM which was held in the same room in the morning.

Attendees: 47 ladies, including visiting members of Tangent International, Ladies Circle, and Ladies Circle International.

Apologies: Diana Walker, Yella Belly Tangle 943, Ann Lanyon, Wrekin 83 and Gill Strawbridge, Halstead Colne 392.

The Candles of Friendship were lit by Jill Harris who was the first to book in on the HYM web site, Rosemary Culver, Past National President 1995-96, and Judi Steen, who was thought to have travelled the furthest to the venue.

Correspondence – Two items for discussion had been sent in previously by Keynsham 104.

Capitation Fees – At the National AGM in Bournemouth in 2014 Capitation fees were discussed and it was intended by the National Exec that a vote be taken on that day to change the way we pay our capitations monies, one member one fee no matter how many clubs you belonged to.

We were told that this would only affect about 100 members, those attending the meeting thought this was quite a large under estimation of those who belonged to more than one club.

However the meeting was in agreement that the National Exec could not take a vote on this as it had not appeared on the agenda and we were told that this would be brought back to appear on the 2015 AGM agenda. Sadly it didn’t, which was to many members very disappointing, and if we had known that National was not going to do this we would have put forward a proposal. The payment of Capitation fees should be an accurate measure of the number of members we have, it’s obviously not.

Why should some members contribute more to the National organisation than others, just because they support more than one club, it doesn’t cost the National organisation any more because they choose to extend their friendship by supporting more than one club. Indeed they are paying more to belong than others and clouding the real cost of membership of this brilliant organisation.

The end result of a change, should there be one, will probably mean that Capitation fees will increase, but I strongly believe that each member should pay the true cost of running our association. It is possible that an increase could be avoided for a few years if we use some of the vast reserves that we hold, I refer here to the £50,000 which was also discussed at the 2015 AGM, to stave off increases and let Tangent of today pay for Tangent of today, after all we do not know what the future holds for the club membership numbers, but that’s a whole new subject!

Lis Evans, Immediate Past Chairman

The National Treasurer, Jill Harris, led this discussion reporting that she still had 14 Capitation forms outstanding. From the forms received we have 271 members belonging to more than one club, which could equal to £1287. We need to think about how this affects our insurance. In the event of a claim Jill would need to provide evidence that Capitation had been paid by the club and give a list of names. If we have a club with which all members are members of more than one club and no Capitation is paid for this club, the insurance claim may probably not be paid out. Jill said she is chasing some clubs for the third time for the Capitation Fees.

Suggestions and observations from the floor

·  50%, or nominal fee for membership of a second and further club

·  The Women’s Institute National Capitation is £24

·  Members of several clubs had no problem paying for each club as it was their choice to do so. It was suggested that we consider the organisation rather than being dictated to by the Insurance Broker.

·  Concern was raised about events held. If we change we may not be covered, there may be a jump in price and we need to look at the whole picture.

·  Difficult to see how many members we have. In an ideal world it would be good to have a database but to put this into practice will be hard, expensive and there are many ladies who are against providing the information. However, it was pointed out that under the Data Protection Act, if registered, this data cannot be used anywhere else.

·  When Ladies Circle set up their database it was onerous and expensive, they understood the issues with setting it up so perhaps an additional Executive member would be required. Perhaps the new Tangent members who are leaving Ladies Circle would be the beginning of a new database, as it would be what they would expect.

·  Denmark LC pass the details of their retiring members on to Tangent, and they can opt not to have the information passed on.

Jill will prepare a budget to be sent to all clubs this month for information and consideration, in time for them to send a proposal to the AGM if they wish, by the closing date of 15 January.

Regalia

Asa member of Keynsham Tangent I ask the following questions for the benefit of all Tangents who may find themselves in the same position as the recently closed Bristol Tangent, of which I am a past chairman.
Sadly Bristol Tangent No 2 decided to disaffiliate this year. Their very valuable chairman's chain and various other items of regalia have been returned to NATC for safe keeping. We understand thatif the Tangent were to reform the regalia would be returned to the club.
Themembers of the former Bristol Tangent are concerned about the safety of the regalia. Please can NATC tell us where the regalia is to be kept and how it's safety is secured and insured.

Should the City of Bristol be interested in keeping the regalia in their archives what would be NATC's view of this? We believe that this has happened with the regalia of a local Rotary Club after its closure.

Jane Watts Chairman Keynsham and District Tangent Club

The National Secretary Melodie Brookes explained the current position. She read the Disaffiliation letter and Returned Regalia form to the meeting and then explained the process.

On receiving regalia from disaffiliating clubs

·  Send confirmation of receipt

·  Photograph items on separate camera card

·  Check value with local (past Tabler) jeweller

·  At the moment safely secured in Secretary’s home

·  Insurance has been confirmed as covered by NATC insurers

She had also received one box of past records. If this continues, storage may need to be paid for. Regalia & records can be offered to the club’s local Museum ‘on loan’, or similar. Not somebody’s loft! Regalia has ended up in charity shops, & surviving relatives do not have time or knowledge to return to NATC. It is helpful to know where it is held.

Collecting regalia had only started at the beginning of last year there is no room at Marchesi House to store old items.

Suggestions and observations from the floor

·  Bank safe deposit box (c£30) per year

·  Could specify valuable items on Secretary’s home insurance.

·  Sometimes local archives would take documentation but not the Regalia.

·  LC - ideally they would like their clubs to keep the items. They do have storage, which they pay for.

·  Some Tangents are holding their closed Circle’s regalia

·  Denmark - reported that when a Circle closes the Round Table keep it.

Other Items suggested for discussion

a)  TCI

b)  Finances

c)  Patron

d)  Observations on future AGM format/timings

e)  Venue for HYM 2016

f)  Number of magazines per club

a) TCI

Immediate Past President Janice O’Neill started the discussion by asking us what we would like to be called. The other countries within TCI do not know how to refer to us. We need to decide on a uniform name to be used at International Events.

Janice explained what the various names actually cover;

UK = Eng, Scot, Wales & N Ireland + Jersey & IOM

GB = Eng, Scot, Wales & N Ireland

GB&I everything including Southern Ireland too

British Isles covers it all

Suggestions and observations from the floor

·  GB&I in line with LC and RT as we do not have any clubs in southern Ireland

·  that we look at what happens in sport

·  There is a dilemma; do we include Northern and Southern Ireland? Some titles exclude the Islands.

Janice proposed that this is taken back to the clubs to discuss and a proposal submitted for the AGM.

b) Finances

National Treasurer, Jill Harris opened by saying she has current concerns as she is looking at our budgets. We are in a negative situation for this year and we will eat into our reserves. Some of the previous year’s figures had been carried over into this year’s accounts, and as a result expenditure will be more than income. We are involved more in the running of the National Conference, which costs. We agreed that we wanted to stand on our own two feet. The President travels a lot more and all the Executive need to attend all the Regional Lunches. The website needs to be maintained. Yes, we do have reserves but more of this is needed for deposits for Regional Lunches. Loans for lunches used to range from £150 to £300 per event. Now there are requests of up to £5,000 (this last one was reduced to £1,500 by negotiation) so a lot of the reserves could be used in two years with 7 lunches per year. We want to leave something for the future and would like clubs to think about our subs. Jill said that being members of TCI would incur future costs. At present they are rotating the role of President between the member countries of TCI. These future costs need to be planned for, and looked at by the membership. Perhaps we could start by adding the cost of two carrier bags (2 x 5p) per member. Jill pointed out that we need to value our Association and pay a realistic national Capitation.

Suggestions and observations from the floor

·  At the moment the financial report is published in the AGM Agenda and a vote is taken on audited accounts. Members need to see a budget and be able to discuss it, before and voting and not just be presented with the accounts.

·  A proposal to ring fence some of the reserves was proposed but was voted out at a previous AGM.

Jill Harris – replied that she was preparing a budget this year for clubs to examine. This is to be sent out before the cut off date for submitting Propositions for the AGM.

·  Younger ladies wouldn’t bat an eyelid at a realistic Capitation. Ladies Circle Capitation is £63.00. It is embarrassing that time has been spent at AGMs arguing over 10p.

·  We have a variation of ages, with different opinions. You will have different responses from different areas of the country creating a difficult task ahead.

·  If our reserves were £50,000 roughly, what would you need to put our subs up by? 50p rather an increment of 10p for TCI?

·  Some would be most happy to pay but are worried about members drifting off.

·  It was a question of choice for the members

Jill Harris said that perhaps we need to look at other ways to give more benefits to members and that she was looking at the 41 Club’s ‘Wider Wallet’ scheme to see if it had a value to Tangent members.

·  There was a suggestion that there should be an annual increase with the cost of living to our Capitation.

·  Are there guidelines for the Executive claiming expenses, could we use Skype calls, how much has this meeting cost including expenses for the meeting?

Janice O’Neill responded by saying that we have a Budget of £3,000 p.a. for International. There were zero costs to NATC today as the room was covered by the International budget (£150 hire of room.)

Melodie Brookes, Secretary, reported that there are guidelines for claiming expenses for the Executive. These are available and are sent out as a matter of course to candidates considering standing for National office. She had also checked the Minutes of the 2015 AGM in Harrogate on the voting about holding an HYM and advised us that there was a clear green card majority with three abstaining. This meant that there was no need for a paper count

·  International costs for the next year?

·  Is there is a budget for TCI expenditure as we are committed to TCI and with a future meeting in India costs are going up.

Alex Voller – we have discussed this and what was agreed was that TCI wouldn’t cost more for the next 3 years; we need to prepare now for the additional costs to come. We have one person who is the IRO and a budget of £3,000pa for travelling.

·  Suggestion that we put the subs up to £10.00 and no one would flinch.

Melodie pointed out that this was just a discussion forum but that she had proposal forms to be taken away.

c) Patron –