ARC minutes 2016-05-26
Attendees
Carol Campbell, Kate West, Chris Keating, Alastair McCapra, Megan Griffith Gray, Lucy Crompton-Reid, Davina Johnson
Apologies
Greyham Dawes
Welcome and introductions
We welcomed Megan Griffith Gray and Alastair McCapra to the meeting as our new external members.
Minutes of the previous meeting
The minutes of the previous meeting were approved. There were no matters arising not on the agenda.
Annual Report and Accounts for 2015/16
ARC reviewed the Annual Report and Accounts. These are at final stage having previously been reviewed by the treasurer, Chair and the CE, and are just waiting for partner review by KS. ARC was happy to recommend the Report and Accounts to the Board provided the partner review does not make material alterations necessary.
The result for the year was good and despite the restructure costs during the year we moved from a deficit budget to almost break-even at the year end.
It was noted that the process with KS had worked well and the move from audit to Independent Examination meant the process was easier and faster than a full audit.
Quarter 1 QFMR and Finance Commentary
Davina and Lucy reported in detail on these to the meeting. Discussion was held around the level of exceptions reporting and whether the exceptions were before or after overhead absorption.
It is too early in the year to get a meaningful forecast but ARC was pleased to note that we had no unexpected variances for the period.
ARC thanked Davina for her efficiency in getting both the QMFR and the Annual Accounts ready for the meeting.
Procurement Policy and Procedure
These have been substantially rewritten by Davina and now agree with the CE's scheme of delegation and the processes within the office.
ARC went through the documents in detail and subject to some wording being tidied up we are pleased to recommend them to the board for approval.
Gift aid and Database
Davina and Lucy gave verbal reports on both the data base and the gift aid.
Davina working with Richard have got the gift aid claims up to date and we are now submitting them monthly.
Discussion was held around CiviCRM, staff training needs, data protection etc.
ARC recommended that as we had a) solved the main problem (gift aid claims) and b) have significant work to do on both programmes and fundraising, with an office move pending, we could put replacing the database on hold and review at the November meeting.
Membership and individual giving
Lucy updated ARC on both membership and the plans to contact our individual givers. We had a wide ranging discussion around the working of smart debit, the PayPal systems, etc. We noted that membership numbers were down to 190 and that increasing this was a priority.
The discussion fed into Lucy's ongoing work in this area and we look forward to hearing how she proposes to move this forward.
Fundraising
Lucy had a meeting of the new fundraising group the previous day, and gave a brief report on this prior to her report to the board.
AOB
Membership and approval of membership applications. It was noted that people were still not being advised that there membership had lapsed. Some discussion was also held around approval of membership applications, however Lucy reported that this has recently been speeded up significantly. Lucy will be contacting lapsed members as part of the membership drive planned for early June, and will follow up in the office to ensure that there is a process in place to contact lapsed members on an ongoing basis.
We were pleased to hear that the new bank mandates had all been approved and were working well.
We were asked to note that Unity Bank our main banking providers are starting to apply bank charges to our accounts.
Date of next meeting
This will be in the week beginning the 29th August - a doodle poll will fix the exact date.