LANGHAM COMMUNITY COUNCIL
Minutes of a Finance Committee Meeting
held on 6th June 2022 at 7.30pm, LCC Club Room

Present
Alan Cadman, Maureen Shouksmith, Paul Armstrong, Martin Bottwood, Sue Armstrong. Apologies: Liz Schofield.

Matters Arising from Finance Meeting on 9th May 2022
Alan to review adequacy of LCC Roof Survey with Rob Clark: Not yet done. Alan suggested that this issue should now await discussion at the AGM. Ongoing AC
Obtain competitive quotes for Hearing Loop project: Not yet done. Paul indicated that he would continue to see this project through to completion after stepping down as Secretary. Ongoing PA
Research potential options for lower cost support of EPOS/Sumup requirements: Alan noted that his Sumup machine had worked successfully on the County Broadband connection in the LCC (but with limited range onto the Rec Ground) at the recent Jubilee events. We now need to review the situation for the Shop’s EPOS systems and undertake some testing. Ongoing PA

Chairman’s Report
No report this time.

Treasurer’s Report
Maureen has made some slight updates to the P&L spreadsheet layout and categories, to provide a more helpful breakdown of the figures. The Simple P&L is working well, but the Full P&L still requires a bit of debugging. The new layout will deliver a rolling 12 month view.
Provisional April figures indicate a £2262 monthly profit, but this does include £576 electricity payment received from the Shop, as well a lot of new hire deposits. The majority of April income was from local regular hirers. Cygnet have been cancelling quite a lot of their bookings (about £1.8k worth) as they endeavour to do more training ‘in-house’.
Cumulative profit for Apr + May 2022 is just over £1k. Today’s current account balance is £1,239.90. Today’s saver account balance is £78,699.60 which includes a recent £2.5k transfer in from the current account.



Marketing Manager’s Report
It was disappointing to note that only two regular hirers had taken up the offer to do leaflet or promotional marketing at yesterday’s Jubilee Event. (The proactive groups were the Scouts and the religious Sunday hire group).
There have been two hire cancellations for June. Both provided enough notice to receive a 50% refund, but one volunteered not to receive this. Bookings overall remain somewhat sporadic, with an increasing number of short-notice hirings.
The Pre-School have erected a new external awning which has unfortunately blocked the view from one of our security cameras. It’s a shame that they didn’t liaise with us first. Sue has now asked Chris to assess and suggest remedial options.
The missing small table quota is now at two. Sue recommends that she should buy a matching replacement pair. Replacement of the small fridge is the Club Room bar is still proving tricky due to the non-standard recess size into which it must fit. Action SA
The Essex County Council freighter visit this morning had proved very timely and helpful in clearing excess rubbish from the Sunday Jubilee Events.

S106 Planning
Martin provided an update on his current understanding of the evolving Colchester Borough Council process through which housing developers must pay financial contributions towards enhancement of local community facilities in the vicinity of the developments. This now includes (in addition to S106 contracts for developments of more than 10 dwellings) a new fundraising category of Unilateral Undertakings (UUs) for smaller developments of 1-10 new dwellings.
There was some “reminiscing” about previous S106 disappointments where housing projects were dropped and community project feasibility studies had come to nothing as a result.
Martin is attempting to schedule a meeting with CBC’s Community Facilities Enabling Officer Mark Healy at the LCC, w/c 20th June, to discuss UUs and the project lists/documentation which needs to be provided to CBC to help manage the release of funds. Action MB
We reviewed the S106 Community Facilities Project List attached to the current Vistry Homes development, and also noted that the impending Williamsons Homes development should drive a further set of Community Facilities projects as part of the S106 negotiations around this new development.
There was some initial discussion about potential major new projects. Ideas raised included: a retractable awning above the rear patio area of the LCC; separate mains provision for the Recreation Ground.
It was agreed that the Shop should also be contacted about project ideas for making good use of existing Vistry S106 funding and potential new Williamsons S106 funding. Action PA
At a smaller project level, Sue has recently received a quote for LED stage lights at around £1k + installation. This may be a suitable project for picking up under Unilateral Undertakings funding.

LCC Broadband & Phone Service
We now have two broadband services in place – the expensive business-grade XLN service and the free County Broadband residential-grade service. It is still currently unclear whether the free service offers sufficient functionality to allow us to dispense with the XLN service. Further assessment and testing is required with both the Shop and the Pre-School. Action PA

Any Other Business
At the AGM, we need to ask for Trustees’ approval to use George Pearce to review our FY21/22 accounts. Action PA

We also need to ask Liz Schofield if she is prepared to be co-opted onto the Finance Committee once again, and if so, to seek Trustees’ approval for this. Action PA

Date of Next Meetings
Next Trustee Meeting: Thurs 30th June at Langham Community Centre, immediately after the LCC AGM.
Next Finance Committee Meeting: TBC