LANGHAM COMMUNITY COUNCIL
Minutes of a Finance Committee Meeting
held on 14th June 2021 at 7.30pm on Zoom

Present
Alan Cadman, Maureen Shouksmith, Paul Armstrong, Liz Schofield, Martin Bottwood, Sue Armstrong. No Apologies.

Matters Arising from Finance Meeting on 19th Apr 2021
Chase Ellie at FJG for the re-drafted Shop & PreSchool Leases: Discharged AC (revised paper contracts were posed out on Thu 10th June but haven’t arrived yet)
Write to all Trustees seeking their approval to apply for a COVID Restart Grant: Discharged PA
Put re-engagement of George Pearce as auditor on the AGM agenda for Trustee approval: Discharged PA

Chairman’s Report
Following the appointment of Hoggarth & Cooke to oversee the roof replacement project, they have now engaged roof surveyors/steel girder testers who are scheduled to visit all day on 25th June. The surveyors will need to see the LCC asbestos report prior to their visit – Sue has this in electronic format and can email it to them. Action: SA
Most of the Car Park safety survey has been done online, but the surveyor still needs to visit Alan on site before he can sign off his risk assessment. He should only need about an hour on site and it will hopefully be scheduled very soon. Action: AC

Treasurer’s Report
Closing bank balances today were: current a/c £3056.92; deposit a/c £76,135.07.
Maureen noted that expenditure and income had roughly balanced for May. But Sue noted that there were a number of cancellation refunds still to be processed, which would worsen the situation. Maureen had recently sent copies of Sue & Cheryl’s P60s over to Sue (Sue to hand on to Cheryl).
Maureen has recently been updating the P&L layout format to hopefully make it a bit easy to interpret and also do direct month-by-month comparisons. She will circulate this for comment by all please. Action: MS/All
Maureen and Paul are planning to meet with George Pearce to seek clarification on some potential slight discrepancies between Maureen’s 2019/20 raw P&L figures and George Pearce’s 2019/20 audit figures which have slightly different spending category groupings. We just want to understand any differences before we move on to the 2020/21 review. Action: MS/PA

Marketing Manager’s Report
Sue reported that she was fielding many enquiries in anticipation of imminent lockdown easing. From September onwards, all bar 2 Saturday nights are now provisionally booked up until the end of the year.
The Karate Club for children is doing well, and the organiser is now considering whether to extend classes into autumn by switching to a Tuesday after Bridge Club returns.
Langham Ladies will be resuming a Thursday evening hire this autumn. The Silver Band situation is still uncertain.
Langham Parish Council should ideally have a schedule of meetings up to a year ahead, but are kindly operating on a month by month basis at present until Sue’s booking patterns hopefully settle down and become clearer over the next couple of months.
Sue noted that the large main hall is by far the favourite room at present due to the high ceilings and excellent ventilation options.
As COVID limitations on Committee Room numbers are removed, Sue will be keen to explore the potential for a stairlift + evacuation facility, to make the room more attractive for hiring.
Sue confirmed for Alan that the current maximum room capacities are currently 75 main hall; 24 club room; 12 committee room.
The referee’s shower is still inoperative, Sue will chase Terry to get this fixed. Action: SA
One of the main hall aircon units is still leaking today after an unsuccessful repair attempt. The repair engineers have been recalled to investigate further.

New COVID Recovery Grant
We reviewed our provisional plans for our £8k allocation from the last Finance Meeting, and the subsequent feedback from the last full Trustee Meeting. Liz wondered whether the money should be deployed via a hardship fund, by application from local clubs that needed help. Alan agreed, but now thought that some of the grant might also be deployed for hall repairs (such as repair of the referee’s shower, which might well have seized up due to lack of use during the pandemic).
The Scouts were felt likely to have been quite hard hit by the lockdown. Liz wondered whether the Pre-School might also be struggling, but Alan & Paul were both aware that they have good attendance numbers at the moment.

CIF 2021 Programme
This grant programme is now open for pre-applications up to a deadline date of 15th July (post-meeting note: deadline has now been extended to 14th August). We brainstormed a few potential project ideas that might meet the grant criteria. A stairlift or a hearing loop might potentially qualify. Paul agreed to circulate the CIF Pre-Application Form so that everybody could further assess the eligibility criteria. Action: PA

Kitchen Hatch Fire Shutter Problems
The Fire Shutter controller is currently “beeping” and the original installers (Essex Industrial Doors) have recently identified a faulty component that needs replacing at a cost of around £600. The Shutter was originally installed in 2016 and has suffered 3 dead batteries since then (mostly triggered by power cuts). The poor reliability is very disappointing. Sue suggested that we ask Anglian Alarms for a second opinion when they check the Shop & Pre-School alarms next week, before committing to the Essex Industrial Doors repair.

Any Other Business
Paul asked Martin about a youth activities funding project that Lewis Barber had mentioned at last week’s Parish Council Meeting (which might possibly be relevant for the Scouts or the new youth Karate Club). Martin didn’t have the details to hand but agreed to ask Lewis for further details. Action: MB

We discussed the preferred format for future LCC Finance Meetings (Zoom or F2F). There are pros & cons to both, so we may use a mix of both going forwards, but we agreed on a F2F for the next meeting on 14th August.

Paul & Sue left the meeting at this point, so that the others could discuss Sue & Cheryl’s annual salary review.

Date of Next Meetings
Next Trustee Meeting: Thursday 22nd July, 7.30pm, Langham Community Centre
Next Finance Committee Meeting: Monday 14th Aug, Club Room, Langham Community Centre