LANGHAM COMMUNITY COUNCIL
Minutes of a Special Trustee Meeting held on 15th May 2025 at Langham Community Centre

Present:
Alan Cadman, Cath Hine, Pete Freeman, Raynor Sumner, Elizabeth Schofield, Colin Parker, Martin Bottwood, Bob Schofield, David Druitt, Denise Hobday, Virginia Moss, Charlotte Parker, Rob Clark.

Apologies:
Alix Mason, Stuart Rudge, Shannon Barnes

Proposed Co-options: 
The following were proposed and seconded by David Druitt and Martin Bottwood respectively. All were in favour.
Raynor Sumner Community Café
Elizabeth Schofield Village Rep
Shannon Barnes Promotor 100 Club Lottery (in her absence)
Colin Parker

Approval of minutes:
Referring to the minutes of The Trustee Meeting of 20th March 2025 and The Special Trustee Meeting held on 7th April 2025 which were circulated to all Trustees, acceptance as a true record was proposed by Rob Clark and seconded by Liz Schofield. The minutes were signed by the Vice Chairman.

Booking system:
Alan explained how Cheryl and Liz Winter had done their best to cover since Emma left but decided it was in the best interest of the LCC to ask Sue Armstrong for help because of her knowledge from the past. Sue agreed as a favour to Alan and uncovered many issues of invoices either not being sent out or paid. So it would appear that the system is not efficient enough to cover all aspects of booking. Sue agreed to continue helping to sort out the current problems but requested endorsement from the Trustees. This was agreed.
Colin asked whether it is allowed for Sue to do this as she is not an LCC trustee. Martin and Alan didn’t know the answer.
Charlotte queried why Alan had gone externally for assistance without telling the Trustees to which he replied that he considered Sue is technically capable of sorting things as she and Paul introduced the system to us. David commented that the trustees should have been informed as they carry legal liability. Alan apologised for not keeping the trustees informed.
Pete is meeting with Sue on Thursday or Friday to discuss her findings.
The following were suggestions going forward:
• Ensure we get the best out of the system by analysing what we need.
• Ensure there is training for more than one person
• As we pay £120 per year ask for support from the supplier
• We may need to change our needs to suit the system

Job Descriptions:
A number of Trustees disagreed with the job descriptions as sent out prior to the AGM but Martin explained that they were only task lists of jobs which needed to be undertaken and actual job descriptions were next to be sorted. It was agreed that the lists were correct but not necessarily under the correct job title (which it was suggested the job titles should be changed for clarity).
A question was raised about the hours needed and the financial implications. Martin replied that they have yet to be addressed properly for various reasons
Various ideas were put forward to help move on with this situation:
• Contact RCC for advice (but they will charge)
• Contact other village halls for comparisons (many halls are run by the Parish Council. We are a charity.)
• It was recognised that Sue Armstrong did a lot more than was written in her job description and between herself and Cheryl the centre worked well. However it was also recognised that it was Sue's choice to do as much as she did and when she left a lot of the work was passed to Cheryl. Martin suggested that we could contact Sue for her input and Rob suggested maybe she could be invited to a Trustee meeting to assist.
• Do we still need a cleaning company who only works for 2 hrs per week.

As there are three roles on the job description, David asked if Emma had an Exit interview and if she gave any feedback. Martin met with her but wouldn’t describe it as an Exit interview. He spoke with her about where she was with the booking system and one of the key things for her was to try to get her hours reduced to 18 hours. Martin agreed to meet with her again on her return from holiday but that didn’t happen. Alan acknowledged that Exit interviews had never happened previously with employees. Martin explained that as the booking system at the moment doesn’t appear to cover all our needs the booking clerk position (18 hrs as Emma saw it) may not work.

AOB
With regard to the lease reviews for the shop and pre-school Charlotte asked why Paul Armstrong would be attending the Finance Meeting. It was explained that he will be facilitating. It was agreed that The Chairman should meet with the Finance Committee by the end of the month.

The next Finance Committee meeting is 29th May at 7.30pm.