LANGHAM COMMUNITY COUNCIL

Minutes of a Trustee Meeting
held on 25th March 2021 at 7.30pm.

Present
Alan Cadman (Chairman), Maureen Shouksmith (Treasurer), Paul Armstrong (Secretary), Andrew Craig, Peter Dawson, Liz Winter, Bob Schofield, Liz Schofield, Sue Thorpe, Mark Kleingeld, Sue Armstrong

Apologies for Absence
Marlena Lipski, Jutta Brawn, James Puxley. No apologies had been received from Maria Bukovenczki. The Secretary was asked to write to Maria to remind her of her Trustee duty to attend at least some meetings. Action PA

Minutes of previous Trustee Meeting on 28th January 2021
Draft minutes of this meeting had been circulated previously. Andrew Craig proposed and Liz Schofield seconded that they be accepted as a true record. All agreed. Alan will sign the Minutes once COVID restrictions are over.

Matters Arising
Some nice interior photos have been taken to showcase the recent refurbishments, ready to post on facebook & website in the run-up to the hall re-opening.

Security repairs & upgrades following the recent spate of petty vandalisms are now almost complete. (A wi-fi enabled PIR for the new external night lights is not compatible with other equipment at the LCC, so a workable solution is still under review). The quinquennial electrical tests were also fully completed today.

The new Shop and Pre-School leases had finally arrived through the post from our Solicitors.

Maureen is keeping careful track of all COVID grant payments in case any of them have been made in error and need to be repaid. A second potential £10k grant tranche intended for closed licensed premises has not been received, presumably because of Alan’s earlier reporting of our likely ineligibility.

Sue has received one updated soundproofing quote (a 7-8% increase from last time round) but is still awaiting a fresh quote from the second company.

The previously agreed new improved car park sign has now been installed on the LCC exterior wall abutting the main chair cupboard.

The agreed LCC response to the Williamson Housing questionnaire was submitted ahead of the deadline, shortly after the last January Trustee Meeting. Peter was asked about the Parish Council’s own questionnaire on the proposed development. A response rate of around 27% had been obtained, with close to zero support for the development from respondents.

No further flooding incidents has been noted in the car park in recent weeks.


Chairman’s Report
Alan reported that he had been heavily engaged with matters related to our car park public liability insurance. Discussions with our insurers were triggered following a pedestrian fall on our icy car park surface in early February. Alan provided a short briefing for those that were previously unaware of the accident.

Our insurer’s initial stance was that insurance cover was limited to hirers of the Community Centre only, thereby excluding other members of the general public, such as users of the Shop and Pre-School. After much negotiation, Alan has recently secured confirmation (with backdating to December 2020, and a small premium supplement of around £200 pa) that our cover is now extended to all members of the public using our car park. However, this is subject to a professional risk assessment of the car park grounds together with a traffic survey. A consultant has been engaged to visit on 14th April to initiate this process. His recommendations will need to be fully implemented in order to underpin our improved insurance cover.

There was much discussion and speculation about what measures might need to be implemented, but in truth we need to wait for the consultant’s report and quotation first. Alan will circulate this to the Finance Committee first, when it becomes available.

The insurance status regarding current mobile vendors using the Car Park was raised by Peter. Sue explained that she had already implemented revised hiring terms for all mobile vendors, to include personal use of the hall’s toilet facilities – thereby bringing them within the scope of our insurance policy cover.

Mark confirmed his own insurance provisions for tennis coaching classes, including safety procedures for children when crossing the car park, and was happy that he was fully covered.

Andrew queried why the Shop (and Pre-School) were not treated exactly like other hirers of the hall for insurance purposes. Alan explained that our insurers had issued the policy based on the declared turnover of the LCC alone. Alan acknowledged with hindsight, his oversight in not declaring the Shop and Pre-School as distinct long-term hiring entities.

Treasurer’s Report
Maureen had circulated her report in advance of the meeting and there were no questions on it.

Maureen reported closing bank balances today as £6269.66 current a/c, £70,134.41 saver a/c.
CBC had sent further emails today regarding rates relief. We normally receive 80% relief, but COVID-based 100% relief has been extended until end of June at least, and potentially for the rest of the year.

The RCCE Treasurer course had been very well run and provided welcome reassurance about the fitness for purpose of our current accounting methods. We have renewed our RCCE affiliation. Sue has already printed out our new affiliation certificate for display at the LCC.

Liz W had noted from the February accounts the dramatic recent fall in NS&I interest rates to nearly zero, which Maureen confirmed was sadly correct.

Maureen will endeavour to push through as many invoice payments as possible prior to the year end at 31st March. Action MS

Marketing Manager’s Report
Sue had circulated her report in advance of the meeting and there were no questions on it.

The LCC quinquennial testing had been completed today. In future Sue will try to synchronise these with the Shop and Pre-School tests.

Chris and his roofer have now restored our CCTV complement to a full 16 cameras after the recent vandalism. The roofer has reported that our roof is in a very poor state of repair. Joists and pegs are underspecified and any work on the roof risks further tile breakages and slippages. Sue had therefore recently suggested that we may need to bring forward the maintenance schedule for full replacement of the roof. Alan has already arranged a meeting with a roofing surveyor in about 3 weeks from now, and has made enquiries about grants which may currently be available to cover up to 80% of the very substantial cost. Alan was widely thanked for his rapid response here, on top of all the insurance work that has been keeping him very busy.

Sue reported that a recent chance encounter with Peter and Carol Harbach had been useful in moving forward discussions regarding the potential Vespa Rally hirer for September this year.

Sue noted that the Parish Council had recently refused permission for a re-scheduled road running event to use the Recreation Ground on 18th April. Peter confirmed that this was due to their concerns about the practicality of achieving COVID safety in a competitive running race. Sue confirmed that she had checked their event license was in place and in full compliance with current Government requirements; the event would therefore be allowed to proceed using only LCC land.

Sue mentioned a potentially significant new commercial hire by a national company providing practical training in the safe use of scaffolding. The company recently sent two people down from Manchester to assess the suitability of our premises. Sue will keep people appraised if this develops into a firm hiring request. Action SA

COVID Related Matters
Maureen brought to our attention, for retrospective review and approval, a temporary petty cash management issue that had arisen since the COVID slowdown. With the absence of cash receipts from Cinema/Coffee Morning etc., Sue has occasionally needed to top up the LCC Petty Cash reserves via personal ATM cash withdrawals, subsequently reimbursed by bank transfers signed-off by Maureen and Liz W. This has run to a few hundred pounds over the last year, all fully receipted. This a temporary situation and will not need to continue once we come out of lockdown. All agreed to this temporary workaround.

Cheryl’s salary protection situation was reviewed. This currently runs until the end of April. By then the hall should be moving towards greater use with an increasing amount of work for Cheryl, so no further extension of the scheme was felt to be necessary.

Sue T indicated that the Bridge Club would hope to return during July. She asked about the likely room availability situation at that time. Sue A indicated that the new Karate Club hire was starting in April, but had only been guaranteed 3 months continuity at the moment, so there shouldn’t be a problem, although a further joint review may be required if reduced returning Bridge numbers suggest a smaller future room requirement.

Maureen indicated the possible return of Langham Ladies in August.

It was agreed that Sue should write to all our regular hirers and request that they try to provide a rolling 3-month forward view of their likely return date. Action SA

Car park accident & insurance implications
This had already been discussed at length during Alan’s report, so was not re-visited again.

Sign-off of Shop and Pre-School Lease Renewals 2021-2026
Neither lease has yet been signed off due to various issues that require further clarification.
There are no immediate problems arising from the delay in each case.

For the Pre-School lease:
- A correction is required to the Pre-School postcode, from CO4 5PB to CO4 5PA
- the relevant Parish Council mailing address needs updating
- prior to signing, the Parish Council want to track down a reference copy of the grant conditions associated with the original Sure Start capital funding used to pay for the Pre-School extension in 2010. (This is currently missing).

For the Shop lease:
- Andrew Craig wants to better understand the basis for using a side-letter to implement the agreed new rent figure, rather than amending the main contract itself. Alan indicated that he had just received a lengthy letter about this from FJG Solicitors, but he had not yet had a chance to digest it.

Any Other Business

Maureen provided an overview of a new Joint Steering Group that is currently being set up with the Parish Council to explore how best to use and develop our Recreation Ground and LCC Facilities for the overall benefit of the village. Maureen and James Puxley have kindly volunteered to act as first LCC representatives in this Group, working initially with Tony Emms, Martin Bottwood and John Palmer. As the Group becomes established, it may expand further.

To kick things off, the Group are currently putting together a ‘flyer’ to try and attract interest and raise awareness of the initiative. The intention is to communicate this via as wide a range of media as possible, including Langham Locals/Websites/Parish Newsletter etc.

Once the initial ‘flyer’ is available, it will be circulated out to all LCC Trustees for information, comment and hopefully your future involvement!


Dates of next meetings
Next Finance Committee Meeting: Monday 19th April 2021, 7.30pm, Zoom
Next Trustee Meeting (AGM): Thursday 27th May 2021, 7.30pm, hopefully in the LCC but TBC

There being no further business, Alan thanked everyone for attending and closed the meeting at 10.09pm.