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as Instagram, Tiktok and X (formerly Twitter). There remains an important vacancy on the committee for someone who would be prepared to put time into this, so please contact Andy if you think you could do this.
One of the few benefits of the pandemic was that we established Zoom lectures, so that members could still meet, even if only on our computer screens. They proved popular and are still enjoyed on a monthly basis, even though we have a full field events programme again. These have been co-ordinated by Jim who does a fantastic job of finding interesting and enriching speakers.
One future area of work is to add enhancements to our web facilities so that we can make it easier to maintain our membership list in the future. There are many other potential benefits we could derive from investment in our membership engagement, including an ability to sign up for events online. A working group has tried to carry this forward and will continue to do so, with technical support from Mark Thorley. Finally, Andy commented that Liz, in her discussions with insurers, had learnt that, unusually for voluntary organisations, over sixty of our members volunteer their time for the Club in some way or another, be it as a committee member, Regional Contact, Event Leader or in a formal non-committee role. Andy expressed his gratitude to everyone for all their fantastic hard work; and noted that without all their combined efforts, the Club would be much poorer.
5 Treasurer’s Report
Liz Armstrong explained the accounts for the year ending 31 July 2023 and informed the mee􏰀ng that our core funds (from our membership fees) gave a surplus of £2,601 in the year: adding the surplus brought forward, we now have a healthy core funds total of £14,292. As no GGT occurred in the financial year, our Conserva􏰀on Fund changed li􏰁le, and now stands at £487. Given that the Club now has an overall balance of £20,383 this is a comfortable level for us.
A summary of the End of Year Accounts 2022-2023 is provided at the end of these Minutes.
6 Health & Safety Officer’s Report
As advised earlier in the AGM by Andy, committee member Richard Lazenby has agreed to become our first Health & Safety Officer. Richard noted that the role is to support and protect all members of the club: event leaders, event participants and committee members.
Richard told us that a risk assessment procedure for event leaders has been created. All event leaders will complete this simple form and send it to the H&S officer and where relevant the chair. Thanks to Andy for creating a more accessible online ver- sion of this form. All current event leaders have been contacted regarding the new guidance/paperwork.
A new code of conduct/risk assessment for event participants is at the back of the calendar. Thanks to the original author of the code for providing an excellent founda- tion. A process for what to do if there is an incident on an event has been created.
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