Minutes
Attendees: VL (Veronique Leroy); IA (Imran Ahmed); CS (Catherine Shelley), CSo (Catherine Sowerby)
Observer: GC (Giulia Crepaldi)
Apologies
Ruth Murphy (RM), Jerry Lockspeiser (JL)
1. Finance
IA has socialised the P&L with the YTD position. Turnover figure is impacted by year end adjustments; excluding these year to date turnover should be approximately £30K. The current position shows a loss which is not unusual at this time of the year due to prepayments of costs,however he will have a better view at 6 months through the year.. IA is not concerned about the position at this point.CSo noted a question was raised at the recent AGM about the club’s plans to spend the projected surplus and excess reserves. IA plans to issue an email to members asking for volunteers to form a small working group to address the excess reserves topic. Additionally, IA plans to get ideas from members about how best to spend the excess reserves and where we could increase spending to best make use of the projected current year surplus, by setting up a survey via Google Forms. VL suggested that the topic should also be tabled at the next OpCom meeting with discussion addressing two areas; approach for additional spending to reduce any surplus this year and long term ideas to reduce the surplus built up over many years
2. Membership
CSo socialised a report about membership, spanning the last 11 months. There was a drop of four adult members in the last quarter, with an increase in the number of new adult members but a high churn rate within that group.
Factors driving this situation were mainly due to the website upgrade. There was a period of time in which 1) some members may not have received auto-notifications to renew membership, 2) new members may have found it difficult to find the website, with the website not optimised for search engines.
CSo is going to review and refine the renewals process, as part of the member experience.
CSo recently held a workshop addressing the issue of retention of female members. The group discussed the root causes, and came up with ways to rectify the issues. The next workshop will identify a series of actions and workstreams.
The response to CSo’s request for volunteers for the Community initiative, has been poor. CSo , GC, VL and JL will discuss their understanding of ‘Community impact’. VL suggested sending one email to cover all volunteer requests including helping with the community.
Action: VL to draft an email asking for volunteers.
CSo reported that the club is still attracting younger members (18-34) in the new member category. CSo stated that if we had an event sign up process we would have a better understanding of which activities younger members are doing.
CSo has drafted a survey for members who leave the club, and will discuss with IA.
Action: IA to send CSo written notes from the club strategy work and application for CIO regarding the concept of ‘Community’.IA highlighted the increase in the number of leavers and asked if this was due to higher membership fees or more new members (who have a higher churn rate). CSo noted non-renewers have a 31 day grace period and email reminders are sent before and after renewal date; it was suggested to include a banner on the website stating “your subscription is overdue” during the grace period
3. Transition to CIO
IA has spoken to the Charity Commission to expedite the open query with them regarding the conflict of interest and will follow up in 3 weeks. The transition to the new entity date of 1st October remains at risk, until the Charity Commission provides a written response about the potential conflict of interest.
Meantime, other transition activities are underway:
- Establishing a new Xero account for the CIO
- In dialogue with Stripe about the transition plan to the new entity.
- The HSBC current bank account has been set up; savings accounts still to be done.
- Transfer agreement drafted by the lawyers, will remain in draft until the confirmation is received from the Charity Commission.
The club will continue to use multiple banks with each bank balance under the FSCS c threshold (£85k).
4. Website and Webmaster
The committee agreed to set up a meeting towards the end of September, to review the current-state technical architecture supporting the club website and broader club needs. Delaying until September would ensure that issues around the new website can be resolved prior to re-opening discussions. The suggested attendees would be members of the GovCom in addition to the team who has, to date, been maintaining and updating the website, and any club members who are IT professionals and would bring independent IT experience to the conversation.
Action: VL to arrange the meeting.
Action: VL to send the current-state technology architecture diagram to IA.
Action: VL to form a group to review the new website structure and content, review the user journey, and general navigation.
5. Marketing Role
The Marketing Lead is vacant but Hans and Nicola are covering various Marketing activities for the club in the short term. The next step is to find volunteers to fulfil the Marketing roles including a lead. VL proposed including these in the global email requesting for various volunteers (refer to Membership above). The request should also be posted on the Whatsapp groups.
IA noted there might be some overlap between the involvement of the Treasurer in External Partnerships, and Marketing’s involvement in the same area.
IA noted a decision is required as to whether to use MS360 or Google for club’s email accounts and data storage. This could either be considered as part of the technology project or separately.
Action: CS to add to the agenda for the next meeting
9. Risk Assessments
CS asked the committee members to review the risk assessments and respond directly to her with their approval and any feedback or queries by email.
10. Draft Inclusion Policy
CS asked the committee members to review the draft policy and revert by email with their approval and any feedback of queries.