Sutton Poyntz

Please may we give you advanced notice of the date of our Annual General Meeting, which will be held on Wednesday 26th June, starting at 7.30 p.m., at the Mission Hall. Here are some notes on a busy year for the Mission Hall. Also, can we give advance notice of a Summer Barbecue at the Mission Hall, on Sunday 30th June - more details to follow but please make a note in your diaries.

Lease: Following the very useful Open Meetings in December 2022 and January 2023, which confirmed the village's enthusiasm for the Mission Hall, we have been in discussions with St Andrew's Parochial Church Council about an extension to the existing Lease, and have now jointly written a rather technical letter to Salisbury Diocese, formally asking for the Lease to be extended. We are awaiting a reply, but the fact that the local PCC are strongly supporting an extension makes it reasonably certain that we will get it. The original 30-year Lease ends in 2029, but we have felt confident enough to ask for a 40-year extension. As the Lease is a legal document, both we and the Church will need to employ Solicitors to be sure the document does what is wanted.

Changes to Mission Hall Trust Constitution: As part of the process of extending the Lease, we have re-examined the Trust Constitution, which is contained as a First Schedule to the Lease. We are proposing some changes, which we feel will improve the way the Trust Committee is chosen and does its work. We have sent these changes to the Charity Commission (whose agreement is required) and also as a courtesy to Salisbury Diocese. If we get agreement from those two bodies, we will submit the changes to the AGM for discussion and vote. In outline, the changes are as follows:

1. Change the balance between Committee members appointed by Hall users and Committee members elected at the AGM. At the moment, the AGM elects 3 Committee members, and user bodies (the PCC plus SPS, WI, Art Group etc.) appoint 7. We suggest changing this to 5 elected at the AGM, 1 appointed by St Andrew's PCC, and 4 appointed jointly by the user bodies.
2. Include a criterion defining which user bodies are involved in appointing Committee members. At present the Constitution has a list, including bodies that no longer exist. We suggest that all user bodies using the Hall 10 times a year or more should be entitled to participate in choosing Committee members.
3. At present, the Constitution does not explicitly specify how the Secretary and Treasurer are appointed. We suggest that this should be done at the first Committee meeting after the AGM.
4. At present, there is no provision in the Constitution for public availability of Committee Minutes, although in practice these have always been available at the Hall, and now on the village website at https://suttonpoyntz.org.uk/index.php/archive/archive-documents/category/168-meetings. We suggest, in the interests of "open government", a requirement that Minutes must be available on request to anyone living in St Andrew's Parish.

Building Survey: In preparation for a Lease extension, we have commissioned a Building Survey. This shows a building that is basically in a good state, for which congratulations and thanks to the Trustees who have cared for the building over the last 25 years. The survey did show a number of things that need attention, and gave us a very helpful suggested schedule of works for the next few years.

Building works: Partly as a result of the Survey, we have sought tenders for a set of building works, some (such as repair work to the floor) being repairs arising from the Survey, and others (such as refurbishment of the WC behind the stage, and thermal lagging of the hall's roof space) being improvements. We are currently awaiting tenders, and expect to have to spend around £30,000 on this work. We also need to get the hall decorated this year, which is not included in that £30,000. In addition we are getting ideas and costs for new double-glazed windows and for new, more efficient, heating. The Hall's bank account currently has a very healthy balance of about £43,000, but we will find that is not enough for all the improvements we would like to implement.

Fund raising and grants: We have run a number of fund-raising events during the year, and are hugely grateful for the people that have worked so hard to make these the enjoyable success they have been (with a special thanks to Colin and Rita for their catering work for several of these events). These events have given us a profit of about £2,200 in the last year. The next event planned is a Summer Barbecue, on the afternoon of Sunday 30th June - watch out for more information. We are also planning a themed Supper Night in October.

We have also been very fortunate (thanks to lots of hard work by Sue Cottam) to receive a £5,000 grant from the Darlington Charitable Trust, who support a variety of works, particularly for elderly and excluded people and old buildings, and mainly but not exclusively in Devon. We continue to seek other grant sources.

Policies: In an age dedicated to more and more demand for endless paperwork, we need to make sure our Trust's policies and documents are as close to "best practice" as we can reasonably achieve. So, kick-started by some very hard work by Sheena Dearness, we have been looking at our Policies and working practices, and aim to have a revised set by about the end of 2024. Of particular importance are Health & Safety and Safeguarding, but we also need to look at a group of "Corporate Behaviour" documents including topics such as Equal Opportunities, Conflict of Interest and Financial Management.

Committee: During the year, Sheena Dearness has retired as a Committee member and we have also lost Yvonne Emery (hugely missed by the whole village) - we thank them for the energy and enthusiasm they both brought to their roles. Yvonne had already stepped down as Secretary, but that job was taken up most excellently by Sue Cottam. So we have a couple of vacancies for new Committee members. Being a Trustee of a Charity is a responsible job, but there are no particular qualifications other than normal common sense and the ability to work "honestly and reasonably" (Charity Commission wording). If you would like to join and help us run this most important village facility, do please come and discuss with any of the current Committee members, who are Sue Cottam, Maureen Cribb, Shirley Davies, Sue Davis, Bill Egerton, Anthea Heathershaw, Maureen Morris, and Sue Wintle. Fresh ideas and extra willing hands would be very greatly welcomed.