Meeting minutes 15-12-21

Download the meeting minutes document here.

Date: 15/12/2021

Time: 6pm

Attendees: Sandie Emmerson (Treasurer Trustee), Sylvia Simmonds (History Trustee), Lynne Caulfield (Trustee Chair) Community and Parish Council members: Peter Brazier, Karen Groom, Bridget Knight, Tina Cardy, Alex Crisp, Nigel Benwell.

Apologies: Michelle Corr

Agenda Items and discussion points:

Carried over from previous meeting

Trustees witnessed changes to Banking signatories. Sandie to finalise.

2nd VOIP quote has been received and we will now move forward with the optimum and best priced solution.

Social media and web plans to begin with PR and Branding Brainstorming session to be hosted by Tina and Alex.

Café Work Group Update - Sandie

More community cafés have been visited and local catering and business management residents are now involved with work group discussions. Ongoing.

Discussion as to whether a coffee cart arrangement should be considered to provide community with an amenity they will miss. Chair to investigate.

3 potential café tenants have expressed interest in managing the café business. We will wait to decide the best business and strategic model for the hub before we pursue this idea any further. We agree that the Cafe should provide whenever possible locally sourced products, this would include local cake makers, farmers etc. 

Chair to approach The Plunkett Foundation as has been mentioned as useful for community advice on projects such as ours: https://plunkett.co.uk/. Chair to add to ongoing and long list of community and charitable organisations we must engage with. With the current café tenants due to leave much faster than we had originally envisaged it is important that we move forward as fast as we can with our café decision making. The aim will be to have the cafe biz plan and drawings ready together with the Revitalisation Plan document by February to show to the focus groups. 

PR and Branding

Tina and Alex outlined their strategy for planning a ‘rebranding’ of the Hub and a 3-month comms plan.

Their work on this is much appreciated and we are also grateful for the offer of a workshop for Trustees to attend at the Hub in January (Covid permitting) to brainstorm what we see as the ‘heart’ of our brand. Establishing a ’North Star’ will help us to navigate the many suggestions and ideas we will consider over the coming months and enable us to start putting into place a strategic communications plan. 

 Revitalisation project discussion

Chair outlined a verbal summary of the Revitalisation plan for initial input and feedback from the Trustees and members.

Can we support activities during the restoration work?

A discussion was had about whether The Trust is in a position to promote some additional activities at the Hub whilst we work on the cafe project.

Opinions were divided because although the idea is a reasonable one, we don’t have enough Trustees and volunteers to do this. The practicalities of day jobs and our current project work at the Hub simply don’t leave the Trustees with sufficient time to dedicate to extra ideas. It was generally agreed that the priority right now must be getting our biz plans ready and organising the focus groups.

In view of parking restrictions, the idea for a mobile café was also voted out.

Finance update from Treasurer

Accountant required to sign off Hub accounts. Sandie to investigate options.

AOB

Cleaner needs to have a copy of the booking timetable so she knows when she can clean and should also be given information about the café tenants’ leaving date as well. Michelle to liaise.

Charity Commission will require annual accounts for 20/21.Treasurer to prepare.

Next Trustee Meeting: Next Trustee Meeting TBC

Items for next meeting:

It is vital that the Board look to bring on board new Trustees to assist with the revitalisation plan. This work cannot be carried out by a group of 4 people.

Review progress of Business Plans for Hub and Cafe 

Identify focus group participants to review our proposals and plans

Further discussion on comms and advantages/disadvantages of engaging in online board discussions. Creation of a new website Lynne to review options for inexpensive creation.

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Minutes Secretary.                                        Date of approval