Meeting minutes 7-02-22

Download the meeting minutes here.

Date: 07/02/22

Time: 6pm

Attendees: Lynne Caulfield (Trustee Chair), Sandie Emmerson (Treasurer Trustee), Michelle Cusick (Secretary), Sylvia Simmonds (History Trustee), Tina Cardy and Richard West.

Apologies: Nigel Benwell (Maintenance)

Agenda Items and discussion points: 

New Trustee (proposed by Chair, seconded by Sylvia Simmonds) Tina Cardy

Tina Cardy who is known in the Pitstone area for her work organising the volunteers who worked on the ‘What’s Appening’ community outreach program during Covid Lockdown has agreed to join the Board of Trustees at the Hub. Chair: Tina will bring her experience of helping to manage volunteer projects which the Hub will be creating as part of the Revitalisation Plan. We are delighted to have her on board and hope also to benefit from her professional experience as Brand Consultant and University Lecturer in Branding. Trustees all voted in favour.

Café Work Group Progress- Sandie

It is important that we reach a decision soon regarding how best to set up the next café at the Hub. This will be a very important part of the Revitalisation Plan. Over the past month the group has met with a wide range of local cafés, both commercially and community-managed, to gain insight into the pros and cons of each type of structure. We need to review and research the financial models of the different types of café and get more info on legal and health and safety implications of running them. We aim to have this information ready, together with our recommendations as to the best route forwards in time for the next Trustee meeting. We have had a challenge building a realistic financial plan for the café as the previous café owners do not publish any financial or other records so we have no footfall visibility / financial history to use a base model. We have had to approach registered café businesses who have been generous enough to share their cost/profit models which has been very useful. 

Branding workshop 

Tina: The Trust must be clear on its aims and its priorities so it can steer a clear course to revitalising and re-energising the Hub. There will be many distractions along the way so the Branding Workshop will enable Trustees to document the essential ideas behind who we are and what we want to achieve and communicate this clearly to the community. 

Secretary suggests we look at modernising the logo for the Hub as part of the Branding exercise. 

Grant applications 

Chair is keen to work on securing some additional funding for the Hub through grant applications. Lynne has been invited by (Community Impact bucks very helpful) to participate in workshops run for local Charity groups to learn how to be successful at fund raising - for future grant applications. Dates booked and will report back to Board.

Community Consultation

Chair is keen to involve the community as much as possible in the Revitalisation planning. We to make sure that the Revitalisation plan is:

1/ Sustainable (both financially and ecologically)

2/ Relevant (to our community)

3/ Inclusive - i.e., that we meet the needs of ALL the community, not just certain parts of it.

Who: It is very important to us that we meet with a broad spectrum of representatives from our community. We need their knowledge of this community, its strengths, its challenges and its needs. We have spent many months meeting with local community leaders, local Charity members and local interest groups and these will form our initial list of participants in our Community Consultation Process. We will invite these people and ask them in turn to propose additional individuals in the community who come from a different interest group, location or age demographic from themselves. This way we can make sure our research is impartial and fully representative of the community.

How: Via in-person Focus Groups where we can share our initial thoughts and plans on the way forward and get community input and feedback. 

Via an On-line survey – to measure levels of interest in and support for various aspects of the Revitalisation plan This will help give us a good snapshot of the areas where the community would like to see development and help us to identify and prioritise the projects which have the most support.

Richard West suggests using ‘Survey Monkey’ for the online process as it is not too expensive. Chair to investigate.

When: Feb/March (Covid levels permitting)

Finance Update 

Chair and Treasurer have forwarded an initial invoice to CuriosiTea for the utilities owing at the end of their lease.

Maintenance update – damage and repairs required after end of lease

The outgoing tenants have taken all of the lightbulbs with them from the back hall. New replacements will need to be purchased.

An industrial clean of the kitchen will need to be booked as the kitchen is very greasy.

The floor of the rear room has been overlayed with additional slip free material and will have to be removed.

The lease signed with the tenants did not include a detailed inventory or requirement for ‘return to original state’ and so these costs will have to be paid for by Charity funds.

Next Trustee Meeting: Next Trustee Meeting TBC

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Minutes Secretary.                                        Date of approval