Transition Loughborough AGM 2019 (Fearon Hall, Tuesday September 3rd)
Present: Steve, Tobias, Martha, Suella, Emily, Meg, Janet S, Jason (Minutes), Peter (Uni. Student),Ken
Apologies: Caroline, Jon, Sarah
Chairing: Steve
Introductions by those present were made and a chair and minute-taker appointed.
Financial report
We have two accounts:
Transition Town Loughborough – £817.30
Transition Loughborough containing £994.87.
Main expenditure of liability insurance and Transition Chesterfield potato purchase, main sources of income are donations, bags, plants, potato day and apple pressings. Some of this money is being used to support the Fearon Garage project (discussed later in the meeting). There was an issue this year with two bounced cheques which cost us money and given this we may wish to avoid cheques next year. There were a couple of suggestions made to do this – one high tech- Izettle (card machine linked to a smart phone) and a low tech one involving a cash only proposal – there will be more discussion on this at the next Potato Day meeting. Incoming grants were from Loughborough University -£500 for apple press equipment improvement/maintenance and £2500 from Charnwood Borough Council for the Marches Energy Agency Bus plus their information and expertise at many events.
Past Event Reports
Steve suggested instead of doing group reports (as some areas are not so active) we do past event reports and there were no objections.
Janet talked about Potato Day 2019 – The end of January market stall worked well with good pre-ordering plus collection and selling of seeds. It remains a great way of interacting with the public and the talks/pre-ordering at Fearon Hall were also successful in this way. Only minus were the bounced cheques mentioned above. Potato Day 2020 is well in preparation and there is a meeting on this Thursday 5th September.
Seed swaps and plant sales – several this year which Martha talked about. Notably the Boat event and Fearon Hall events including the wet weather ‘Picnic in the Hall’. All raised some money and were worth doing though the Boat event was a little disappointing so not sure about repeating that one.
Steve and Meg talked about the successful relationship we have had with Fearon Hall over the last year including the Picnic in the Hall and Fete on the Green events plus the newly taken over garage at the back of the hall. There is energy to continue to develop and build on with these all and it’s good to see the links from last year have developed.
Jason mentioned the one successful repair café this year at Fearon Hall helped along by the very active Leicester Fixers and Marie in particular. We will have repairers at two more events this year.
Planned Future Events
Fearon Hall Autumn Fair & Repair Café – these are on Saturday Oct 12th and Nov 9th respectively. Our Autumn Fair contribution will include tool sharpening and darning/cloth mending plus a general Transition stall and the Apple Press. The repair café will cover all aspects of repair including, hopefully, a cycle repairer – Jon has booked in the repairers – Jason to manage on the day after a little more ‘training’ from Jon.
Apple Press is out and about over the next few weeks including the Fruit Route Harvest festival on Friday 19th October.
EcoSocial – next one at the Boat Inn on Monday 9th September at 7pm – Anne-Marie Culhane will be there to talk about/ promote the Fruit Routes initiative at the University and after any comments/ideas.
Christmas Tree Festival involvement – Janet told us this is at the All Saints Parish church from Wednesday 27th November until Sunday 1st December. We have a tree space booked and we want to create a tree decorated with origami seed packets and pertinent information. We need to organize a workshop to make this happen and she will hopefully be looking at doing this at the Purple Pumpkin Patch. Watch this space for details. We also have said we want lights on our tree – need to organize that too. We also want to use the mini wheelbarrows we’ve acquired in the display to give away some seed packets.
Fairtrade & Green Living Fair involvement – Steve informed us this on Saturday 23rd November at the Baptist Church. This will be a Purple Pumpkin Patch/Crop Club/Transition partnership. The stall there will also be taking pre-orders for Potato day plus promoting alternative ‘green’ gift wrapping ideas.
Community Allotment – The community allotment has been working well again this year, with summer Wednesday evening social gardening sessions coming to an close at the end of this month (when it gets too dark in the evenings). There is now a new polytunnel on one of the plots, financed via a grant to the Anand Mangal Ladies Group that they will use to grow some of their crops that need protection.
The garage workshop space at Fearon Hall
Steve updated on this. We have recently agreed as a group to rent the garage at the back of the hall to use as a store and workshop. The first year’s rent of £200 has been generously ‘waived’ to be put towards any improvements and repairs needed to make the garage a safe and secure workable space. After several Monday evening ‘work meets’ lots has been done to the space – We are looking at getting electricity to the garage in the next month or two, plus also finishing making it all watertight, getting the side door working and decorating the inside to maximise light. In the mid-term we are looking forward to having some events out of it – this is quite exciting. We will be continuing on repairs until the end of September on Monday evenings. After this we will need a meeting to discuss how to set the space up going into next year.
Ideas for future projects and grants/funding for them
Meg brought up the possibility of £750 funds/grant for work on the community corner garden/space on Cambridge Street as it currently needs TLC as no one is managing it and she has been approached about it. She suggested Transition could have a discussion and a ‘meet’ to see if we could help, maybe using the newly acquired garage space to work on it from.
A.O.B.
Janet has an old Nokia P.A.Y.G. phone available we can use if we want to give a number out as a contact for Transition Loughborough. She suggested we share the holding of it between members – she will pass it on shortly.
Janet asked that when sending out Transition e-mails, can the sender please make sure they update the message header. Some are going out with an older subject still on it and she has not looked at some because of this.
Steve wanted to highlight ‘Invisible People’ within Transition Loughborough whose full contribution is sometimes ‘missed’. Mentions were made of Jon, Suella – ‘Master-Gardener’, Emily and Caroline. We’ve got lots of talent so a collective big ‘Thank You’.
Date of next AGM will be sometime early September 2020 after the Fearon Hall AGM.
