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Minutes of the Annual General Meeting held on Thursday 28^th March 2019

Members

Mr T Gee took the chair, all committee members were present with a further 17 society members present.

Minutes

Minutes of the previous annual general meeting were confirmed and signed, proposed by Mr M Cort and seconded by Mrs J Bradshaw.

Matters Arising

None

Chairman's Report

I will begin, as usual, to put you in the picture regarding empty properties. At the beginning of the financial year, we had six vacant properties, some which were being renovated and others waiting for work to begin. At the present time we are working on the last two houses. We also have had one house vacated by the tenant because of eviction, I will say more about this later in my report. This property had already been brought up to standard and so could be reallocated, to the next eligible person, fairly quickly.

We did discuss, at the general meeting in October last, whether there would be any interest in letting tenants view a renovated property , this was in order to show the amount of work that has to be done to bring them in line with current legislation, and the quality of the finished project. There was a majority in favour of this at the meeting, and we intend to allow viewing of the next finished property and we will notify all those interested in the near future.

It is good to report that our finances are still in a fairly healthy state and our auditor Mr Mee will give all relevant details in his report. The accounts, for the hall, although they show on the balance sheet, were kept separately This was so we could see, at a glance, how the bookings were doing. The spread sheet that we used to do this didn’t contain enough information for a full audit to be completed, and we have been “told off” by our auditor. A new style spreadsheet is now in operation and we hope to be back in his good books next year.

The bookings for the hall continue to grow and now that the garden is finished and available for users, we hope to see its use increase. The event that was organised to mark the opening of the community garden was a great success. The weather was kind to us, and the Croft Silver band were excellent. Many thanks, once again, to all those who helped to make it a great day. The other event that deserves a mention, was the Christmas/New year party. We could not hold it before Christmas because the hall was fully booked, and so we held it in the new year. We had glowing reports from those who attended of how much they enjoyed it.

Thanks again must go to those wonderful ladies who put in so much hard work to make it a success. We definitely need more of these events.

We had some work done on the hall roof, at the end of last year. This was to replace the loose ridge and hip tiles and also to renew the gutters and facias. You would not believe what we found whilst this was being tackled. Bees nests, squirrels’ nests, rat runs were just some of the things that came to light. These have now been cleared away and all possible entrances and exits blocked and hopefully we shall have no more problems in the future. We intend to tackle the area on the other side of the hall this year. It is to be made into a car park for users of the hall. This will help to promote the use of the hall and relieve traffic congestion in front of the hall. The condition of the concrete road, which runs alongside the hall is so bad that it has become a health and safety concern, so this will be a priority.

We are awaiting quotations for the painting of the lower part of Lilac Avenue. The replacement of gutters and downpipes, which was put on hold last year, in order to concentrate on the empty properties, is to be reinstated, and the houses that are to be painted will also have their gutters and downpipes replaced.

I did mention, earlier, that we had to serve a section 21 notice on a tenant This was because of non-payment of rent. A section 21 notice is an eviction notice. This is done only as a last resort. We tried our very best to contact the person involved, but none of our letters were answered and all our efforts to secure a meeting, to discuss the situation, came to nought. We were left with no option but to take the action that we did. As I have said before, in situations like this, there are no winners. The tenant loses their home and we are financially out of pocket.

I will just mention gas and electric meters. A lot of people are having smart meters fitted. We have no problem with these. We do have a problem though, with prepayment meters. It is the devil’s own job to get them removed should the tenant leave. Before one of these is installed it must be discussed with the committee.

It was a little disappointing, to have only two nominations for the committee this time and the two nominations were for retiring committee members. This estate will not function, in its present form, without a management committee. Anchor Tenants has been in existence for approx. 111 years and over that time the housing market has changed considerably. The latest English Housing survey has just been released analysing the U K private rental sector, and the report has uncovered some interesting statistics about today’s tenants. A fifth, that is 20% of the U K population now lives in privately rented accommodation. This is a huge leap from previous surveys, and it is expected to rise to 25% by 2021. This changing trend to rent rather than buy is explained by many by the out of reach prices of buying a house. We have on our housing list some 71 people who are waiting for a house. Many of these are our children and grandchildren. Our estate is one of their best hopes of getting a home at a reasonable cost. Whilst it’s true that an element of experience is needed on the committee, we also need the younger people with their ideas and energy to make sure that this estate continues to help those waiting for a house.

This concluded the chairman’s report

Auditor’s Report

Mr Mee began his report by saying that the income from rents had slightly increased, this was solely due to the renovated properties being let.

There had been a full year income from the hall which brought in £6,000. There was also the Lottery Grant of £10,000 which covered some of the expenses on the hall.

In terms of running costs the wages go up each year due to a small wage rise. Most of the expenses are very similar, but as mentioned there was an eviction. This comes with legal costs, of approximately £1,300 which is comes under professional fees.

With the full year rental of the hall, this comes with expenses, namely caretaker/ booking person and cleaner making up these costs.

The bad debt of £1,449.00 is the amount of rent not collected and the tenant was evicted.

The sundry expenses are higher as this included the cost of the open day event and the O.A.P party.

In terms of what was spent on the estate, there were four empty properties, the cost of renovating these, re-roofing etc, four lots of damp proofing. The electrical cost was not as high as the previous year when there were a lot of rewiring to properties that had to be done.

There was no painting programme this year, instead the guttering and facias were replaced on Chestnut Avenue, this is included in the building repairs.

There was a big spend on the hall, the work on the roof cost £12,300 there was also the work on the fence, garden and plants etc. totalled £14,700 less the £10,000 received from the Lottery Grant the money spent on the hall was £4,700.

With the empty properties comes costs, as full Council Tax has to be paid on each property, plus the loss of rent.

Mr Mee said that there had been a small deficit of £1,000 which was planned as the idea is that what you take in then you spend on the estate and that is what has been done this year.

The balance sheet looks virtually the same as it was twelve months ago, the assets remain the same. The society is still in a strong position.

Mr Mee finished his report by saying that the hall records and income were not as detailed as they should have been and made it difficult for him to trace, but hopefully more details have now been put in place. This is mentioned in our Auditors Report.

Mrs I Gaten proposed that the accounts were accepted as a true record, seconded by Mrs R Newcombe.

Mr M Cort proposed the re-election of Nixon Mee Limited as auditors for the coming year; this was seconded by Mrs J Bradshaw.

There was no ballot for the election of committee members, as there were two vacancies and only two nominations, so a vote was not required.

Arbitrators

Not required

Remuneration of Committee

Mr T Gee said that at the moment the committee get £5.00 per meeting and it is fair to say that they would not seek an increase on that.
As far as an increase is concerned Mr Pawson said he does not think there should be any remuneration, the committee fees were over a £1,000 last year.

Mrs J Bradshaw asked if he accepted his. Mr Pawson said that he donates his to Loros.

Mr Cort said he thought that was great, but he thinks that the committee are a guiding force within the society. There are a lot of people that haven’t come to the meeting tonight and do not come to other meetings.
He went on to say that we need people like you on the committee and that you are well worth the £5.00.

It was proposed by Mr M Cort that the fees remain the same as the previous year, seconded by Mr G Baker.

General Business

Mr G Baker thanked the committee for the promptness when his boiler broke down and the excellent work done by D J B Gas & Heating Services who went the extra mile, along with the maintenance man.

Mr T Gee thanked him for his comments and said that we would make sure that they go to the right people.

Mr M Osborne said that it was sad that there are only a few of our youngsters come to the meetings and don’t know what happens and it is our job it is to get the message across to them and tell them how much work there is involved in the running of the estate.

And a vote of thanks to be put in writing in the minutes. It doesn’t get any easier maintaining our aging properties because of the difficulties of organising the care and renovation of them. So, he would like to thank the committee for the work they have done this past year.

Mr M Cort said that he had been on the committee, but it is a different job now to what it was then.

Mr Pawson said that its all the laws and legislations that have come in and it seems that you are spending out money for nothing.

Mr T Gee said that people do not have to come on the committee for years and years, a couple of years would give a really good idea of how the estate works and what you have to do.

Mrs J Bradshaw said is there any reason why you have to rush off to have another meeting, could we not stay and talk to you after the meeting.

Mr Pawson said that we had tried that after the last meeting, and it made no difference.

Mrs R Newcombe asked does anyone know why the younger ones or even others do not come to the meetings. Mrs Bradshaw said that it is probably our job not just the committees to ask people why they are not coming to the meetings.

Mr T Gee said that times have changed, when they take on a house, we impress on them to come to the meetings, but it seems to fall on deaf ears. A discussion then followed regarding ways of getting the younger people on the committee.

Mrs J Benning said that parents work all hours now and we have found that youngsters who have come onto the committee are sometimes unable to come to a meeting because they have no one to look after the children. Their lifestyles are so different. She went on to say that she thinks people want to do it but find that their commitments at home doesn’t allow them to.

Further discussions then took place on this subject, several society members gave their points of view.

Mr Doucet said that people now are on social media and this could be used to remind people about meetings and events and reporting problems, which you could immediately get onto.

Mr T Gee said it seems that this is maybe the way forward and we will certainly give this some thought and discuss it.

Mrs Newcombe said that one of the important things is that the young ones are part of the decision-making process. The estate is run by a working committee but equally when they come to a meeting, they can and are part of the decision making process about the houses that they live in.

Mr T Gee said that the shares give them a vote and a means of expressing their opinions and coming to the meetings and having their say.

Mrs Osborne said that if people came to the meetings, they would have more understanding of how everything works. When they are out chatting and getting the wrong end of the stick they call the committee all the names under the sun for making a decision, which actually they haven’t made. If they came to the meetings more and understood how things work, we may not get quite so much of this. When people call you corrupt for something that you have not done, it’s not nice.

This concluded the business of the meeting and Mr T Gee thanked members for their attendance, before declaring the meeting closed at 7.55pm.

These minutes are the official record of what happened, and not a verbatim account.

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