Minutes from Board Meeting – 1st July 2019

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The minutes of last month’s meeting were agreed.

RJ & KG hadn’t met to discuss a code of conduct.  They will try to meet to make progress before the next meeting.

DF had not made progress on amending the disciplinary procedure to include volunteers.

AK summarised the work he had been doing in the last month and made the following recommendations regarding financial protocols and organisation:

1. All invoiced should be posted onto SAGE as soon as received.

2. Only posted invoices can be paid for credit accounts, i.e. all payments on credit accounts must be supported by a posted invoice.

3. All cash purchases must be approved by the relevant manager.

4. All delivery notes must be approved and forwarded for attachment to invoices prior to payment.

5. A weekly payment run should be established to settle all outstanding and due invoices.

6. Only authorised personnel should reconcile the till each day.

7. All till users must be trained on proper use of till. 

8. All money received should be banked as soon as possible.

9. Need to establish procedure for petty cash requests using a petty cash imprest system.

10. Authorisation levels:

Managers authority level is £300 for any purchase order.

All funding bids must be approved in advance by the board.

All capital expenditure above £300 per purchase order must be approved by the board.

All current projects must be approved by the board before further expenditure and the board must be notified when capital projects are completed.

11.  All employees must have a job contract.

12. All job contracts must be physically available and kept in a secure location under proper HR rules.

13.Alan Kehoe to take over management of the SAGE system as of now. AK and KG to manage the hand-over and sharing of workload.

After a brief discussion All of the recommendations were agreed by the Board.

JT spoke briefly on his report, which was noted.

KG spoke on a report she had written regarding recruitment needs. She also added that more staff time was needed to develop our growing, given the amount of time necessary for essential digital and marketing work.  In the light of the Treasurer’s report the Board did not consider it prudent to commit to more permanent staffing costs at present. However, approval was given to take on one FTE temporary staff to work in the Café over the summer holiday period at minimum wage rates for under 18y.o. RJ suggested that any increase in staff time in the café should first be offered to Nadia.  The Board concurred with this suggestion.

AK & KG to review staffing proposals with KG in the light of our financial position with a view to reporting to a future board.

AK & KG

DF spoke on a paper he had prepared for the Board regarding arrangements of enabling proxy voting.  JT had received comments from Nick Ashcroft and in the light of Nick’s comments DF suggested that his proposals should be amended to make clear that the proxy voting arrangements should apply to any General Meeting of the Members on items where a substantive vote is being sought.  This was agreed by the Board. It was also agreed that the proxy voting arrangements should be put to the general meeting planned for August for consultation with the members before a final version is ratified by the Board.

A written report was received from NH regarding growing and digital and marketing.  NH briefly spoke on the report before leaving the meeting early. 

RJ provided a written report on Animals and Education.

Both reports were noted.

KG advised that managers were unclear about what the board would like to see in written reports. The board advised that initially they would like a brief report on any particular successes/problems that have arisen in the last month, plus comments on any activities or plans that may be coming up, or issues that the manager feels we need to be aware of.

1. RJ raised the question of fencing as discussed previously and will report back to the next meeting with quotes, having discussed costs with AK.
2. RJ suggested the possibility of selling/providing chickens to backyard poultry keepers, linked to training courses. The board saw the benefit of such a scheme in relation to our sustainability agenda. It was agreed that this idea should be put to the forthcoming General Meeting.
3. KG raised sharing of information on the cloud via google docs. She will circulate a link.
4. KG proposed a change in our energy supplier to reduce costs.  The supply proposed is also based on 100% renewables. This was agreed.
5. JT to progress letter to Ian as a matter of urgency.
6. JT raised the issue of a need on the Board to improve our expertise on HR issues and procedures.  After a brief discussion it was agreed that JT should enquire amongst the membership in his next newsletter.

RJ

RJ

KG

KG

JT

JT

6.30 p.m., Monday 5 August 2019