Muir of Ord Hall & Facilities Company. Minutes Thursday 5 May pm Muir Matters office

Transcription

1 Muir of Ord Hall & Facilities Company Minutes Thursday 5 May pm Muir Matters office Attendees: Apologies: Tom Inglis - chair, Liz Galashan, Richard Gosling, Mike Atkinson, Gary Tuach, Jem Taylor (Directors), Hannah MacSween (Community Development Manager), Nina Graham - minutes (Company Development Manager) Stephen Pennington, Frances MacGruer 1 Welcome Tom formally welcomed Gary Tuach as a new director and thanked him for accepting the invitation. Gary s skillset will compliment those of the board and will be extremely welcome as the Company s portfolio of built assets grows. He was given director information and instructions from Companies House. Action 2 Apologies and Declarations of Interest Apologies were received from Frances MacGruer. No Declarations of Interest were given. 3 Approval of Minutes 7 th April 2016 Since Liz was the only director present from the last meeting, the minutes will be carried forward to the next meeting to be proposed and approved. 4 Matters arising Minutes 7 th April 2016 Notified by Stephen - Interim claim submitted, as requested by DTAS, due to the delay in the Strengthening Communities contracts being issued. Stephen and Nina still need to meet to complete her new contract. Item 6, para 3: First James Dow invoice (stationery) paid Item 6, para 7: Last quarter of the financial year paid to RC Item 10, para 1: Feedback Roles and Responsibilities training for Directors was well worthwhile. LG SP FM DC SP Notified by Tom Item 5, para 6: The BLF receives copies of all site meeting minutes. Mark Hilton, Business Advice Manager, will visit at the beginning of June. Item 6, para 2: The daily pay-out limit of 20k cannot be increased as it is fixed to minimise the risk of money laundering. Tom is making cheque payments straight into Ferguson s Bank of Scotland account in Beauly to reduce waiting time for payment. Item 8, para 4: Stephen agreed with Hannah to defer inviting Isobel Grigor and Matt Tryer to a board meeting until there is sufficient content for discussion. Item 9, para 6: David Blanchard will survey the building week beginning Monday 9 th May. Item 10, para 2: Nina will remind Rory about advice on data protection. Item 11: OSCR s approval of the asset transfer and an explanation of the next steps in the process was ed to all office bearers (Jem Taylor, Alan Fraser and Brian Thom) on 13 th April 2016 with an offer of help from Nina to proceed.

2 She will follow this up and include the trustees (Hilary Ross, Aldie Fraser and Ian Chisholm) in an invitation to meet with representatives from MOHFC. A budget is required for legal fees. 5 The Muir Hub (Tom) Tom circulated an account income and expenditure to date. First fit plumbing, concrete floor to landing, stairwell and lift are underway. The lift contractor will not come until foundations are laid. Walls have been framed and Kingspan fitted. The contractor is 2-3 weeks behind time for not having enough people on site. He is confident that he can regain this time. This is separate from the 2-week extension already agreed for the rebuild of the gable end. Mrs McRitchie s wall must come down because of poor foundations and a crack in the stonework. It has been condemned by an engineer. The legal agreement was for the wall to remain. Ferguson s choice would be to replace the wall with a fence but Mrs McRitchie could insist on a wall. The board agreed that this is more in keeping with the look of the building and stipulated that all efforts should be made to avoid legal action. The responsibility for the wall needs to be established along with costs to replace it. Hannah passed on the architect s view that the arch should be blocked up if it is not going to be used for a wood burner as it is not high enough to serve as a display area. Jackie Wright will feed this back to the BSG. Jackie provided a breakdown of the Fixtures & Fittings budget of 87,750 which she will discuss with the FFG. Blinds and curtains, a cinema system, and crockery are priorities. Ferguson have nominated a specific supplier for Velux blinds. 6 Finance (David) Tom has sent David accounts for the BLF which he has reconciled with the bank. Richard and Nina have copies of bank statements for the Village Hall since January 2016 and will work together on the accounts to 30 April Richard gave Nina the cheque book to keep in the office to prepare cheques for payments approved, for signing. TI JW JW RG 7 Memorandum of Agreement (MoA) for Calman Trust Hannah needs to see the second draft from David with feedback from the board and CT. It was understood that both parties would communicate by prior to meeting at a later stage, possibly June. The matter of responsibility for maintenance and repair of white goods provoked a lot of discussion following the board s preference for maintenance agreements as recorded at the last meeting. The 5 years clause was removed from the MoA on CT s advice that goods may not need to be replaced every 5 years. There is nothing in the BLF budget about repair and maintenance and any costs will reduce the profit from CT s 10k rental income. Tom and Gary suggested that it would be cheaper to replace goods rather than maintain and repair them if they were out of warranty. Hannah and Liz emphasised the need for a process for staff and volunteers to deal with any breakdowns. No budget can be determined for white goods until they have been purchased, therefore, no figure can be factored into a draft MoA. 8 Company Development Manager s report (Nina) See 10. Village Hall

3 9 Community Development Manager s report (Hannah) The School Register discovered by Ferguson in the roof of the Old Tarradale School was delivered to the Highland Archive Centre (HAC) by Hannah and Morag Brown under the terms of the Education Act The document will be expertly cleaned before being categorised and stored with other registers in the building. It will be accessible to the public and is not affected by data protection as it is over 100 years old. This is a great opportunity for a social history feature in Muir Matters and an incentive for a heritage group to visit the archive. The board agreed with Hannah that it was a priority to identify a finance system as soon as possible with David. Sage was recommended across the board and contact made with DTAS or SCVO for advice on purchasing options. DC The first opening event workshop took place and a soft opening was agreed due to the expected opening being delayed to mid-november. Further celebrations and promotions will take place in January, February and March Gary suggested a 6-week handover period with the maximum date being around the 14/15 th December. If that date is exceeded, the onus would be on Ferguson s insurance to carry the building into the new year. The BLF application is very big and requires combing through to avoid missing any stipulations. BLF need to be advised of any changes and the reasons, e.g. the revised pricing structure. Increasing the low number of volunteers is a priority as Hannah is having to do the work of the groups rather than facilitate them. A graffiti project will be used to make stronger connections with young people with support from a graffiti artist at Youth Highland and Ferguson who will provide scaffolding. A process on information sharing is required to deal with the growing interest from other communities about what is happening at The Muir Hub. 10 Village Hall The lock on the door on Fairmuir Road has been replaced and new keys cut and distributed. A register of key holders and an agreement for each key holder has been set up to improve hall security and record keeping. While Carol Rose has been off due to her husband being seriously ill in hospital, another woman has been helping Hilary Ross. Once Carol is able to come back, a twice weekly clean on Mondays and Fridays will be suggested to ensure that the hall is clean, before and after the weekend. In order to tackle the poor state of the hall on Mondays after some adult parties at the weekend, directors agreed that the deposit arrangement should be applied to each and every adult party as a deterrent. This will only be returned in full if the hall is left fit for the next user. Otherwise a 50 charge will be deducted for cleaning. ILM Highland fitted three double electrical sockets and removed the electrical wall heater that was not working. The upgrade to BT Business Hub 5 will take effect on Monday 9 th May 2016.

4 Our application to convert the room at the front of the building into a commercial office to develop an income stream for the hall was not successful. Directors agreed for Nina to investigate costs to deliver that project using funds from the SSE FWF fund, which would meet the funder s requirements for sustainability. When David Blanchard (architectural technician) visited the hall, he asked if the stage is required, as the curtain frame will need to be taken down to insulate the full length of the hall. Its removal would be a sensitive issue but offers possibilities. The board asked Nina to seek the views of hall users. Nina asked the board to think about storage ideas as the lack of storage is becoming more problematic. 11 Governance Following the Roles and Responsibilities training for Directors, there is work to be done under Operational Responsibilities, due to non-compliance with the requirements for Register of Members, Register of Directors and Company Stationery. Stephen agreed for this work to begin, and Nina has sought Rory Dutton s advice. Spreadsheets for asset and equipment registers have been set up to be populated with data. At present, there is no checking at meetings (as a rule) whether actions from the previous meeting have been complete, and if not, the stage of progress and expected completion date. The board agreed that an action log should be attached to each agenda and any incomplete actions carried forward. 12 Asset transfer from the Muir of Ord & District Community Association (CA) OSCR did not receive any objections to the proposed reorganisation and approved the process with instructions on how to proceed. Office bearers of the CA have been notified. The next step will be to invite Office Bearers and Trustees to the CA and representatives of the Company to a meeting to understand the actions required and set a timeframe. 13 Sports Facilities Fund application The board agreed that revisiting the community s desire for a sports facility was a good use of Nina s resources. The first step is to set up a working group, if people are willing. Mike is interested and the other names nominated were Lizbeth Collie, Joan Munro, Billy MacGruer, Ray Cameron and Leonard Fraser. Nina will contact them. She has already contacted Sport Scotland about the process. 14 Any Other Business The Community Council is leading on The Big Picture 5 years on. Mike is looking for assistance with the event which is due to take place in the Village Hall on Saturday 25 th June. There was some concern around the table that that until the community s earlier requests become a more visible reality, it is too early to do an update. However, SSE are understandably keen for the community to make a decision soon on spending the next tranche of funding from the Fairbairn Wind Farm Fund. Hannah asked the board again about their ideas for representation at the gala. No firm ideas were put forward although time is pressing due to the end of July date. MA

5 The board agreed to renewing the contract for electricity with SSE. The Company must meet COSHH (Control of Substances Hazardous to Health) Regulations as part of its obligations as an employer. The HSE (Health and Safety Executive) provides an online tool with a data sheet template. In practical terms, this means listing all chemicals used with evidence of protective measures for using them. 15 Next board meeting Thursday 2 nd June at 7.30pm in the Muir Matters office. Action Log As well as containing the actions recorded from the most recent meetings, the log also includes any other outstanding action from previous meetings.