The Friends of St Anne’s Church, Kew
Registered Charity No. 1085389
Minutes of the Annual General Meeting held in the Church Hall on 17 June 2023
There was a quorum. Attending were Howard and Susan Bailes, Wendy and Paul Booth, Adrian Bradshaw, Joan Brown, Rosemary Charles, Sylvia Chitty, Bill Cottle, Philip Deer, Giles Fraser, Marion and Robin Goodgame, Frances Goodwin, Susan and Jane Hayman, Kate and Bruce Hodgkinson, Ben Jones, Eleanor Kinnear, Kathy Lippiatt, Marian and Simon Mollett, Heather Montford, Lorraine Neale, Belinda Pethick, Kara Radcliffe, Tina Ruygrok, Telfer Saywell, Susan Sloman, Lynn Tandler, Linda Tillman, and Margaret Walsh.
Apologies had been submitted by Carole Brougham, John and Margaret Blair-Gould, Dickinson Cowan, Anthony and Patricia Holme, Elizabeth Hunter, Claudine McCreadie, John and Isobel Moses, Jill Saxton, Francesca Snow, Joan Stanton and Uta Thompson.
The meeting was chaired by Lady Lorraine Neale (LN) who welcomed those attending, noting that this was her last AGM as Chairman.
1 Minutes of the Annual General Meeting held on 2 July 2022
LN asked if anyone had questions on the minutes of last year’s meeting. As there were none, the minutes were approved.
2 Election of Executive Committee
The Secretary (Ben Jones, BJ) read the list of the officers (Simon Mollett (SM), Treasurer; Ben Jones, Secretary) who are presenting themselves for re-election this year, noting that we do not currently have a candidate for Chairman, and they were elected. He then read the list of persons submitting themselves for election as elected representatives on the Executive Committee (Wendy Booth, Sian Merrylees, Belinda Pethick and Lynn Tandler). They were also elected. LN invited Lynn and Adrian (the new churchwarden) to introduce themselves, Sian being absent.
3 Annual Report and Accounts
Copies of the annual report for the year 6 April 2022 to 5 April 2023, including a statement of accounts for that period, had been made available to all members. LN passed the floor over to the Treasurer. SM noted that we have a substantial surplus as the projects we have agreed to finance (the floodlighting and the churchyard pathway) have not completed. Our current surplus is considerably greater as Gift Aid has now been recovered for the past few years and we have the profits of two further events (Catesby and Gandhi). He asked, if anyone present had not yet given The Friends a Gift Aid declaration, could they please do so (the form is available on our website).
He then asked for any questions on the accounts. Paul Booth asked about Friends’ Christmas cards. LN noted that the last time we sold cards was pre-pandemic, when we invited the Queen’s School to collaborate so that the students would submit designs for new cards. We chose a selection of six children’s designs (sold in packs of the six designs) and sold them alongside two designs from before (a St. Anne’s in the snow and one showing part of stained glass in the apse). Notwithstanding that the name of the children was inside the card, only one parent bought any. This was despite our selling cards after every service during the weeks preceding Christmas, which we did over several years. It seems as if rising postage and online cards available via the internet have caused many people not to send Christmas cards, but the committee will look at the issue again.
Robin Goodgame noted that we received no bank interest. SM pointed out that rates have been so low that we did not bother to set up an interest-bearing account but that the committee has just voted to take advantage of increasing rates and open an account. Bill Cottle noted that subscription revenue is down. SM said that we had several members who gave more than the specified dues but we have largely lost those. As to “Other donations”, that largely reflected payments for events online and we have stopped streaming our events. Bill Cottle also asked about the sandwiches we used to serve at the events. He recognized that it is a saving for the Friends but wondered if we might consider it again. LN said we had discontinued it initially because of the pandemic, but M&S has discontinued providing sandwiches as they used to. It is quite a lot of work. The committee does not rule out doing it in the future. Paul Booth proposing, Howard Bailes seconding, the members approved the accounts and annual report.
4 Membership
LN asked Wendy Booth, Membership Secretary, to give an update on membership. Wendy said that membership was 148 at the end of the membership year but is currently 138. A few members have decided not to renew and several sadly have died. She pointed out that we have eliminated paper renewals to save paper, so renewals must be online.
5 Any Other Business
SM noted that we have replaced our previous donations system with PayPal, which we hope will solve the problems
we have had in the past.
With the meeting’s business concluded LN thanked everyone for their support for the charity and especially for her. She mentioned particularly the Executive Committee, including the Vicar and churchwardens (also previous churchwardens such as Cate Lyon, Tina Ruygrok and Bill Cottle), the support team for events (Rosemary Charles, Kathy Lippiatt and, again, Bill Cottle), the late Phyllis Cunningham, Paul Booth (for his technical work on the website and at the meetings), the students from Richmond College who helped with streaming the events (under Paul’s direction) and Dr. Jenny Tonge (who has attended all events as our first aider). The audience clapped warmly.
Then Fr. Giles added his praise. The Friends had been moribund when a recently widowed Lorraine took it over at Fr. Nigel’s request. Since that time, The Friends have raised over £100,000, and her energy and commitment was 95% responsible for that happening. Now The Friends have the challenge to determine its way going forward without Lorraine. He asked for candidates to replace her, though her replacement will not be a new Lorraine but bring other strengths. The Work under the Church’s old Master Plan is complete and The Friends have asked the PCC to come up with a list of what they want to do which The Friends might be able to support. He asked for all to express their thanks to Lorraine and best wishes for her future endeavours. Applause again.
There being no further business, LN thanked the members for their attendance and closed the meeting.