The Community Association held its Annual General Meeting in the
Richardson Room on Tuesday 15th June 2010
at 7.30 pm. Before beginning his review of the year the Chairman
reported that the seat commemorating Ruth Robson’s services to this
community, put in place in the Community Woodland
in January, is much appreciated by many residents of the village.
The cost of the seat and commemorative plaque had been shared by SICA and
the Parish Council.
Changes
in the Management Committee since the last AGM were recorded with Mr
Gordon Lavin replacing Mrs Myra Middleton as Carpet Bowls’
representative and Mrs Lizzie Mainwaring joining the Committee to
represent parents of children in Playgroup.
As always improvements to the buildings occupied a major part of the
Chairman’s report. Major improvements this year include the new fire
alarm system, installed last August, the cost of which had largely been
met by grants from both the County Council Community Chest and Councillor
Dale’s Member’s Fund. Work to reduce heating costs by re-routing the
central heating pipe work was also carried out last August, much of it by
Bill Robinson. It was pleasing to hear that creating ‘zones’ which
could be heated separately had reduced our heating costs, despite the
severity of the weather last winter. Another major improvement was fitting
new flooring in the kitchen and upstairs toilets carried out last October.
Members will recall that
the kitchen flooring laid some three years has been the subject of
a dispute with Wallace Carpets and the Chairman was pleased to report that
this dispute had finally been resolved through the County Court Mediation
Service. Other
significant improvements reported were the installation of a low hand rail
on the stairs and major changes to the Playgroup kitchen. Most recently,
following the break-up of the concrete surfaces outside the main entrance,
was the replacement of this concrete with attractive and ‘safer’
flagstones. The Chairman stressed how fortunate we are in Stocksfield to
be able, once again, to have all this work carried out by local craftsmen
or members of the Committee.
The Chairman’s annual review of
Community and Social activities included the very successful
ceilidh which ended a fantastic first Stocksfield Festival, as well
as welcoming our involvement with the Highlights Touring Theatre
Company. This partnership has enabled some high quality entertainment to
be provided locally without financial risk to SICA.
He also welcomed our link with the Queen’s Hall in Hexham which
has enabled us to show films here to both children and adults. Having
initiated this venture he hoped that volunteers would come forward from
the wider community to run this Film Club - as it was not part of our
Manager’s job to continue to do so.
The Chairman thanked our
President and Vice President for their continued interest and support and
went on to thank the Officers and Committee for their hard work through
yet another busy year. Both our cleaner and Centre Manager were thanked for
their contribution to the continued success of this Community Centre. The
importance of communication with members was stressed and the
Editor of SCAN,
Ian Newton as well as Phil Howie our Website Manager, were both
thanked for their work this year.
The meeting went on to receive both the financial report from our
Treasurer , which had
already been approved at the May Management meeting, and the
membership report, read out in the absence of Membership Secretary Jean
Robinson, by the Vice-Cairman. This showed a
continued growth in membership with a 10%
increase on last year. The
report also contained details of Mrs Robinson’s successful
efforts to secure Gift Aid tax relief on members’ subscriptions and our
thanks to Jean for what had been a great deal of additional work, were
recorded.
The Manager’s report
showed once again the extensive and increasing use of the Community
Centre . She listed the many and varied regular activities and some of the
major social events which took place last year, drawing particular
attention to our
link up with the Highlights Touring Theatre Company. This has
resulted in four high quality productions, including two for children, all
of which have been very well supported. Two more productions have been
confirmed for December. She confirmed the purchase of a digital projector
for our Film Club bought with grant aid from the County’s Community
Chest plus a private donation.
Beth thanked Peter and Betty Scott for all their help and the
Officers and committee members for their support.
The
final report was from our Playgroup leaders which included the pleasing
news that our Playgroup has been chosen to take part in a national pilot
scheme involving 11 Local Authorities. Each Local Authority,
Northumberland being one, then chooses 6 childcare providers near to a
‘SureStart’ Children’s Centre. Northumberland has chosen Prudhoe
Children’s Centre and our Playgroup as one of the 6 child care
providers. The leaders of Playgroup were thanked for their work during the
year, with further discussion of Playgroup staffing deferred until the
Management meeting which followed the AGM.
All
the Officers and current members of the Management Committee were
re-elected.
A full list of Officers and Management Committee members will
appear on a notice board within the Community Centre.