The 2024 Annual General Meeting of the Ashford Borough Museum Society will be held
at 2.00 pm for tea and coffee
2.30 pm meeting start
on Monday 8th July
at The Consevation Annexe
57 High Street, Ashford.
Agenda.
- Acting Chairmans welcome
- Apologies for absence
- Minutes of previous meeting (2023 AGM)
- Matters arising
- Acting chairmans report
- Trustees report
- Treasurers report and accounts for 2023
- Wheels of time report
- Election of officers
- Election of management committee
- Confirmation of trustees and president
- Membership Subscription (refer to notes)
- Proposal to amend membership structure
- Proposal to change annual subscription
- Governance (refer to notes)
- Proposal to amend constitution
- Proposal to incorporate Ashford Borough Museum Society
- Any other business
- Closing statement and welcome speaker
Notes
12 Membership Subscription
The current membership structure includes two levels of Membership, Individual and Family. Whilst the Family Membership nominally gives membership benefits to more than one person, in practice the benefits are limited. The Treasurer therefore proposes that the Individual Subscription is abolished and a single ordinary membership that includes relations resident with the subscribing member is adopted.
We expect to be adding resources to the Ashford’s Heritage website arising from the Ashford People’s Library project and other efforts to digitise some of our collections. We do not want to be in a position where just anybody can steal those digitised collections. It is therefore proposed that a new level of membership giving access to those collections is introduced.
It is proposed that:
- the subscription for Ordinary Membership is set at £ 15:00 from 1st January 2025, i.e. subscriptions taken out and renewals for the 2025 calendar year.
- the subscription for Digital Access at £ 10:00 above Ordinary membership, to be introduced when our digital resources have been developed to a point that access needs to be controlled.
13. Governance
Amendment to the Constitution
The Trustees have been seeking to attract additional Trustees to give more diversity in the experience and skills within and to increase resilience of the board.
It is therefore proposed that Articles 4 (6) and 4 (7) of the Constitution are amended from:
- 4. Appointment of trustees
- (6)The number of trustees shall be not less than three, but not more than five.
- (7)The appointment of a trustee must not cause the number of trustees to exceed five.
to:
- 4. Appointment of trustees
- (6)The number of trustees shall be not less than three, but not more than seven.
- (7)The appointment of a trustee must not cause the number of trustees to exceed seven.
Proposal to incorporate
The Museum is Accredited under the Arts Council Scheme for Accreditation of Museums, “the nationally agreed standards to ensure all museums are sustainable, focused and trusted, inspiring the confidence of the public and funding and governing bodies.”
The Accreditation was last renewed in 2018 and should have been valid for three years, but due to a backlog that had been forming and the impact of the Covid pandemic the Accreditation Panel are still reviewing renewals for museums that were last reviewed in 2015.
Following our last renewal the Arts Council have published a new specification and guidance which deprecates Unincorporated Associations as a bodies to run accredited museums.
Unincorporated Associations also leave the trustees liable for all losses incurred by the Society.
The Trustees therefore seek the Members’ approval to:
- draw up proposals to transfer the operation of the Museum to an incorporated organisation compatible with maintaining the control of the Members over the Museum and
- to submit the governing document for the incorporated organisation to the members for their agreement.
Subscribing members and active volunteers are able to vote on proposals. Please refer to Support Us for details of membership.
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