Minutes - 17th March 2025 meeting

Hi all

Here are the notes from Steve Gotting:

Present: Steve Gotting, Mike Knott, Theresa Jahn, Dianne Pickford, Pam and Pete Berriman, Ed Stenning and CoCo!

We formally announced a new bookkeeper for the FSRA and going forward that will be Theresa Jahn who has had considerable experience in the past working her way up from bookkeeper to Financial Controller of a large organisation.

We thanked Dianne for keeping the books for the last 10 plus years. Dianne will remain as a member and will continue her sterling work of doing a litter pick of Farnborough Street and Chapel Street going forward. Thanks and well done Dianne.

Theresa told us that we had the following funds in our two accounts:- £3217.63 & £336.84

Mike explained that we have access to other monies that we have applied for specific projects, like the flooring etc that is paid by the donors.

We all commented on how well the house was coming along. We have had both main rooms downstairs laminated by a former street resident Garry Bugdale, partner of Lisa who was a founder member of FSRA and lived in what is now Ed and Jana’s house.

We just need to raise some more funds in order to do the floors in kitchen, entrance porch and stairwell. That will complete the downstairs.

Fundraising

Summer Fete

The date for our FSRA Summer Fete is Saturday 19/July from 12-5pm. We will have live music, BBQ, ice cream stall, craft stall, Raffle, Cakes, Tombola. Please tell your relatives and friends as this will be an important fund raiser. We will do a flyer and will hand deliver these flyers around our local streets and see if we can get them put up in some of the local shops. We will also see if RBC can promote the event on their website. Theresa also mentioned that we try B Radio which seems to have good coverage in our area. Perhaps we can also leaflet the students that come through our station.

Can you all please try and accumulate some decent Raffle prizes for the day. Any offers please email Steve Gotting on cc.

Sponsored Walk 

On a chosen Sunday. Start at say 10.00 and finish at say 13.00

We could use the Rail to Trail leaflets that Mike showed us. There are a number of walks from our station of varying lengths. Walks could start at the house and finish at either the house or The Prince of Wales Pub.

Quiz

I could organise one at Farnborough Rugby Club but we need to get at least 55-60 people to make it worthwhile and make some money for FSRA

Step by Step, the Aldershot young persons charity have asked me to organise one too. Maybe we could do a joint effort and split the money. Thoughts and dates please. It must be a Friday so we get the club for free.

Write to local companies, we can do this but Mike said we generally would need a specific project to ask for. Ed suggested that we are doing a considerable amount for the local community in many unseen ways, even RBC promote the garden as a grand if we explain that correctly in written format that was possibly good enough to send out to local companies.

Reg’s Garden in the evening.

A number of us commented on how poorly the pathway from the garden entrance to the house door was. The problem is that the motion sensor is attached to the light so the light only goes on when you are close to it. A suggestion was that we put another sensor closer to the outside toilet area. Mike said he would look into it. The alternative is to get cheap battery or solar powered lights put up along the path to the house. This will help enormously. The last thing we need is for someone to take a fall or trip over the stage edge in the dark.

Warm Café A Board

The chalk marking wears off too easily. Mike to have a chat with the art dept at the 6th form college to see if they can get one done there as a project.

Bank

We currently bank with HSBC but we get charged £5/ month for the use of! We discussed other options and Ed came up with Starling bank. This needs looking into further.

We also discussed the option of having  something like a ‘Sum Up’ machine so we did have the facility to take peoples money if they did not have cash readily available.

Insurance

Ed was going to look into our insurance coverage, now that we have the house etc.

Membersh

ip

Peter sent me a spreadsheet on :-

Proposing removing members from the register who haven’t responded to emails

Paid up members and allotment holders

Decide if worth inviting again to be members.

I am going through this best I can and will report back to Peter shortly. Some on the list are deceased, some moved away, some are local businesses others I haven’t heard of before.

Events

I did ask Mike if he could do us all a spreadsheet which would be emailed to all of us so that we knew what activities were happening in the garden. For example I am using the garden for the SHOSJ Garden party on Sunday 22/June 11am - 5pm, it is a fundraiser for the SHOSJ so we will be charging a small entry fee and a cost for the BBQ. We will also be having live music. All are welcome. The SHOSJ will pay FSRA £50 for the use of the garden. Any other rentals

Also on the spreadsheet could be Blooming Minds days, CMPP days, Scout, Cubs, Beaver activities

The garden does cost us money and we should charge a fee for the use.