WHY NOT MANSTON?
MINUTES OF THE SECOND ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING HELD ON FRIDAY 7TH MARCH 2014
6 pm, AT BAYPOINT, RAMSGATE. (BY KIND PERMISSION OF THE MANAGEMENT).
Present – Committee Members Nicholas Reed, Chairman; Martin Welch, Treasurer;
Carolyn Illsley, Secretary; Jan Revell, Membership Secretary and Geoffrey Illsley.
24 Members, Supporters and members of the public.
Speakers – Yvonne Holder from Open Air Promotions and Paul Wells from Personal Travel Agents.
1. Nicholas welcomed everyone and introduced the Committee. He thanked the management of BayPoint for allowing us to use their splendid room free of charge and also for offering us a special price of £10 for a two course meal after the meeting.
2. Nicholas introduced the principal speaker, Yvonne Holder, from Open Air Promotions, who is the Project Manager of the Folkestone Airshow taking place on the 7th and 8th June 2014. Our own Angie Sutton, who organised last year’s South East Airshow at Manston has joined the firm and has been appointed Event Organiser.
Yvonne explained that due to funding being withdrawn by the council last year, and as this is a free event for the public, OAP would have to raise sponsorship from other advertising packages and incentives. This event beats even Brighton for hosting the largest amount of overnight visitors to the South East and expects around 200,000 enthusiasts to attend. The free Airshow will take place over two days, highlights being the Red Arrows on the Saturday, the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight (this time with the Lancaster and two Spitfires), air-sea rescues, Tucano and Grob Tutor aerobatic planes and the Breitling Wingwalkers. Manston is the chosen airport for the visiting aircraft. There are evening events with “Bjorn Again” and fireworks to entertain the crowd.
Other events being put on by OAP are:-
An open air cinema showing of “Top Gun” at Folkestone on 29th March
Festival of Colour, Palm Bay, 28th June
Festival of Tastes, Discovery Park, 19th and 20th July and
Festival of Balloons, Folkestone Race Course, August Bank Holiday.
Further information can be found at www.folkestoneairshow.com and facebook.com/flyfolkestone.
Nicholas thanked Yvonne profusely for giving such a lively and informative talk.
3. Nicholas then introduced our second speaker, Paul Wells. Paul’s business, Personal Travel Agents, is based in Discovery Park and specializes in travel from Manston Airport. He said it needs to become better known that there are 144 destinations on offer from Schiphol via KLM and its partners Air France and Delta. Burma, China and New York are easy to get to and that Berlin and Dubai are destinations that work particularly well.
He said that KLM are very pleased with the take up of their flights and that bookings are up 60%. One lady in the audience said she had recently flown to Glasgow via Schiphol and that the journey took three hours less than by train.
Paul was thanked by Nicholas for such an interesting talk.
4. AGM Business – Approval of the Minutes of the last AGM of 15th March 2013 (circulated earlier),
These were approved by voting members present and signed by Nicholas.
5. Chairman’s Report.
Nicholas summarised the events involving WNM? during the last year. These included the South East Airshow at Manston, Thanet at War in Ramsgate and our Open Meeting at BayPoint in October. In sharp contrast to the convenience of flying from Manston he told the story of a nightmare trip he experienced after landing at Gatwick at 10.30pm when just about everything went wrong including baggage reclaim. You can read the full details in “Folkestone Creative” magazine.
Nicholas stressed that further news of events at Manston is scarce because we are awaiting a big announcement from the new management, which is due around the beginning of April. We have no idea what this might be, but will keep our membership informed as soon as possible.
6. Treasurer’s Report
1. An accounts statement and an Income and Expenditure report as at 28 February 2014 is presented as at Annexe A to this report.
2. A WNM? Asset Statement as at 28 February 2014 and a Budgetary Forecast Projection is presented as at Annexe B to this report.
3. Accounts Summary:
a. Current assets held in the bank account and in cash total £167.30.
b. Income for the period 5th April 2013 to 28 February 2014 totalled £370.00.
c. Expenditure for the period 5th April 2013 to 28 February 2014 totalled £649.00
d. Current Liabilities – Nil
e. Current Creditors: – Nil
4. Treasurer’s Comment:
a. The Income and Expenditure Account for the period 5th April 2013 to 28 February 2014, revealed a trading deficit of £279.00
b. The situation regarding funding remains as before. We remain solvent but need to continue to investigate options to improve revenue as a matter of priority, both in the long and short term.
c. Several options designed to improve income are to be put to the membership at the AGM by the Membership Secretary.
7. Report on Membership and discussion of future plans.
Nicholas introduced new Membership Secretary, Jan Revell. She explained the difference between Members and Supporters. Members have paid £10 to join WNM? and are entitled to a free car sticker and voting rights at the AGM. Supporters are those who have simply signed up as supporters of the WNM? cause. Jan is working on an enhanced package for Members only and announced the first of these which are generously being offered by the airport. They are: up to one week’s FREE parking at the airport and one FREE access to the Business Lounge – these are for passengers flying with KLM. She is hoping to produce further attractive incentives with a view to encouraging more Supporters to become Members and thereby increasing our funds. Currently, we have 74 Members and 403 Supporters. (Four new members signed up at the AGM.) Paul Wells immediately offered to refund the membership fee to anyone booking a holiday with him.
Q – One lady asked about membership cards.
A – Jan said that she was working on them now with Martin. She hopes to have them ready to send out next month.
Q – Another person asked about getting WNM? better known.
A – The answer was that word of mouth from our own Members and Supporters is the best advertisement for us at the moment but we are looking at other ways such as having an article on WNM? appearing in local residents’ magazines.
Q – Do we give talks on WNM?
A – Not yet, but Nicholas will look into it.
Fundraising – Jan came up with a few ideas:
a) Car Boot Sales – easy and cheap to do. We can sell books and bric a brac, thus clearing our own homes while helping WNM?
b) A Travel Quiz – Baypoint said they could provide the venue with a barbecue.
c) Treasure Hunt – involving, say, a walk round Sandwich.
d) Auction Dinner – with prizes or promises donated.
All these ideas will need help from our Members/Supporters, who can spare some time.
A gentleman said that he had a source for signs and banners, similar to the ones at Monkton Nature Reserve.
8. Should we have an annual subscription?
Nicholas asked what Members thought about having an annual subscription of £10. This would increase our funds, especially if more Supporters converted to Membership. WNM? needs money for taking stands at events plus insurance for such stands, advertising and publicity material, website and general administration costs. No one on the Committee claims anything other than out of pocket expenses. The majority of Members voted in favour of an annual fee. One Member said he would rather pay the small annual sum than get involved with a lot of fundraising.
9. The Election of Committee and Officers.
The four officers and Geoffrey Illsley were prepared to stand again for election.
This was done in a block vote proposed by Rosalind Bundy and seconded by Lynda Smith.
10. Any Other Business
Nicholas said that having an annual subscription of £10 may mean a change to the Constitution and the correct procedure would have to be followed if this is so.
The Raffle was drawn, and produced a very welcome £52 for funds supplemented by a £5 donation from one of the attendees. Full Membership was taken up by Mr. Graham and Mrs Elaine Harris and by Mr. Alan and Mrs. Anne Murray. Their subscription of £40 (4 x £10) raising the total additional funds received during the evening to £97.00.
11. The meeting closed at 7.50 pm.
SEE BELOW FOR ANNEXES A and B – TREASURER’S REPORT.
Annex A
Treasurers Status Report For AGM 2014
as at: 28th February 2014
£ £
Assets:
Bank 110.66
Cash 56.64
Cheques 0.00
Debtors 0.00 167.30
Liabilities:
Creditors 0.00
Surplus: Balance to account (paper) 167.30
Total: 167.30 167.30
05 Apr 2013 – 28 Feb 2014
£ £
Income:
Donations: £150.00
Memb Fees: £90.00
Marketing £130.00
Events £0.00
Total: £370.00 370.00
Expenditure:
Events Exp: £206.00
Office Exp: £443.00
Total: £649.00 649.00
Surplus: Deficit to Account: 279.00
Balance: 370.00 370.00
Notes: All totals rounded to nearest £
Annex B
£
Assets:
Bank 111.00
Cash 57.00
Stock 14 C/Stkrs 26.00 194.00
Liabilities:
Creditors
Net Assets: 194.00
Notes: All totals rounded to nearest £
For period March 2014 to February 2015
£ £
Income:
Memb Fees: Based on say 100 new members 1000.00
Marketing: Based on say sales of 250 Car Stickers 500.00
Donations: Personal Donation (Not quantifiable)
Fund Raising: Income from Events (assumed) 500.00
2000.00
Expenditure:
Stk Purchase say 400 c/stickers (over-time) 420.00
Bus. Cards say 2000 (over-time) 50.00
Advertising Banners & Flyers (estimated) 300.00
Events Exp. (4 Events)-Cost of pitch, Insurance, etc 850.00
Office Exp. Website costs, Misc. Stationery, etc 500.00
Contingency Set aside for unforseen contingencies 500.00 2620.00
Deficit: Proj. Income Less Proj. Expenditure 620.00
Notes to Accounts:
1. These accounts are prepared on a cash basis in that no entry is recorded until transactions have been completed. Double entry protocols are employed.
2. All entries are assumptions based on financial performance recorded over the period April 2013 to End February 2014.