Update on Working groups.

What happened after the SGM?

Most of you will remember that at the Special General Meeting of 7 October 2019, there was a unanimous vote from members who agreed that three areas require focus from one or more working groups. The members forum think that the three areas would be best addressed through three working groups:

One for Identity, i.e. what sort of choir do we want to be.

One for Governance, which includes the Constitution, general Management and Policies that are required to be compliant with the Charities Commission.

One for finance, to include a review of our financial security and methods of improving it and also fundraising to reverse the losses seen at the end of the financial year for the last few years.

We had already agreed with the committee that there need to be two members from the group of 20, (who we are now calling the members’ forum,) a member Of the choir chosen by the Members’ forum; two members of the committee and a member recruited by the committee.

Following the SGM, the Members’ Forum sent their meeting notes to the committee on 14th October 2019 along with a proposed plan outline how the three working groups could work. with the proposed members.

After a protracted period of e-mails back and forth, an initial meeting was agreed on for 30 October 2019. 

However, the meeting was cancelled by the committee at short notice on the grounds that some of the Members’ Forum had said they were seeking legal advice. For some reason, they felt this to be unacceptable, even though the Members’ forum assured them that this was to clarify charity commission guidance and policy requirements.

The members’ forum proposed another two dates in November, stating that finding suitable dates was a challenge, however this gave the committee at least two weeks notice. After failing to respond for two weeks, on Monday the 12th November, Rey late at night, the committee proposed a meeting Wednesday 14th November stating a maximum of three representatives from the members forum should attend. It is interesting that the committee had excluded the treasurer from the committee representatives which given the financial situation was puzzling. Having been given no explanation as to why 22nd November didn’t suit the committee, other than it being between the rehearsal on the Thursday and concert on the Saturday, the Members’ Forum have written again to ask the committee to reconsider, as it important to honour the choir’s mandate for a meeting to take place to progress the agreed issues.

We subsequently learnt that the committee believes that only one working group should be formed, that this should restrict itself to the Constitution. Nothing should be done until after the AGM which means a delay of two months.

What have the Members’ Forum been doing since 7th October?

Choir Identity

Stephen Bryden, Sarah Athey and Gail Girling have a plan to capture members’ views on the topics we need to cover in a survey. They have ideas on how to encourage more two-way communication and make sure that the choir have access to information.  They are itching to get going. Read more about their ideas on the working groups identity introductory page.

Governance

Tim Brain has done a tremendous amount of work drafting Policies on the topics that the Charities Commission are increasingly coming to expect, and which the society require. Some of these policies such as safeguarding and GDPR are needed urgently to make sure we are compliant with Charity Commission guidelines. Sam Tolley has drafted a  structure for how the committee could be structured.

Tim has also been reviewing the current 2013 Constitution against the model constitution that Making Music recommend. He objective to identify the areas that need to be updated so that our constitution aligns to the latest Charity Commission guidance. Of course, the other important aspect will be making sure the constitution reflectS the choir’s identity.

Ann Cooper has reviewed some of the other excellent guidance documents Making Music publish, which have a lot of advice on good practice for both committees and members. This is based on many decades of experience of musical societies like ours, and thus should carry a lot of weight. Much of this good practice should be incorporated into a formal rule book, which would supplement the Constitution and be equally binding, but not subject to Charities Commission approval.

Of course all this needs to be discussed with members in line with our promise to be completely transparent. 

Finance

John Cooper has continued to review the last few years of the accounts so that we understand where future opportunities lie with venues, ticket pricing etc so that we can make evidence-based financial decisions about future concerts.

We hope that you find this interesting and are reassured that there are people committed to making your mandate happen.