SEAMS News Archives

SEAMS Treasurers Report 2019-20

by Richard Amos

This will be my last treasurer’s report. The role of club treasurer is a position I have held since the end of 2012 but I now hand over to Helen Skinner. I give her a warm welcome and hope that you afford her the same level of support and co-operation given to me over the past 8 years.

2020… what a year it has been, nearly all events cancelled and all of us locked down for most of the year… rather frustrating as we all like the social side of things as well as the events.

With not much happening, the club accounts should have been simple this year but as the committee met only three times, twice at the beginning of the year and once in the summer under the ‘rule of six’, it’s not been easy to reconcile everything. However, the club remains healthy. Most memberships came in before lockdown so our subs income at £1488 (£1701 last year) is relatively unaffected. Costs are down a little over the year with only five rather than six newsletters but hall hire for the cancelled March Faygate evening (I was looking forward to Jonathan Cruse’s talk) and club BBQ had been paid in January. Other fixed costs like insurance and the website, membership cards etc. remain. Your committee decided not to book Faygate hall for the three pre-Xmas meetings and this has proved the correct decision saving £90.

Despite the circumstances surrounding 2020, the club valuation is up £359 on last year though part of this is held in club merchandise (clothing).

Being unable to run our normal events this year, your committee decided to reward those who were paid up members in this most difficult year with a reduced membership for the coming year. I believe our chairman Steve has outlined this elsewhere. New members will pay the normal fee. We can do this without impacting significantly on club funds with our bank balance able to cover any unforeseen losses. We all hope that we can retain or even increase our membership in 2021, the 30th anniversary of SEAMS, during which we hope to do something special (COVID permitting).

Richard Amos