Treasurer's Financial Report 2023
The treasurer's report for the financial year 2023, presented at the Annual General Meeting of the Martham Local History Group. It covers the Group's bank balance, membership receipts, and the year's programme of talks, visits and events.
Financial Report – 2023
Another successful twelve months have passed for Martham Local History Group, with a full calendar of talks, visits & the annual dinner in February.
As with the previous year, there has been a slight decrease in assets held by Martham Local History Group, due mainly to increased costs of speaker's fees & travelling expenses, together with the need to subsidise some of the coach outings. This is despite the fact that membership fees were increased in January of this year to £12.00 annually.
We have held a full calendar of talks and visits throughout the past twelve months, with five talks on various subjects and three major coach outings to Houghton Hall in North Norfolk, Duxford & Wimpole Hall in Cambridgeshire & finally Orford & Framlingham Castles in Suffolk. These were fairly well supported, but we had to subsidise one trip to cover our expenses.
We continue to hold all talks and committee meetings in the Methodist Church, the hire fees of which were increased in January of this year from £15 to £20. The website and domain name renewals have been renewed, and we hope that members take the time to visit the History Group's website occasionally to see the excellent write-ups on events and other interesting content.
The History Group's bank balance has decreased this year to £3357.67, mainly due as previously mentioned to increased coach hire costs & speaker fees. We have decided that Membership fees will remain at their current level of £12.00 and all subscriptions which fall due from the 1st January 2024, can be renewed from this evening onwards, this will cover Members until 31 December 2024. It should be noted that all members qualify for free entry to all of our monthly talks and certain discounted payments for coach outings and a small subsidy towards the annual dinner, compared to non-members. The cost to non-members attending one of our talks has risen to £4 per person.
We have also undertaken to take out Public Liability Insurance, to cover any unforeseen claims by persons during any of our talks or coach outings, as we realised that until the beginning of this current year we were not covered by insurance.
The entries for uncleared cheques on the current annual statement was for an English Heritage Payment of £68, Secretary's Expenses for 2022 of £46.00 and coach driver remuneration of £20 that had not yet cleared the bank by the end of August 2022.
I would like to thank personally our outgoing chairman, Noel Mitchell, for all the outstanding contributions he has made to the running of the History Group over the past 13 years, and wish him all the best for the future. I also look forward to working with our new chairman and committee members.
Once again thank you to those Members who renewed their membership this year and also to the new members who have joined us in 2023. I look forward to seeing you all regularly at our forthcoming meetings & outings.
Chris Harrison
MLHG Treasurer
5th September 2023