The new Committee met at Long Compton on December 3rd for the first Business Meeting since the AGM. There were the Minutes of many intermediate meetings since the last Business Meeting to confirm, these meetings being those required for organising the various centenary events. Consideration was given to forthcoming events, planned, probable and possible. Those already planned include the Christmas Party and the Annual Dinner. Probables were firmed-up: the Annual Ringing Tour, to be held on July 3rd; the Guild Walk on September 18th; and the AGM & Striking Comps on October 16th. It was decided to defer the Intershires Striking Competition once more. A 'possible' is to run the Minimus Striking Competition again, but on a 5 this time, ie with tenor covering. This was last run in about 1995. There is a trophy for this, the 'Mini Mouse' Trophy, but it has not been seen for some years: where is it? This event is very much a bit of fun and used to be run in an evening. Hopefully it will happen like that again.
Reports from the various Guild officers followed and anything arising from those were discussed. Significant points were: the Treasurer reported a donation of £100; the Membership Secretary outlined progress on collating paid-up members; the Fixture Secretary said the next quarter's towers were almost organised and that these would include a 10-bell tower, some less-common towers and some old favourites; the Child Protection Officer said the Guild's Policy had been reviewed, but was to remain unchanged until implementation of the new law governing CRB checks had moved forward more, and that three Guild members were to be CRB checked; the Health & Safety Officer said the Guild's Policy had been reviewed but nothing required change at the moment; the Newsletter Editor said that the next issue was in preparation and was expected to be published in the first week of January. Despite fears of expenditure exceeding income in 2010, it was decided that four issues of the Newsletter should be produced, as has been the case traditionally, rather than three issues per year as recently.
Other items on the agenda tabled for discussion were: possible affiliation to the CCCBR, to which there was unanimous agreement for an investigation into the terms, timescales, etc; definition of the FSG name and badge, a seemingly strange subject until it is realised that two forms of the name and two forms of the badge have appeared side-by-side for many years, and that definitive forms are now necessary [ * ]; formalisation of the Mid-Week Tours money, as agreed at the AGM (see Minutes); insurance of the Guild's trophies, to which there was agreement; subscription amounts, to which there was general agreement that the amount has to rise and that a proposal for such be placed before the membership at the 2010 AGM; new Guild web-site, which is now being filled nicely with lots of interesting information and for which the Committee expressed its pleasure and thanks to Roland Merrick.
The next meeting will be held on Thursday 4th March at Ilmington, 6.30pm start.
In view of the substantial amount of business tabled for discussion this time and the number of decisions that were made, the meeting duration of a few minutes over 2½hrs was little short of remarkable in terms of 'bang for the buck'!
* In view of the adverse weather on 7th January, the intended interim meeting to discuss the issue further was conducted by email and telephone, as substantial discussion had already taken place previously. The decisions by the committee arising from this arrangement were: that the FSG should apply to affiliate to the CCCBR; that the application should be made to be considered by the CCCBR in 2010; and that ratification of these decisions by general consensus was not required.
** The full, definitive name has been agreed as The Four Shires Guild Of Bell Ringers
; the badge has been agreed as the embroidered one (on clothing); the background green will be the darker of the two shades used on the metal badges; the font used for the lettering of the badge will be Times New Roman. The definitive badge appears on the front cover of this Newsletter (and there is a greyscale one, too, in the same style) and this image will be used hereon to represent the Guild.
(If anyone needs an image of the guild badge for digital use, Chris Povey can supply in either jpg or pdf formats.)