Minutes of the Meeting
of the Friends of Blairs held on
Those present: John Brown
Anne
Caruana
Raymond Caruana
Peter Creron
David McCann
Brian McGuire
John O’Donnell
Mgr.McIntyre (part of
meeting due to other commitments)
Apologies: Paul Bradford
Jim Cassidy
Peter Gorman
John O’Brien.
The Chair opened the
meeting with a short prayer.
1.
Minutes of the Previous Meeting
The minutes were
approved subject to the following amendment:
2.
Matters arising
The last meeting was
cancelled because members had other commitments.
3.
Report from the Chair
The Chair had nothing
to report as most of the items appeared in the minutes and were on the agenda
for the meeting.
4.
Report from the Secretary
A report from the
secretary was submitted.
5.
Report from the Treasurer
The balance in the
Ordinary Account is - £1,845.53
The |balance in the
Special Account is - £1,067.21
It was agreed that a
discussion should take place at the AGM around the amount of money the
‘Friends’ should keep in accounts and whether some should be disbursed to a
charity.
It was agreed that the
agenda for the AGM with proposals for donations be sent out to members by15th
May to allow for discussion to be focused at the meeting.
6.
Fundraiser Update
·
Hall has been booked
·
Buffet will cost around £2.00 per head
·
Band booked
·
Tickets printed to be sold at £7.00
·
Brian to advertise on Blairs site with
anyone wishing tickets to contact Chair.
·
Brian to contact Fr Chamber’s sister re
photographs
·
Fr Chamber’s sister to be invited to the
event and presented with a cheque at the end of the evening.
·
Raffle prizes to be donated by Executive
and other sponsors. Other activities to
include Roll a Coin at the bottle and Stand-Up Bingo.
·
Duties on the evening were distributed.
·
It was agreed that any monies to be
counted and handed over to the treasurer who will keep a running total and
bank.
·
150 tickets printed and any unsold should
be returned to Chair by 10th April.
Those needing more tickets can see the Chair before or after that date.
·
Paul Bradford could collate numbers
desired, inform the Chair and then tickets will be sent to participants on
receipt of money.
A vote of thanks was
given to the treasurer for the organisation of the charity function.
7.
AGM Update
It was agreed that the
helicopter proposals was too expensive.
The Executive also
discussed the future aims of the Friends of Blairs in the light of the College
becoming a hotel complex. However,
members agreed to discus this further at out next Executive meeting and prepare
a paper for the AGM.
8.
Proposal to change and improve the
Newsletter.
Discussion took place
around the Secretary’s suggestions for the Newsletter. The Committee were concerned that changes
were made without full discussion at an executive meeting.
It was greed that the
status quo should remain in terms of the preparation and distribution of the
newsletter. The executive wished to
thank Paul for his offer of help and would be happy for him to assist in the
editorial group. The Chair owns the
printer and agreed that if he needed help to prepare for the distribution he
would ask other members to assist.
It was agreed that the
Friends of Blairs owes a great deal to the sterling work of Peter Gorman and
can understand his frustration when the newsletter does no appear quickly
enough. Peter is the editor and he used
others especially when there is a shortage of articles to fill the pages.
The Executive
discussed ways in which we could make the process more efficient. It was clear that it should not be sent by
e-mail as it will miss some members who do not have this facility or who do not
wish to give their e-mail address on a long list of members. There is an issue of privacy.
It was agreed to
re-format the last newsletter and send it out in the usual way.
9.
November Mass
The Secretary had
written to Bishop Tartaglia about the Mass but had not yet received a reply.
It was agreed that
those who wished could repair to the Waterwheel Inn for a small repast after
the
10. AOB
The Executive
Committee wished to commend Paul Bradford for the wonderful work he had
completed on Facebook. However, it was
agreed that we could not release the ‘Friends’ database because of data protection
concerns.
Date of next meeting to be arranged
by Chair.
The meeting closed
with a prayer led by Mgr. McIntyre.
J. Brown