Minutes of the Fairfield Association monthly meeting held on 19 March 2024 at the Tite & Locke. (Appended below the minutes is the report from the website meeting on 5 March 2024.)

Present

Andrew Brennand, Clio Graham, Chris Paterson, Geoff Oliver, Hilary Short (Chair), Ian Diffenthal, Ian Procter, Jane Parker, Mark Tanner, Mick Short, Mike Stevens, Pavlos Pavli, Sharon Diffenthal, Steve Bullen, Sue Nieduszynska, Sue Pope, Tony Finn

1. Apologies

Dave Brookes, Emma Putland, Robin Jackson

2. Minutes from the last meeting

• These were agreed.

3. Matters Arising

• Meeting with solicitors on 6 March – Joseph Jones – short and successful – they will store our documents. A letter has been sent to LGGS about LNR.
• Bicycle Hangar. Planning permission is probably not required. LCC will pay to save Fairfield Association paying VAT. There may be a small additional charge, less than £200 – agreed to be paid by Fairfield Association

4. Treasurer’s Report

Bank balance

Date	Amount in £
20.02.24	143,069
19.03.24	146,211

Restricted funds

Source	Amount in £
Play area	4208
LCC (bicycle hangar)	5000
Total	9208

General funds

137,003

Balance

146,211

Significant income

• Donation of £3000

Payments

• No significant expenditure

New savings account

• The new savings account with the Skipton Building Society is in the process of being opened. Once open, £85 000 will be transferred to the new account.

Margaret Burtonwood bequest

• Discussions were had about the use of the bequest. General desire to engage more young people and enhance wildlife.

6.  Membership and Friends

• No new members and one new friend.

7. Playground

• Work commenced Tuesday 7 November. There has been slow progress and they now hope to complete by mid-April.
• There has been some damage to the site by heavy vehicles. Andrew will ask they make good before they leave.
• Andrew is awaiting prices for the surfacing.

8. Education

• Tony and Chris are hoping to engage more local schools on what FA can offer

9. Events

• Easter egg hunt is being organised by Bethany and Katherine on Easter Monday, 1 April – they would like an information stall to attract new members and  volunteers
• The Fairfield Festival to celebrate the new playground will be on 25 May – Andrew and Mike will liaise with Jon – BBQ during the day and Pizza in the evening, music all day and more ice cream – all agree this is not a major fundraising event but it mustn’t cost Fairfield Association
• NLWG wildlife fair in the orchard on 16 June – Fairfield Association may arrange a tea tent
• AGM to be 17 September 2024 at the Friends Meeting House

9. FFOG report

• Two horses have been put into a Fairfield Association field, Sue N to follow up with the Horse Society

10. The Triangle

• No report

11. General Updates

• None

12. Website, Facebook and Newsletter

• Bird guide is now available on the website
• Mark is collating a list of members, so that everyone gets information. Sue P to send her distribution list to Mark. Sue N will ask for the volunteer list to be updated and then send to Mark
• Meeting on 5 March about website and social media was very successful. See report below.

13. AOB

• None

14. Date of next meeting

The next meeting will take place at 7:30pm on Tuesday 16 April 2024 at the Tite & Locke.

Appended Report – Fairfield Association Website Meeting Actions: 5 March 2024

Online Membership and Lists

Decisions

• It is important to enable people to apply by post as well as online.
• Online form to require name and address with phone number optional.
• The checklist of activities needs revising.
• A single list of all members including volunteers, Friends, and people on Sarah’s mailing list should be created.
• This list should be stored as a spreadsheet on the FA Google drive.
• The list should enable easy filtering to distinguish Friends. Filtering would also be useful for volunteers and bakers and possibly other interests/activities.
• Current lists used by the volunteer organiser, FFOG, and the secretary for monthly meetings should be kept working as they are. All that is needed is a regular check to make sure that everyone on these lists is also on the main membership list.

Actions

Mark will liaise with Andrew, Sarah and Geoff to create a single list of members and Friends which will be stored on the FA Google Drive. He will also contact Rebekah, Anne Greenwood and Sue Pope, to make sure that no one is missing from the main list.

Membership-wide Communications

Decisions

It would be a good idea for everyone involved in communicating news about the FA (website, Facebook, Instagram, e-news etc) to all receive the same information easily.

Actions

Mark to look at the best way of a setting up a simple system which would enable:

1. Information sent to one address eg, being received by everyone who needed it.
2. Easily allow those involved to communicate with each other and plan/coordinate any action/publicity.

GDPR

Decisions

A privacy policy statement available on the website is required.

Actions

• Mark to provide Hilary with the Information Commissioner’s privacy notice template. It can downloaded as a word document from privacy-notice-template.docx (live.com)  
• Hilary to contact Michael Shephard for advice.

Donations and Subscriptions

Decisions

• Find an alternative to Wonderful.org as this is limited in the banks it accepts.
• Stop asking for donations for the playground and make this a more generic fundraising appeal until an alternative to Wonderful.org is found.
• Paypal for charities was suggested as a good possible method for online donations.
• Provide three different methods of donation:
• Cheque sent by post
• Direct bank transfer
• Online donation

Actions

• Andrew to ask whoever manages Wonderful.org to change the donations page so that it is a general rather than just for the playground?
• Hilary to ask Jane to look at different online donation platforms.  Information about Paypal https://www.paypal.com/uk/webapps/mpp/not-for-profit-2
• There is a useful list of other options at https://charitydigital.org.uk/topics/topics/the-best-online-fundraising-platforms-for-charities-5324

Friends

Decisions

• Requesting standing orders is the preferred method of payment.
• Details and forms for payment by cheque should also be available.
• Friends and members should fill in different online forms, but they should both go to the same single spreadsheet.
• Friends online form should have gift aid information and tick box and declaration.
• Possible FAQ explaining the difference between Friends and Members.

Actions

Mark to mock-up both Members and Friends sign-up page on the staging site and circulate the link for online comments.

Website content

Wildlife Sightings Blog

Decisions

• It wasn’t necessary for people to be able to directly post to the blog.
• Sightings can be submitted via email or an online form.
• It would be good if people were encouraged to post photographs on Instagram.

Actions

• Mark to add online form for people to post sightings including the option to upload photographs.
• Grace to provide details of how people can post to Instagram. (This information will be added to the “Report a Sighting” page of the website.

Wildlife Guides

Decisions

It was a good idea to have four different online guides: Birds; Wildflowers; Minibeasts; Fungi.

The guides would link to:

• RSPB https://www.rspb.org.uk/birds-and-wildlife/a-z
• Wildlife Trusts https://www.wildlifetrusts.org/wildlife-explorer/wildflowers
• Buglife https://www.buglife.org.uk/bugs/bug-directory/
• No fungi source as yet. See actions below.

Actions

• Sue to provide list of what to include in each guide. This could be based on information in the Reserve Surveys.
• Mark to create four different webpages (Birds; Wildflowers; Minibeasts; Fungi) with image links.
• Suggestions needed for a good online source for fungi. The source needs to be easily read on a mobile phone. Some guides are on very dated websites and virtually impossible to access properly without a desktop.

Calendar Images

Decisions

• It would be a good idea to have online galleries of images submitted for the Calendar.
• Galleries could be based on the month the photograph was taken.
• Photographs should be used from the previous year, 2023, not the current year’s submissions.
• There was also a suggestion from Mick that there could, additionally, be themed galleries, eg cattle.

Actions

Mark to talk to Julia about uploading the images to the FA Google Photos Drive.

Mark to work out the best way of creating galleries for images. (This may be like the current Triangle galleries, or to save storage space on the website may link to Google Photo albums.)

Online Educational Materials

Decisions

• Generally agreed that a range of different online quizzes would be a good addition to the website.
• Should look at adapting already existing material in the first instance.
• Other groups might also be a good source of such material which would have the added benefit of helping promote their work.

Actions

Mick to contact Chris Workman about using/adapting some of the material the North Lancashire Wildlife Group have produced.

Mark to contact Chris Paterson who is also planning on talking to Tony.

Links to Other Groups

Decision

Provide a page of links to other groups.

Actions

If everyone could send information about any organisations we could include, I will create a new page with links.