NMC Committee Minutes

Tuesday 5th November 2013

Attending

John Dalrymple (JD), Adrian Wilson (AW), Ed Sciberras (ES),John Vaughan (JV), Sarah Follmann (SF), Ian Ross (IR), Peter Flegg (PF), Ian Birtwistle (IB),Eva Diran (ED), Andrew Shanks (AS), John Mountain (JM),J ohn Spencer (JS)

1 Apologies

2 Approval of Minutes of last meeting

Minutes approved by JD, seconded by JM

3 Action Points and Matters arising

All meet leaders have been arranged

In keeping with our current policy of cooperating with the Wanneys club, AW will attend the Wanneys' New Year meet

The first event of the Winter Programme is the introduction to winter climbing to be presented by JS and Jim Rigg at Hadrian Leisure on Wednesday the 6th

4 Correspondence

No correspondence

5a Working groups - communications

• Latest County Climber is out

• The website is now much faster but use remains low

5b Working Groups - Publicity

• The copies of County Climber at Newton Aycliffe are attracting attention, the policy of leaving magazine copies at walls is to continue

5c Working Groups - Membership

• AW has researched membership fees and believes we are unlikely to be able to justify raising fees.

• At the start of the next membership year, the club needs to have a clear position on what it is trying to achieve and what activities can be justified.

• JV proposed compiling a list of activities, uptake and costs to put before the membership at the AGM -Action on JV

• It was proposed to attempt to renegotiate the club's arrangement with Hadrian Leisure – Action on ED and JS

• JM is to determine the progress of the bouldering supplement and John Earl's continuing role with respect to the club's guidebooks – Action on JM

• New member proposed by AW, seconded by JD

• AW has marked prospective members who have not applied for full membership as lapsed and contacted them regarding their intentions.

• The principle of approving new membership applications was discussed, and it was agreed that the committee would not reject an applicant without first hand knowledge of a reason that applicant should be rejected

• The use of the go cardless system for membership fees last year proved successful

• Direct debits have been investigated and rejected as the system does not allow the club enough control over the time when direct debits are collected.

5d Events

• Where practical, non-members are to be invited to buy tickets for winter speaking engagements at £5 a head

• Steve Bates has been proposed as a speaker

• JS is to open communication with Steve and copy in SF and JD

• JS has volunteered to run the quiz

• The NMC Christmas dinner is scheduled for the 14th of December

6 AOB

• ED asked for all outstanding claims and payments to be made before the end of the financial year

• There was a discussion about how to reduce the number of members having County Climber printed. A two-tier membership scheme with reduced fees for those receiving digital copies was agreed.

• JV and JM will be retiring from the committee

7 Date of Next Meeting

3rd December