GOVERNING COUNCIL MEETING
M I N U T E S

Tuesday 14th January 2003
Drake House, St George’s Road, Wimbledon, London SW19
6.30 pm – 8.00 pm

PRESENT:
Peter Davis, Chairman
Marcus Beale, Chairman of the Executive Committee
Roger Casale MP, Hon President
Helen Clark Bell, Manager
Colin McDermott, Hon. Treasurer
John Crossman, Secretary
Peter Cargin, Friends Committee
Saleem Sheikh; Luc Moens;; Venerable Lom; Leonard Mostyn; Andrew Wakefield; Belinda Leathes; Annie Wood; Ken Wilshire; Helen Bramsted; Hatice Yarar; Robert Devcic; Pat Keith; Liz Nelson; Richard Martin; Chris Coverdale and Jane Bretton

1 No apologies for absence had been received.

2 Minutes of the meeting on 15th October 2002. These were accepted as a true record.

3 Proposal to elect Richard Martin to be a member and Chairman of the Governing Council: this was proposed by Peter Davis and seconded by Marcus Beale. There were no objections so PD stepped down as Chairman and RM took his place. Roger Casale proposed a vote of thanks to PD for his untiring work as Chairman of the GC.

4 Report from the Executive Committee: MB tabled a paper (attached below). Additional comments:
1.1 HCB and Christine Goodair would take forward the Youth Forum project (see 6.2 below)
1.2 This particularly refers to the Wimbledon Local Area Forum, giving the people of Wimbledon a true voice
The GC gave its ascent to the four identified Key Tasks

2. The development of the website will give the Forum meetings a far larger audience so long as the proceedings are written up and posted. KW confirmed that there is now free access to the web in Wimbledon Library which endorses the WCF plan to use the website to reach out to the whole community, even though a lot of people are still not online at home.
2.5 Atkinson Morley – there will be a public meeting on 17th March at KCS on this issue
2.6 MB commented that the Humanist and Atheist groups must be included in the Interfaith Forums

3.3. Ad Hoc would continue to work 1 ½ days a week, covering all accounts, book keeping and membership issues and assist in the website development, resulting in the Forum office being manned for at least 3 ½ days a week
3.4 The Constitution of the London Civic Forum is being sent to HCB to assist in getting the Objects Clause in our Constitution acceptable to the Community Fund.

4.1 MB reported on the huge increase of hits since the new website was launched, eg. 949 hits a day – and on 16th December 2002, there were 2,572 hits in one day. The website is now fully searchable, clean and easy to use.
4.2 Future Bulletins are scheduled for publication on 1st January, 1st April and 1st September each year. The next Bulletin is thus due on 01.04.03.

5 CMcD tabled a financial report – attached. He confirmed that he had requested that the research grant of £4,000 be diverted to other uses and had not heard back from the Community Fund. There is an urgent need to grow the paying membership. The accounts for 2001 are on the website.

6.1 Much discussion took place on the issue of whether Forums should be held in a regular pattern or rove dates and venues. A straw poll was suggested via the website. LM suggested the chairmen of the next four Forums should ask their audience what is preferred. PK said that the most important way to get new audiences is to grasp and act on a topical local issue, as at Atkinson Morley. The forthcoming Licensing Forum was a good example of WCF doing this in response to the new White Paper, which has civil liberty issues. It was finally agreed that regular meetings in central Wimbledon be the format for the time being, but that WCF would act on local issues as required and hold meetings on these in the appropriate location.
6.2 AW and Annie Wood agreed to join HCB and CG to progress this.
6.3 It was agreed to add to the website the option to “subscribe to an email newsletter”.
6.5 There was much discussion about a Friends Party: dates needed to be checked against local RA social events. RD stressed the need for clear objectives for an event – would it be to raise the profile or to raise money. He also doubted there was enough lead time to organise such an event as sponsors would need to be sought. KW will progress a membership drive which could be linked to such an event. RM and PD stressed that it would be necessary for any expenditure to be in line with the purposes for which the money had been donated and that this would need to be kept under review once the idea had been developed further.

5 Discussion Forums: covered in the report from the EC.

6 Dates of future meetings
Tuesday 8th April 2003 at 6.30 – 8.00 pm
Tuesday 8th July 2003 at 6.30 – 8.00 pm (NB different from Agenda)
In future it was agreed that the AGM should be held after a GC meeting

7 Any Other Business:
26th January is the Second Holocaust Memorial Day held in Merton, at 3 pm in Dundonald Park Pavillion: it has the theme of “children”.
RC offered thanks to the “old team” and expressed huge confidence in the new team at the helm of WCF, namely Marcus Beale, Richard Martin and Helen Clark Bell, and he wished them every success in developing the venture he started in 1999.

The meeting closed at 8.00

MINUTES PREPARED BY AD HOC BUSINESS SUPPORT
MINUTES APPROVED BY RICHARD MARTIN

These Minutes will be circulated to all members of the Governing Council and will be posted on the website : http://www.wimbledoncivicforum.org.uk/

Executive Committee report to the Governing Council meeting
14 January 2003

1. Key tasks for 2002-2003 have been identified as
expansion of the youth forum. Promote and support youth forums, schools citizenship courses, education and business links. Work with existing initiatives, agencies and individuals, help coordinate and focus the work. Support young peoples own initiatives.
Community participation in local government. Promote and support local area forums and business forums. Work with the local authority in promoting regional forums. Harness the creative involvement of local people in decision-making.
Regular forums on transport, health, crime, education, and urban design. Build on the programme of forums, 3 per year for each forum (we have found this more successful than quarterly.) Let the forums learn from each other and establish good practice. We have added urban design to our core forums.
Communications. Develop and improve the forum's busy web site at www.wimbledoncivicforum.org.uk publish results quickly and communicate on matters of community concern, openly and transparently. Explore the new possibilities of local democracy that e-communications makes possible and develop good practice. Continue to communicate in print, building on the bulletin series, and local media, speaking for all sectors of the community.

2. Forum events
Since the last governing council meeting on 15 October the following activities have taken place:
21 November - crime forum, chaired by Richard Martin - disappointing turnout - about 15 - not much publicity - but good quality of debate and well written up.
24 November 02 friends wine tasting event at decanter.
28 November - MB attended a meeting of the Griffiths road Methodist group who are redeveloping their church to include community facilities. Offered WCF help in reaching local community.
29 November - nelson hospital reference group met, we are planning a 'string of pearls' urban workshop in March 03.
29-30 November - Atkinson Morley - a planning for real exercise was held at the site, facilitated by Kingston University - an inspiring event attracting over 200 people.
11 December - education forum/interfaith group - talk by Trevor Barnes
2 January 2003 - a forum chairs meeting was held, developing best practice and helping to plan the business forum.
Forthcoming events are listed in the New Year flyer. Please pass the word and distribute flyers to your local communities.

3. Administration. Forum manager. Helen Clark bell started as forum manager on 13 January 2003 (yesterday) and has hit the ground running.

3.2. Volunteer coordinator/assistant manager. We are now actively looking for an assistant - please spread the word and advise if you know a suitable candidate. Details are on the web site.

3.3. Forum offices. The office is now staffed on Mondays and Tuesdays all day, with occasional cover at other times of the week.

3.4. Lottery fund. The community fund have asked for some changes to our objects in the constitution in order to bring in line with charitable requirements. We are attempting to confirm these over the next 7 days so that the changes can be ratified at the AGM on 20 January. Until these changes are agreed the community fund have held our payments - this does not cause a cash flow problem in the short term.

4. Communications. Web site. The newly redesigned site is up and running. Feedback has been extremely positive. The message board is a new and important feature - please use it! Note also that the site is searchable. Helen Clark bell is maintaining the site with assistance from MB, Jane Bretton and the site designer Joe Sharpe.

4.2. Bulletin. A New Year bulletin/newsletter was produced and distributed over the holiday period. We are progressing plans for a full April bulletin, Helen Clark bell working with Laura Simpson and john Ellison as advisor.

5. Finance. A summary will be available at the meeting.

6. Questions for the governing council

6.1. Two suggestions for forums, one is that forums should be held on the same evening, say the last Thursday or Friday of every month. The second, that forums should be roving, moving to other venues within the Wimbledon area rather than sticking to Drake House and St Marks. Any views?

6.2. Young people - should we involve schools/young people in opinion/ideas surveys to help find out the hot issues in the community? James Edleston the youth project manager of Timebank, will be meeting HCB next Monday morning 20 Jan 03 with a view to talking about his involvement in a youth forum. Any ideas/proposals would be very welcome!

6.3. Could governing council increase its promotional role - take leaflets and distribute, promote in own communities.

6.4. We need volunteers to help transfer archive information onto the new website - please could GC ask around to see if any reasonably computer literate people would like to help.

6.5. Should we hold a friends party at St Marks in the summer?

6.6. As always we are looking for suggestions and ideas for forums - what are the hot topics?

Marcus Beale
Chair Executive Committee.
14 January 2003