News archive
June 2009
Wednesday, 24 June 2009
Annual General Meeting - by Angela Pugh
RECEIPTS:
The £1188 from SUBSCRIPTIONS represents a membership of 149 at the end of the financial year. This is a decrease of 1 double and an increase of 3 single paying memberships. The Committee is proposing to leave the cost of subscriptions the same this year.
DONATIONS: The £229.36 is made up of £132 given with annual memberships, £51 from the Puffin Box, £26.25 from Graham's cards and £20.11 from Garson's Farm.
It is thanks to Jean and Suzanne who normally run the RAFFLE that £345.52 was raised .
Also, thank you to Brenda who organises the REFRESHMENTS for which we banked £60.
LECTURES/BOXES: £237 was raised from talks given by Mary, Hannah, David and Ray; also in this total are the proceeds of Hannah's personal collection box.
EVENTS The AGM made a profit of £20.87, the BBQ raised £107 and the Quiz Nite raised £377.
£195.12 was collected at Sainsbury's in Staines.
£750.50 was the net figure raised at the Spring Fayre excluding Dave's plants and soft toys project which are accounted for separately. Including the income from these, the total raised on the day was £927.30 which was an increase of £136.30 over the previous year.
The miscellaneous item represents the sales from Dave's soft toy project, the profit from the horse race evening and stalls we had at Bedfont Lakes and Longacres, minus the cost of some new display tables and a leaflet holder used at our recruiting events.
NUTS AND SEEDS are sold by Norman and Hazel from their home; many thanks to both of them for continuing to do this and raising £50.
£140 was raised from the sale of NEST BOXES at Bedfont Lakes, Longacres and at our monthly indoor meetings. Thanks again to Dave, a huge £761.55 was generated from his plant sales.
£60 of the SUNDRY income was for the WEx membership prizes given at the Spring Fayre, the other £1 was for the sale of a nest box plate.
The £300 SPONSORSHIP is the money received from the 3 sponsors Mary spoke about.
The total receipts for the year were £5572.29.
PAYMENTS:-
SPEAKERS are generally charging more; however; 2 speakers very generously only charged for their expenses. This and the fact we had 2 film nights and a horse race night means that the £355.80 is lower than last year.
HALL HIRE: £270 is the amount invoiced during the financial year by SWP for the hall for our monthly meetings.
As you can see the cost of PRINTING AND POSTAGE has decreased by £10. The postage would be a lot higher if it were not for one of our members who very kindly posts the uncollected newsletters for us.
EVENTS expenditure is £434.78.
The Branch TRANSFERRED £3000 TO THE RSPB which was allocated equally to the Lowland Heath and Coast and Marine Projects. This amount was made up from the net income from events and Dave's plants, Lectures/Boxes, Norman's nuts and seeds, nest boxes, donations not given with subscriptions, Graham's cards and £203.75 from Group funds.
PLANT SALES: There was expenditure of £204.74 this year.
The £17.51 SUNDRY expense is the cost of the food bought for the April social meeting.
No expenditure is shown for REFRESHMENTS as only the net amount was included in the receipt figure.
A total of £4666.11 was spent leaving a profit of just over £906.
There are three items that do not go through the books but are credited to the Group.
The first is £200.03 profit from RSPB Sales which is thanks to Jan who sold nearly £570 of goods to achieve this.
Secondly, the £2400 is the amount the Group was credited with for recruiting the 32 new members during the year.
Finally, the £4744.48 from pin badge collection boxes and £163.95 from poly boxes.
The grand total the Group has either given or been credited with raising for the RSPB this year is £10508. Many thanks to those who haven't been mentioned personally in helping to raise this money.
Saturday, 6 June 2009
Wisley Garden Shop
Having previously enjoyed a successful day in the Garden Plant shop at Wisley in February, we had been invited back and had volunteers enough to cover the recruitment table indoors from 9.00am to 5.00pm and also the idea had been to set telescopes up on the bird feeders that hang in the plant sales area. Sadly finch disease had been discovered just a few days prior to our arrival and the feeders taken down. It was also raining....hard! So we were forced to stay indoors and abandon our efforts of an "Arn't Birds Brilliant" type of event.
However, we managed to recruit 5 new members during the day, give out all 100 leaflets giving details of "Make your Nature Count" and collect £13 towards "Love Nature Week".
Thank you Wisley for having us back. Thank you to everyone who stopped to talk to us, give donations and get involved. Welcome to our new members who joined yesterday and thank you to all the volunteers who gave their time.
For people wanting to get involved with counting nature in their garden, go to the RSPB website for details or use this link -