MINUTES of an OPEN GENERAL MEETING of ST AUSTELL BAY CHAMBER OF COMMERCE held on WEDNESDAY 25th February 2015 at the Gurkha Restaurant, Biddicks Court, St Austell at 6pm
[Meeting started at: 18.07]
1. Welcome & Apologies from the Chair – David Halton (DH)
Present: Dave Halton, Jacky Swain, Jessica Milln, Mike Stanford, Susan Ashby, Stephen Nott, David Avery, Daniel Summers, Peter Moody, Tony Cousins, Lee Russell, Clive Acraman, Andy Ward, Anne Chapman, Cllr Brian Palmer, Cllr Malcolm Brown. [Attendance Record not collected]
Apologies for Absence: Ross Sundercombe, Sue Ford, Gerald Banks, Mark Lewis, Ian Chalmers, Richard Austin.
Introduction and Welcome of new members to the Chamber – David Halton (DH)
Daniel Summers – Santander, Business Banking
Anne Chapman
2. Minutes of meeting held on 28th January 2015
It was agreed that these should be APPROVED and signed as a correct record.
3. Chamber Hustings Event Progress Update– Dave Halton (DH)
All 6 PPC have agreed to attend.
Members agreed to change of venue from SAPC to the Keay Theatre (who have offered the venue for free), due to the level of interest shown.
It was decided that people would be asked to RSVP to ensure seat booking, however it would not be restricted to tickets only.
Chamber members to be given priority seating and be allowed priority in putting questions to the candidates.
Two parts to the debate:
1) Submitted questions to be put to the panel for debate
2) Open questions from the floor and non-members.
Members agreed to pay for flyers to be printed to promote the event and the chamber.
4. Carlyon Bay development– Jacky Swain (JSw)
Reserved matters hearing unanimous voted for approval and was the last large planning hurdle for the development to go ahead.
Now waiting for Natural England to give a Bat Licence, which is required before the Coliseum can be taken down as bats have been roosting in there. A bat house has been built to re-house the bats. If the licence is granted very soon, will be within the time scales for the bird-nesting season for demolition to begin. Worse case scenario we will have to wait until the autumn.
5. Website and Social Media channels– Jessica Milln (JM) & DH
HOW TO: get the best out of the Chamber website and its Social Media channels.
Website is set up so all members have full control so that they can add news, offers and events they wish to promote about their own businesses on the Chamber website. That is one of the biggest benefits of the Chamber membership.
[Click here to read the HOW TO.]
One example was the St. Austell Christmas Lights Switch on event last November. In that month we doubled the number of unique visitors from the previous month and half of the traffic came through Google. This was just because we promoted the date of the switch on the Chamber website because it was a local event that would benefit local business. We received more than 1,000 hits for that one post and almost 600 on the day itself.
PLEASE SHARE ALL STORIES that you are sending to the Press to the website too!
JM said much of her time had been spent find stories about Chamber members elsewhere, especially in Business Cornwall who send a daily bulletin, and then adding that story to the Chamber website. Since the beginning of the year she had not had time to do any of this.
Chamber Email System
DH asked if the Member Messaging service should be enabled again. This facility had been switched off due to members’ complaints.
ADVANTAGES:
DISADVANTAGES:
SOLUTIONS:
ACTION 1: Members voted to turn member messaging back on.
*Clive Acraman (CA) suggested looking into rules surrounding data protection regarding the wider use of the Chamber subscription list.
ACTION2: DH said he would look into this.
6. Questions to members:
Cornwall Chamber has offered us a stand for £100 rather than the normal £440 at this event.
ACTION 3: Members agreed that a stand should be booked.
If you would like to help man the stand to help promote the Chamber PLEASE email secretary@StAustellchamber.co.uk
We will be giving the opportunity for you to talk about your business at the same time, however WE MUST restrict this ONLY to smaller businesses that would not normally be able to afford to exhibit at this type of event.
Helen Nicholson, Community network Manager for St. Austell & Mevagissey asked if the Chamber, or Chamber members, would be interested in sponsoring floral displays on the roundabouts. JSw thought there was an initial cost and then ensuing maintenance costs involved.
JSw said that leading on from the topic was the St. Austell Historic Market Town sign. A new sign or a new description of St. Austell could help to identify funding sources.
Stephen Nott (SN) suggested there was no value for the Chamber unless there could also be a sign to say who had sponsored the display. Mike Stanford (MS) also said it would be great to use this type of opportunity to sponsor the Chamber, hopefully it wouldn’t be prohibitively expensive to do so.
Members were asked if they would be interested in considering this and therefore if the Chamber should explore the costs and details further.
ACTION 4: It was agreed that this should be further investigated.
7. Nominations for the AGM
Next meeting is the AGM. All positions in the Chamber will be available, as everyone has to stand down either to be re-elected or for new nominations to come forward. Chamber is run by volunteers and therefore relies on the energy and input of its members.
There are 5 defined Management roles:
Chair, Vice Chair, Junior Vice Chair, Treasurer, and Secretary.
These act as the Chamber’s public representatives and as its voice. The management act as the spokesperson, press liaison, first point of contact and as main negotiators with other stakeholders and other organisations, or are functional in running the finances and office of the Chamber.
The running of the Chamber is also reliant on its committee members and the skills and expertise they can bring. A strong management committee enables the Chamber to function as an effective business organisation.
Please email dave@StAustellChamber.co.uk if you would like to either nominate someone for either a specific role or would like to put yourself forward to be part of the Committee.
It was agreed that the role of the President would remain vacant.
JM has said, due to work commitments, that she cannot perform the Secretary role next year and won’t be standing. SN asked if JM would stay if there were more people to support and divide the tasks. Tony Cousins (TC) also suggested splitting the duties to ease the workload.
ACTION 5: JM said she would email the tasks she has performed for the Chamber to enable them to be broken down and shared by other members, and seek volunteers for those tasks to ease the burden.
JSw and DH both encouraged new people to apply to be on the Management Team as ‘new blood’ brings new ideas and energy.
8. Next Breakfast Meeting, 6th March, Britannia – Tony Cousins (TC)
Enables businesses to promote their own business. Promotes how they can help other Chamber members, and how other Chamber members can help them to grow their businesses.
Numbers attending the meeting have been growing with each meeting.
Cost £6.
9. St Austell BID Update– Mark Lewis (ML)
[No Update given. Mark had sent his apologies]
DH said that if members want a copy of ML report, he could send it to them by email.
10. Any Other Business/ Q & A
[No other business.]
11. SABEF St Austell Website Project - Should the Chamber of Commerce pledge financial support? – Peter Moody (PM)
SABEF Project: A clearly branded “Something for Everyone” Website to promote all of St. Austell: the town, the bay and the surrounding area. Aimed at locals and visitors promoting everything from ‘What’s On’ to where to find a local business. The aim would be to list every business for free on the site, but businesses could promote their business further through various packages of advertising.
In order to kick-start the project, local businesses are being asked to pledge £1,000 as Founders. These founders would have the highest level of promotion and advertising in the site for three years for free as a major benefit.
Would the Chamber wish to be one of the supporting founders? JSw commented that to have the Chamber, as representatives of business, as one of the original sponsors was a ‘no brainer’.
Discussion surrounded whether it was right to take a vote on pledging what was effectively a large chunk of the Chamber assets without having more members present.
It was decided that a vote constitutionally could be taken, but members would have the opportunity to query the decision and tonight’s vote would only be ratified at the AGM.
DH, PM, JSw and JM left the room as having an interest in either SABEF and/or the project directly.
MS chaired the vote in their absence.
The Chamber voted to support the SABEF website with a pledge for £1,000.
THE DATE OF CHAMBER AGM - 25th March 2015
[Meeting ended at: 19.39]
