Minutes of a meeting of the Management Group of the Marden Community Plan held on 2^nd November 2006

Present

John Verrall                 Chairman
Chris Turner                Treasurer
Graham Tippen          Coordinator

Apologies
John Banks, Mike Lutener

Minutes
The minutes of the last meeting were accepted as a true record. 

Matters Arising
Chris confirmed that he had reimbursed Sally O’Brien for her initial contribution to Plan funds; Annabelle Blackmore was still owed £5.

Graham still needed to chase Joan Fewkes for a receipt for the Vestry Hall hire

Meeting with Sue Beer 

John and Graham had met with Sue Beer earlier in the afternoon.  She had been pleased with progress made and was enthusiastic about our ideas for redeveloping and expanding the facilities at the Memorial Hall as well as the ideas about forming a Business Forum and providing generic training including IT skills and other life-long learning. 

She was able to give us information about SEEDA Enterprise Gateways and the Learning and Skills Council both of whom could provide sources of funding

 Sadly, she did little to remove our confusion regarding the several different SEEDA schemes hat are at times independent from each other and at others interlinked.   The criteria for each are also unclear as is who actually decides if, and how much, money is awarded.  Hopefully this may become clearer once we have a definite project plan to put forward 

There is also an issue of ‘vicious circles’.  SEEDA will not part with money unless they have evidence of matched funding.  It will be difficult to attract investment from businesses or other Government or QUANGO organisations unless they can see some support from SEEDA.   

It may also be the case that the AGM in April 2007 may elect different office holders to take forward the work from that date.  This is not necessarily a problem, other than as a learning curve for the new incumbents.   However the work is taken forward (the second stage of the Plan as in the initial Project Document) funding will be required for the Co-ordinator and general running expenses.

 Next steps

• Complete workstream questionnaires and SWOT analysis
• Discuss and agree proposed actions
• Draft initial version of action plan and distribute to stakeholders for comments (by 31/1/2007)
• Collate responses and revise plan accordingly
• Hold open event to publicize proposals
• Produce final action plan and full healthcheck report by 1/5/2007

 Finance

 Chris Turner provided a comprehensive statement of our income and expenditure to date.

 There is still approximately £3,000 in the account.

NEXT MEETING Thursday 7th December 8.00PM THE ALLENS