MEETING / MACC Board of Trustees / DATE
VENUE / Meeting Room / TIME / 4 – 6 pm
MEMBERS PRESENT / Ash Wood, Beth Plant, Sinéad O’Connor, Dave Brown, Val Bayliss-Brideaux,
IN ATTENDANCE / Geoff Little (Part B)
Mike Wild and Angela Hampson.
APOLOGIES / John Downes, Maggie Walker, Ian Williamson
Agenda Item / Purpose / Who / When
1. Chair’s Welcome
The Chair welcomed everyone to the meeting.
2. Minutes of previous meeting
P3 Dave has sent the correct figure for Phil Parry, £1362 – This amendment was proposed by VBBand seconded by DB
3. Governance
City Council Observers
Sinead reported that she had met with the newly appointed Council Observers to give them a briefing about Macc and how it was delivering its new infrastructure contract.
Geoff Little (Deputy Chief Executive Performance) and Cllr. Sue Murphy (Deputy Leader & Executive Member for the Voluntary Sector) will attend Board meetings as observers, Sue Murphy will do so when her diary allows. If they are not available they will send suitably senior substitutes.Sinead noted that the board would need to provide a thorough briefing on voluntary sector issues to Council members..
It was agreed to continue with a part A/B structure of meetings but part A will be held only as and when needed. / Sinead / Ongoing
Chair
Dave Brown was nominated for Co Chair – Sinead Proposed and Ash Seconded.Dave will temporarily carry on as Treasurer until a new one is appointed which the Board are keen to do as soon as possible
The role of Co-Chair will be informally divided up between the two Co-Chairs.Dave will look inwards at accounts and organisational development and Sinead taking an outward facing role. This is an informal working practice adopted by agreement of the two Co-Chairs, not a formal redefinition of the roles. / Sinead and Dave / Ongoing
Board recruitment
Governance team will tidy up the recruitment advert. Recruitment of the 4 posts will happen in two stages of two.
  • ‘MACC’ must be written as “Macc”
  • Photos to be added to recruitment advert.
  • Geoff will circulate to his contacts in Town Hall and Professional Services to pass on to contacts in the private sector with marketing and legal skills.
/ Governance sub group / ongoing
Dates of Board Meetings
  • Governance Meetings on 4th Thursday of the Month.
  • Regular Board Meetings moved from 2nd Thursday to 3rd Thursday of the month.

PART B
Geoff Little joined the meeting at this point as observer from the City Council.
Geoff was formally welcomed to the Board.Geoff explained that purdah would not apply to board meetings but may apply to official events.
Geoff explained that the Council are interested not just as a funder but to providing strategic support to Macc: the Council were of the view that the decision to partner with Macc was the right decision and the organisation has shown impressive progressive in right direction – as demonstrated by the establishment of the Manchester Volunteer Centre.
Sinead stated that Macc saw the work with the Council very much as a partnership and the Council’s presence on the board was important and that their input was very helpful.
Charity registration
Macc is now a charity, after a protracted transfer process with the charity commission.
Macc felt that the Charity commission had applied an unrealistic application of law about what constituted “socially useful” and “public benefit” particularly around “volunteering”Mike has written a letter with learning points (not an official complaint) for the Charity Commission that was circulated to NAVCA and Volunteering England.We are awaiting a response.
4. Personnel
Management Review 2
The original applicants have been invited to retender to a slightly amended brief. Thirteen companies resubmitted.The Personnel Subgroup has selected three organisations for interview: Alison Gilchrist, Crellin and Pulse.They will be invited in for interview by the Personnel Subgroup who will make a recommendation to the Board. / Personnel Subgroup / a.s.a.p.
5. Finance
Finance Report
Angela introduced the report. It was noted that the Office move cost less than had been expected.Money left from CN4M has notyet been given out to former network members, which is the intention. This is because the potential beneficiaries have not all submitted their applications yet to receive the money.
Year End Preparations
The auditors are concerned about the procedure for Macc changing status half way through the tax year.No-one at Companies House or the Financial Services Authority knew whether they would need Macc to provide full year accounts or just provide accounts from the time that Macc changed status. The auditors will check with the Chartered Accountants Society for an answer.If none is forthcoming then Macc will present a full set of accounts for the whole year to both Companies House and the FSAThis was proposed by Beth and seconded by Ash. / Ange and Mike to oversee / On going
Budget planning.
Mike presented the draft budget. It was noted that
  • after consultation with Community Accountancy Service and our Auditors, Macc will keep to the budget model as in previous years: core cost being recharged on the basis of staff allocation to projects.
  • The Budget doesn’t show surplus or reserves.
  • Subcontracted services now comprise quite a large amount of the budget. This is because of our work with a range of partners including the successful TLI bid all of which will involve subcontracting to other voluntary sector groups. This will help support the sector in Manchester and the sustainability of partner organisations.
  • The budget is the annual model: it will be implemented through quarterly revisions.
It was noted that a large number of posts was included: Mike explained that the intention is not necessarily to appoint many new workers but to consider secondments or delivery agreements with partners – using the staffing model is simply a way of defining the actual cost. One post which is required is that of receptionist. We will look to it as a positive recruitment for a young person maybe as an apprenticeship. This was proposed by Ash and seconded by Dave. / Mike
6. Operational
Health and safety report
Mike presented Ian’s report. It was noted that actions necessary for fire risk assessment are being carried out by the landlord.The Board thanked Ian and Angela for all their hard work.
7. Strategic Plan
Macc Redesign.
Consultation with the sector - Mike reported that responses at the consultation events were very positive: there is a general trust in Macc. Most of the attendees had been existing organisations worried about what they might loserather than new groups interested in what was happening. Volunteer Centre consultation was done at the same time. Generally everyone is very excited about it and people have been waiting a very long time for it.
Community engagement- The Macc approach will not be as process driven as CN4M – it will look at helping people help themselves not look at creating expensive structures.Mike is unclear why the Equalities Hub has not met for some time: it was agreed that even though the Council have not yet published their strategy, the Hub has other work to do beyond this. Mike agreed to pursue this with partners.
Branding - Staff are to brainstorm on a strap line for Macc’s new logo. / Mike Wild / Ongoing
8. Service Areas
  • Health and wellbeing forum – establishing a mini group of larger organisations to think through NHS changes that will affect contracting.
  • Mental health - work continuing in Cheatham Hillaroundcommunity resilience and mental health: continuing to work with CLES and Urban Forum.
  • The Lottery is establishing a Big Local project in Collyhurst: this will give £1million to be spent by the local community.
  • The safeguarding conference was very successful. Only two non attendees. The conference confirmed that there is demand across Manchester for adult safeguarding courses – Macc will keep an eye on this.
  • 100 orgs registered with Macc Volunteer Centre.

10. Any other business
Date and time of next meeting 19thApril 4.00 / Mike