Minutes of the Annual General Meeting
Of the Norton Grange Residents Association Ltd
held on
4th November at 7.30pm

Directors Present: Jane Mander, Vicki Butler James Atteck, David Bott, James Barrell

Secretary: Sally Andrews.

Apologies: Greg Molan, Ken Priddis,

1 Minutes

The minutes of the NGRA AGM held on 3rd November 2020 was available on the web site. they were accepted as a true and accurate record of the meeting.

2 Accounts
Treasurers Report NGRA AGM November 4th 2021
 2019-2020.

 No further increase in fees would be anticipated before 2022, barring unforeseen events. 
 Spending in 2019: after an estate inspection we were planning to undertake minor maintenance on roads, trees and shrubs, alongside commencing a programme of tree planting to replace trees recently removed. We also decided to update the estate maps and display cases. These projects have yet to be undertaken, and will now be funded from 2020-2021 income.
  £12,000 transferred to LT savings in January 2020 from current account.
  March 2020 –£70,201 LT savings.
  March 2021 - £1,899 Current Account balance.
  Audited Accounts – A PDF copy is posted on the website. In summary: Income from fees £17,831, Income from interest £440, Expenditure £7,013, Surplus £11,258. 

2020-2021

  £300 fees per household as per previous agreements. £25 per household for Kineton Cottages.
  Late payment penalty incurred and paid on 1 property.
  3 Share Transfers. · Estate map replaced.
  It was planned to plant trees and undertake minor road maintenance projects but these activities were delayed due to the availability of vendors.
  Purchase of a bench and picnic table / seating completed at a cost of £1427. Installed April 2021 and now reflected as a depreciating fixed asset in the latest accounts.
  Plans to transfer £10,000 in December to LT savings were delayed as it was anticipated that funds would be required for the road maintenance programme. · March 2021 – £70,457 LT savings.
  March 2021 - £13,046.15 Current Account balance. · Adequate funds available for significant road maintenance. Site survey completed and quote received. Work to was to be completed summer 2021.
  Audited Accounts – A PDF copy is posted on the website. In summary: Income from fees £19,324 (which was higher due to late payment charges and share transfers fees), Income from interest £254, Expenditure £12,082 (excluding the purchase of bench / table which is treated for accounting purposes as a depreciating fixed asset), Surplus (Net Profit) £11,725. 
 New accounting conventions and regulations surrounding the reporting of information for residential property management associations mean that the balance sheet now reflects the money we have in the bank as a liability listed as “amounts owed to the sink fund” - creditors due after 1 year – currently standing at £82,919. In previous accounts, we had reflected £71,194 as retained earnings.

 2021-22.
  It was proposed and agreed at the last AGM to increase the fees for Kineton Cottages to £45 to reflect a 1/63rd share of all NGRA running costs except estate maintenance and road repairs. The existing payment of £25 has not kept up with running costs and this increase is the first increase in 10 years. This was implemented as planned. 
 2021-22 Fees were all paid on time.
  Expenditure so far is as planned and in line with previous years, with the exception of £3600 recently spent on road repairs, which are set to be completed in early 2022 at a further cost of £27000. This significant expenditure was approved at the AGM in 2020 and was subject to a competitive tender process, with contracts awarded to Sutherpark. 
 Plan to transfer £15,00 out of long-term funds (sink fund) to cover the road maintenance expenses in early 2022 .

Queries raised by the floor included 
1 Whether the document storage is climate controled, Vicki was able to confirm that this was the case.
2 There was also a query about the state of the lighting, to be addressed.

The Accounts had been prepared by Thelma Murphy.

IT WOULD BE APPRECIATED IF THE PAYMENTS COULD BE MADE ON TIME TO SAVE THE NEED FOR CHASING AS THIS IS A VOLUNTARY POSITION AND THE TREASURER WORKS FULL TIME.

Accounts accepted unanimously
Thanks to Jane

3 Appointment of Auditors

Thelma Murphy was proposed by Jane Mander Seconded By Chas Hilditch and accepted unanimously as the Accountant. 

4 Chairman's Report
Estate Maintenance. We have continued to employ a groundsman to keep the estates public areas trimmed and tidy. His schedule is amended from time to time as needs dictate and, it fair to say that the list of jobs has expanded somewhat as residents point out additional work that is needed.

  Amenity Field. This is cut regularly, though we have been asked if the frequency could be increased to keep the grass shorter. This year has been exceptional for grass growth, but this is something we will look into. The committee invested in some heavy duty furniture to encourage the use of the field for picnics and barbeques, with a view to purchasing additional items if these proved popular. It’s not clear how popular these have proved to be with residents. We have had various reports of dog fouling at the field this year and this won’t help promote the use of the area for social and play purposes. We can only appeal to all dog owners; they are welcome to use the field to exercise their dogs, but must pick up after them in all cases.

  Estate Roads. This year we have undertaken a full appraisal of the roads to see what works are needed to improve and maintain them. Work at The Spinney to address root damage has been carried out and has proved very successful. In the spring of 2022, all the roads other than the stretch from the entrance to Cornerways, will be tarred and chipped. Ahead of this, various minor repairs and improvements will be carried out. The roads represent our greatest liability and we aim to carry out this kind of preventative maintenance at regular intervals to extend the period between major repairs.

  Covenants. The committee has received a large number of requests for approval of work covered by the covenants and thanks to all residents for maintain the integrity of the system. The great majority of these are not contentious and we are able to turn them around pretty quickly.

  Fibre To The Premises. There was a massive surge in applications to Openreach to get FTTP installed once the country went into lockdown. Progress has been extremely slow due to a massive backlog in applications. There have also been several complications in terms of the properties that we want included in our upgrade, not being on their automatic quoting system for one reason or another so they had to send out surveyors to complete the initial quote. Given the large numbers of applications and limited number of surveyors it is taking some time to get them out to do this work. Further to this, due to the volume of applications, the voucher scheme closed for a period of time to process the large backlog that they had. The scheme was due to re-opened again on the 1st April and Openreach assured us that we would be able to have our application in not long after that. In the event, they only opened the scheme again around the end of August and we are chasing Openreach regularly to progress matters. Some good news though, as we have been in the process so long, we have managed to agree that once our application is approved on the new scheme our build will be prioritised onto a 4 month build project instead of the normal 9-12 months. We currently have a quotation from Openreach that covers all of the estate and was about £45k which is great as we should easily be able to cover that with a few pledges of vouchers. 
It has been a quiet year.

Thanks to Chas for all the work on the web site over many years. Thanks to James Atteck for his work on FTTP

6 Election of Directors

All the directors agreed to remain standing. A vote of thanks was proposed by Stuart Andrews and seconded by Haydn Dunant.

The meeting was closed

Thank you to all the residents in attendance.