Charlbury Refugee Action Group (CRAG)

Minutes110917

Minutes of CRAG committee meeting held on Monday 11 September 2017

1. Present: Val Parker (chair), Jon Carpenter, Angela Gwatkin, John Dunleavy, Paula Dunleavy, Hugh Belshaw, Frances Webber. In attendance: Floss

2. Apologies: none from committee members.

3. Minutes of the meeting of 8 May were agreed and signed. Matters arising: Jon and Angela manned the CRAG stall at the Corner House Open Day on 8 July, and received a letter of thanks from Jane Parsons for doing so. Angela felt it was good that we had a presence there.

4. Chair's report: Val welcomed the committee, and felt we had all had a much-needed break and were energised for the autumn. She had received a fairly lengthy response to our letter to Robert Courts MP (considered under Campaign officers' reports below).

5. Secretary's report: Jon reported on various disparate themes.
(a) Membership of CRAG was up to 211.
(b) Rue Swabey had offered to help by providing a media contact list. She had wanted to come to the meeting but couldn't make it.
(c) Jon had appealed for help to enable Witney Refugee Action (WRA) to accept the offer of crutches (which are thrown away after one user) from Horton hospital. Naomi had collected them from Banbury and Stuart Macdonald had taken them to Bampton, from where Nicola Milner of WRA will take them to High Wycombe. From there, they will go in containers to Syria and Greece (High Wycombe have sent out 25 containers already).
(d) Email privacy: we discussed the issue of group emails which disclosed everyone's email address, which Hugh believed breached data protection requirements. After discussion we agreed that communications within the committee could have email addresses but not communications with members or others. Additionally we agreed not to use 'reply all' unless it was really necessary that all committee members were informed.
(e) Jon was awaiting a response from the secretary of the memorial hall committee to our application to have a representative on the committee (since we applied there had been a change of chair). He explained that since decisions about the Memorial Hall and Corner House were taken by users, we ought to be on the committee as a full participant. The issue of who the representative would be was discussed; Floss's suggestion that we recruit at the next AGM was accepted.
(f) Witney Refugee Action's Asylum Sounds festival, on Saturday 30 September, was to include a meeting about community resettlement sponsorship, with a speaker from the International Rescue Committee. It was agreed that a number of us should go, to get information about the scheme to see whether it is feasible or desirable for CRAG to become a sponsor (at this stage it was felt probably not, as a single refugee family would probably feel isolated in Charlbury, and it was a heavy financial commitment) or whether and how we could support Witney. We had a discussion on fundraising priorities (resettled vs 'travelling' refugees) and it was pointed out that they were not alternatives but could be balanced, and we could (for example) stage separate appeals for resettled refugees.

6. Treasurer's report: Hugh presented the accounts for the financial year ended 31 August. They were very impressive, showing we had raised over £12,300, nearly double the total for 2015-16. Of this, our admin costs were under £200 and we had given £12,140 to refugee charities we support, chiefly via our MyDonate page. An additional £4,846 (including Gift Aid) from personal donations was received direct to the same site.

7. Fundraising and events:
Angela reported:
(a) The Art Café was very successful, organised by a team including Melissa, Vicky and Floss (who observed that in future we should ask volunteers to bake more savoury items). Additionally Catherine Goyder gave a percentage of her proceeds of sale of artworks, which (with a donations box in her studio) amounted to £140.
(b) The cricket event and tea, organised for young refugees by Helena (CRAG and Asylum Welcome) with help from Susan Strachan and Judith Haynes in particular, was a good day. Although regrettably the lack of youth players from Charlbury meant there could be no match as such, the club provided adult coaches, who did a great job.
(c) Future events: The programme of concerts restart on 15 October and run on 5 November, 3 December, 14 January and 25 March. We need to get a lot of publicity for these concerts, which feature very high-profile musicians, particularly in Oxford. We discussed the need for media contacts. A suggestion was made to contact David Horne, a retired journalist, for help.
We discussed the procedure for buying tickets in advance for the whole series, and agreed to keep it simple -- people who paid for tickets in advance (by cheque or online bank transfer) would have their names entered on a list and would receive their tickets at the door. We did not need to send out tickets, nor did we need numbered seats, provided we made it clear that seating as such was unreserved.
(d) Other future events included autumn Art Weeks 18-19 November, for which we agreed to have another Art Café on the Sunday, 19 November; and the Bring and Buy sale, which we decided would be on the first Saturday of 2018, 6 January. Frances agreed to organise it, and would ask Gene. Angela mentioned that there would be no Middle Eastern feast in September, although it was hoped it would happen in the new year.
(e) We agreed that the Christmas 'extra chair' appeal would be repeated this year. Val asked about a template for 'thank you' letters for donations from groups or individuals, but after discussion she agreed hand-written letters of thanks were better. The question raised the need for letter-headed notepaper, which Floss agreed to provide. We also discussed the need for volunteer graphic designers, editors and proof-readers for the materials we put out, which Floss is currently doing single-handed, and agreed to make an appeal at the AGM.

8. Campaigns: John reported on the letter to our MP Robert Courts, and his response. This contained significant errors, and he and Frances would be replying to it. Additionally, a number of members had sent their own letters to their MPs.
Frances reported on the meeting series which we were planning. So far only Nicholas Hildyard of the environmental/ corporate watch group Corner House had responded to a request to speak -- she had not received a response from Hassan Akkad. She would try to message him on Facebook, and if this did not work we would ask Brigid Avison to resume contact with him. Jon agreed to contact George Monbiot, whom he knew.

9. Email from Help Refugees: Jon said he would respond, telling them what we were doing.

10. Dates: The AGM would be held at 8pm on Monday 30 October at the Green Room of the Memorial Hall. (NB After the meeting the venue was changed to the Garden Room as the Green Room was booked.)

The next CRAG committee meeting would be held at 8pm on 27 November at Fiveways House.

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