Council minutes 15th November 2016 ‐ At SCMS HQ - Southampton

Minutes

1. Confirmation of Minutes to Last Meeting – 16th August 2016

The minutes were then agreed to be a true record of the meeting.

2. Matters Arising From Minutes to the Meeting of 16th Aug 2016

ACTION: Paul Johnson to report on the acceptability of electronic signatures by the MCA – To be discussed at BCC meeting in Feb 2017 – no policy presently.

Bob Barnes/Clive Robinson Paper on Membership – See new papers on Agenda Item 7. - ACTION CONTINUES

ACTION: Nick Gladwell to report on vertical audits achieved. More audits are required in the new year on Mike Eckles and others such as Simon Oakes and Jim McDonald. Action continues

Action on CEO Certification to obtain the mandate to sign cheques and alter address with banks.  This has finally been completed with Mike, Mark, Stuart, Petar and Nick now being authorised and Petar/Stuart having Lloyds debit cards and Stuart a Visa Card. – ACTION COMPLETE

ACTION: Nick Gladwell to draw £10k from the Benevolent Fund to be transferred to balance the Lloyds Trading account to cover Peter Hicks payments re Pension payments. - ACTION COMPLETE

3. Financial Report

Nick Gladwell went through the key financial summary:

CCLA Benevolent Fund Shares value 30/6/2016 = £231,687.70 – 15/11/2016 = £221,687.70

Lloyds Benevolent Fund Account 30/6/2016 = £1,476.82 – 15/11/2016 = £6,477.46

Lloyds Membership Current Account 30/6/2016 = £9,883.41 – 15/11/2016 = £7,394.48

Lloyds Savings Account 30/6/2016 = £2,469.08 – 15/11/2016 = £2,469.38

Lloyds Visa Card 30/6/2016 = -£61.19 – 15/11/2016 = -£100

Lloyds CA Trading Account 30/6/2016 = £19,023.24 – 15/11/2016 = £20,567.31

HSBC Money Manager 30/6/2016 = £75,677.00 – 15/11/2016 = £60,740.00

HSBC Business Acc 30/6/2016 = £127.00 – 15/11/2016 = £653

Total money in Bank Accounts 30/6/2016 value = £107,118 – 15/11/2016 = £91,643 This is a reduction of £15,475 due to final removal costs, IT upgrade/renewals and a half payment on the development of the new SCMS website. These costs had previously been agreed with Management/Committee.

Proposed budget for 2017 – Nick did not have specific proposals for next year yet as the last 3 months have not been normal due to changes in staff and old London bills still arriving plus Stuart working on reducing costs by changing suppliers of IT and applying for Rate rebates. He would work on a proposed budget before the year end. Bob offered to supply a previous year’s budget in Excel format to help with this. The new Xero had furnished interesting information for 2016 so far as compared to the Edge accounting used in 2015 report period:

Membership generated 2016 = £31,203 of which about £1000 was recovered from non payments from 2015.

CA 2016 Generated = £230,985 of which about £30,000 was recovered fees from non payments in 2015.

In comparison 2015 accounts show combined Membership + CA = £177k & 2014 = £181k

In order to reduce running costs Nick was now working between one or two days a week and also doing “Scrutineering” of CA work in house. Other measures being taken should result in the 2017 year making a profit as opposed to the loss of the last two years.

Some current charges such as the Peter Mansbridge mobile phone account had been negotiated down despite being a fixed 2 year contract (£75/month to £45) and the Warner Goodman arrangement (£145 per quarter) could be cancelled.

Bob repeated his 2014 request that when invoicing for Membership fees in 2017 we add in a section that allows Members to voluntarily contribute to the SCMS Benevolent Fund. Action Point CEO to arrange this for the 2017 Membership Invoices.

4. Office Management

Stuart Gladwell updated Committee Members on the new office and staff situation.

The new admin staff member Ashleigh had just started this week replacing Peter Spence who had left. Stuart was now doing the majority of the CA certification until Ashleigh was fully trained. The office has received good comments from customers regarding the quick turn round times of certification and answers to emails.

The IT maintenance/repair was now with Purple Computing (a local Apple Approved company) and 3 of the computers had been upgraded by fitting solid state discs to improve their performance. Purple Computing were cheaper than the previous Pinnace company and giving better service.

About 20 new members of various categories had joined SCMS in the previous 5 months and also we had 10 applications for CA Examiner.

The new SCMS Website had been made and was presently undergoing testing and approval and it was expected to be online and in use by the end of November. The new website would be managed by SCMS HQ without the need for a web consultant as before and had many new applications such as “Stripe”, an alternative to Paypal with cheaper costs and also a Surveyors Forum page. The CA Examiners are also listed using a map tool so customers can easily identify a surveyor in the required area of the world. The new website also pushes membership of SCMS and gives information to make joining easy. The Link Magazine will be available on the website and in future the Blue Book will also be available on the website.

5. MCA & CA Position Update

Paul Johnson gave a summary of the CA Committee work including the recent MCA monitoring visit on Oct 4th 2016.

He said that the MCA had gone remarkably well with very few action points raised. The team from MCA also included the Gibraltar Marine Authority Chief Surveyor, Rob Combes, who made some positive comments about the new SCMS office and team. The next MCA monitoring visit was confirmed as Sept/Oct 2017. Paul had also heard on the grape vine that other CA’s such as MECAL and YBDSA were now experiencing a hard time from MCA as the MCA applied the same high expectations at audit as previously applied to SCMS.

Bob noted that Rob Coombes had followed up his stated intention, made at their meeting in August 2014, to combine their GMA audit with other interested bodies in order to save cost and time. (See Bob’s report on his Gibraltar visit).

Paul also made comment about the recent “Training Day” that had taken part in Southampton. Mark Lockie had kindly organised it and it was a great success. Originally there were 12 places but we had over 20 applications so had to change to a bigger room. Feedback from the attendees was good and it is planned to do more of these with other subjects and include non-CA work items. It is also proposed to do a training day at a venue in the North so members from Scotland and the North are not disadvantaged. Mark said that the next planned training day is proposed for May 2017.

6. Membership

Bob Barnes introduced his two updated papers (version 6.5) dated 11/11/2016 which he and Clive Robinson FMCS had been working on with consultation with the working group. Bob informed the Council that Allan Larsen was interested in the working group as he does Lloyds Training and was involved with other organisations developing career and training plus Membership Channels. Nick suggested that comments on the working Groups papers should be through the SCMS HQ so we can co-ordinate responses and opinions. It was agreed that all Council Members plus Allan and Clive should be on the contact list. Mark Lockie confirmed he had sent in some comments on the latest paper to SCMS HQ and Nick also said he had some comments on the latest papers and asked if he could attend Bob’s new Office at some point soon to discuss some of the ideas coming out of the working group. Bob agreed and said perhaps Clive would also be available on a date to be agreed.

Action Point – Nick & Bob to meet at Bobs Office possibly with Clive, regarding Membership Working Group.

Post Meeting Note: Meeting took place on 22nd November.

Norman updated us on the recent issue of the Link Magazine. He was working with his daughter Heather on the next issue and had received many contributions for the magazine plus offers of help. The feedback from Members had been very positive and agreement of what a positive step this had been to restart this.

7. FEMAS

In 2016 SCMS had charged members that requested it, £23 for the FEMAS website. FEMAS in turn charged SCMS Euro 25. The recent FEMAS meeting was held in Rotterdam and Mark Lockie kindly attended on behalf of SCMS. With the attendance expenses and the change in £/Euro exchange rates this has meant we lost many hundreds of pounds regarding FEMAS membership. There are 59 members who use the FEMAS website. It was agreed to continue with FEMAS membership but put up the fees for 2017 to £50

FEMAS are proposing that the 2017 meeting could either be in London or in Piraeus Greece. Due to cost implications it was agreed we would vote to attend in London but not attend if the next meeting was in Greece. Action Point – CEO to contact FEMAS and register London as our preferred 2017 FEMAS meeting venue.

The FEMAS Secretary (Paul Owen) has emailed us on 12 Nov regarding the FEMAS database and an Ad Hoc Sub-Committee meeting to be held in Holland regarding personal information held. A copy of the existing information held for membership was sent and it was highlighted that the information on SCMS FEMAS members was missing for things like Nationality, official statement of good behaviour and date of birth. It was agreed that as FEMAS were prepared to pay reasonable expenses then Mark Lockie could attend if it was cost zero to SCMS.

Bob Barnes raised a question regarding a Paul Owen (FEMAS Secretary) article in “Link” that FEMAS was limited to organisations within the EU only. Mark Lockie stated that at the recent FEMAS meeting he attended this topic was covered and it was agreed that it was open to organisations within Europe not just EU. Bob asked that this point would be confirmed. Action Point – CEO to contact Paul Owen and confirm European not just EU.

Action point CEO to circulate the FEMAS Minutes of the recent meeting regarding the EU or European problem and circulate the minutes to Council as soon as available from Paul Owen.

8. A.O.B

1. Amendment to fees for 2017

There was a discussion regarding changes to various fees and the following was agreed.

The fees should be considered each year from now on instead of the previous every 2 years.

SCMS Fees

2016

2017

Honorary Member/Fellow

0

0

Fellow

£130

£150

Member

£110

£130

Associate Member

£75

£95

Non Practising

£10

£20

Discounted Members

£55

Do away with this level

Affiliates

£20

Do away with this level

Examiners 10 or + vessels

£100

£80

Examiners < 10 vessels

£50

£80

ID Card Non Examiners

£10

£10

ID Card examiners

£0

£0

FEMAS

£23

£50

Action point CEO – To investigate the 3 Affiliates and see if we can transfer them to Associate Member.

There was a discussion regarding Members suffering hardship regarding fees and it was agreed they could make an application detailing the hardship so that 75% of their Membership fee could be funded from the Benevolent Fund if Council saw fit to agree it.

Bob asked about Membership of the Royal Southampton Yacht Club. Nick confirmed that SCMS were a Business Member and could access the clubhouse during the day and got preferential rates to the meeting rooms.

Date of Next Meeting

Future meetings will be on the 3rd Tuesday each quarter. This would make the next meeting Tuesday 21st February 2017 at 10am in SCMS HQ Southampton.