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Newsletter 162 - March 2001

In this issue:

• Annual General Meeting
• Agenda
• Committee Report on the Year
• Annual Accounts
• Treasurer's Report
• Elections

Annual General Meeting

The Society's 22nd Annual General Meeting will be held at 7:30 pm on Thursday 15 March 2001 in the Norfolk Room at the Hilton Metropole Hotel.

Agenda

1. Minutes of the Previous Meeting
2. Committee Report for the Year
3. Treasurer's Report & Annual Accounts
4. Subscription Rates for 2002
5. Election of Officers and Committee

After the formal agenda members will be invited to raise issues for discussion.

Refreshments will be served and the evening will end with an informal meeting with Steve Geddes, manager of the BHS Foodstore.

Committee Report on the Year

Regeneration: following extensive consultation, decisions were made in principle about how to spend most of the reduced regeneration budget available for our squares. The major work will be improvements to the gardens in Clarence and Russell Squares, including new railings.

A small amount is available for Regency Square, including the Society's own Improvement Fund. At the time of writing the committee is still consulting on how this money can best be used.

Web Site: our biggest success this year has undoubtedly been the Society web site. We submitted a successful grant application and received £1,386 to cover the cost of setting up the site. The the site was then created thanks to the hard work of former chairman Brian Smith and his son Andrew.

The site is very attractive and is constantly being updated: some excellent views from upper floors of Sussex Heights were added recently. The site is currently attracting over 350 visitors a month. In June we will need to renew our annual subscription to the company hosting the site and the committee is investigating ways of raising the £250 needed.

Rubbish: Our other big achievement was to mount a rubbish protest. Led by a placard-carrying rat we collected a truck load of rubbish from the streets and dumped it on the town hall steps. A Council spokesperson complained that we were irresponsible for dumping the rubbish on a Sunday when it would not be collected. However, it was gone within a couple of hours.

The committee has had several meetings with councillors and council officers about the continuing rubbish problems. It does seem that serious action is now being taken to discourage people from dumping rubbish in the street. Collections in Russell and Clarence Squares are still not back to normal since schedules were changed in the autumn; we have written to MP, David Lepper asking if he can find out what the Council is doing to solve this, but without response.

Local Planning: we have continued to monitor local developments and comment where appropriate. The amount of development in our area seems to have been less than usual this past year. In our last annual report we noted that the basement flat at 43 Regency Square had been left unfinished for months: we are still pressing for action to get it finished.

Other Issues:

• We have objected to plans for taxis to be allowed to drive both ways through the junction between Clarence Square and Western Road.
• We commented on plans for a market on the West Pier, asking for a condition to prevent music being played.
• We have objected to an application by the Banana bar in Regency square to extend its hours beyond 11pm.
• We are still pressing the Council to enforce removal of the advertising banners from the health club in Castle Street.

Local History: work has continued on the local history project, focussing on three specific areas: Regency Square (Clive Buxton), Queensbury Mews (Suzanne Hinton) and Churchill Square (Andrew Walker).

Some of the results of the research can be seen on the web site. We are currently talking to a publisher about possibly publishing the full work as a book.

Cannon Place Traffic: we persuaded the Council to create three lanes in Cannon Place to reduce the problems caused by traffic queuing for the car park. The system new seems to have made some improvement, except of course when someone parks on the double yellow lines!

Social Life: the Society's year started with the AGM, followed by a fascinating slide show based on old postcards of the area. Members also got together on a rainy evening before Christmas at the Regency Tavern. The wine and gossip flowed freely. The social year ended with breakfast at the Regency Restaurant on New Year's Eve.

Annual Accounts

2000/01 Income and Expenditure summary
Income	£	Expenditure	£
Subscriptions	473	Printing etc.	227
Donations	528	Insurance	143
Interest	27	Christmas tree	250
Grant	1,386	Website expenses	1,442
		Rubbish protest	117
		Functions (net)	50
		Surplus for the year	185
	2,414		2,414
Balance Sheet
Surplus for year	185	Cash & bank	2,078
Surplus brought fwd.	1,537
General funds	1,722
Advance subs	158
Advance donations	198
	2,078		2,078

Treasurer's Report

The Society's income and expenditure has been considerably higher this year than usual. This is because of the grant received for the development of the web site. The expense figure for the rubbish protest represents the cost of hiring a truck. We have still managed to end the year with a small surplus.

We will need to pay about £250 to our Internet Service Provider in the coming year to maintain the web site. We are inviting members and local businesses to sponsor the site. For details contact Traude Tappin on (01273) 735167.

The Regency Square Improvement Fund started the year with a balance of £9,663. No additional finds have been raised during the year. The current balance, after adding interest earned, will be reported at the AGM.

Paul Stanford, Treasurer

Elections

Liz Ray was elected to the committee at last year's AGM. During the year she moved away from the area and has therefore resigned. We are very grateful for her work for the Society.

Paul Stanford is standing down as Treasurer because of pressure of other commitments. Our thanks to him for managing the Society's finances during a particularly busy year. He has offered to continue as a committee member.

Those standing for re-election are:

Chairman: Roger Hinton, Regency Square

Secretary: Andrew Walker, Chartwell Court

Treasurer: nominations invited

Committee members:

Ros Boulden, Abbotts
Clive Buxton, Dean Street
Diana Dunn, Clarence Gardens
Paul Stanford, Regency Square
Traude Tappin, Abbots

We need more committee members. Please contact Andrew Walker if you would like to know more about what is involved on (01273) 700340 if you would like to nominate someone as an officer or committee member (including yourself) you can do so at the AGM or by contacting Andrew Walker, the Society's secretary.

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