Minutes TWiG meeting 14/11/16 at the White Swan in Greenside

TwiG  Meeting

Mon 14th. Nov 2016 at the White Swan Pub in Greenside

 

Present: Nick(chair), Mick, Di, Gweno(minutes)

 

 

  1. Apologies.
    Gwen, Steph, Lesley, Laura, Rachel, Garry, Lesley

  2. Minutes of last meeting.
    Quick review, all items are on the agenda for this meeting or were done.
    Finacial report was posted by Nick on Wiggio for members to view.

  3. Matters arising –

  4. Hugh’s film and follow-up (Lesley)
    Lesley shared latest updates from Hugh, he has finished editing the interview and is working on a “picture cut” this week. No date for viewing was suggested yet.

  5. Festival beer. (Nick/Mick)
    see finance report

  6. ReEconomy regional gathering (Mick)
    No progress since last time.
    Action: Mick to send to other transition groups a doodle poll for a meeting, to seek interested people.

  7. Transport. (Mick)
    The bus Map: Mick is in contact with Nexus. He will probably have a meeting with his contact. Mick thinks that if we can prove that there is a niche for producing a common map with all services, we will get 3rd parties interested.

  8. Community Centre Energy audits (with WEA)? (Lesley)
    Lesley is in contact with WEA. There was no answer back from them so far.
    Action: Lesley to follow up

 

  1. Finance report (Nick)
    Nick shared the files on Wiggio. He summurised a healthy situation in numbers: currently we have £630.85 available

Bank Balance at 14.10.16

£706.35

 

Uncashed cheques

£6.50 + £60 + £60 = £126.50

Gwen

Uncashed cheques

£9

Hall Hire

Balance

£570.85

 

We have paid our insurance for the year ending August 2017.

We have recently paid our web hosting domain fee for the next year.

We have no current liabilities that I am aware of.

There will be £60 to add to our balance when the income from Rhubarb and Ginger Pale Ale is added.

 

 

Note from Treasurer re invoice from Newcastle University Student Union for £120.

 

This payment is for the brewing of Rhubarb and Ginger Pale Ale by the Stu Brew who are part of Newcastle University Student Union.

This payment is more than offset by income of £180 from sale of the ale at the Food Festival and in Coalies bar.

The cost of the brewing was underwritten by Mick Marston and there was therefore no risk to TwiG funds.

The invoice for £120 will not be paid until the income of £180 has been received by the treasurer.

  1. Communications – website etc. (Gweno)
    Gweno shared website traffic report for its first year. Basically the number of unique visitors per month is around 150 from October 2015 to September 2016. June 2016 was an outsanding month with a total of 2329 people looking at our website. Gweno thinks that was due to facebook publicity and other advertisement for the local food festival.
    Diane asked if it is possible to have statistics on Facebook as well and if we could compare numbers of visitors to the number of people in our public mailing list.
    Mick asked if we could get detailed geographic location by area/locality for visitors, he mentionned googl analytics.
    Action: Gweno to do more statistics on this past year and to look at FB traffic Vs list members.

  2. Food Map–There have been no comments re circulated criteria. To approve criteria and next actions.  (All)
    Indeed there have been no comment on criterias, therefore there are going to be applied and this meeting is an official Go!
    Gwen is the Local Food Map Moderator (first “judge” of incoming entries) and Gweno is the Local Food Map technical operator. All other members are part of the Local Food Map consultant panel.
    Mick asks that Gwen (Point of Contact/ Food Map moderator) should review the criterias again and see if she feels they will be simple enough to send out.
    Gweno asks if we should score the criterias for each local Food Map entry. It was agree that the key criterias should be listed once on the web page but not on each entry and not scored. This is to put all entries at the same level.
    We discussed “tricky” examples like National Trust Cafe, Pub part of a chain, Local Supermarket. The exercise was to check if al lof the 4 keys criterias were fullfilled. The Local Food Map application form will be publicised on our Facebook page and/or using a public page/event, on our website and sent to our Public mailing list. Gweno suggested to create an email address LocalFoodMap@transitionwestgateshead. Gweno asked if he should look into upgrading the map pluggin to a payable version to allow more feature for the food map like icons and categories.
    Action: Gwen and Gweno to get started with the Application form.

  3. 4Rs event Ryton – venue, publicity, organisations and activities to be approached. (All)
    4Rs event is to be held a couple of weeks after Christmas time. Provisional date is Sat 14th January 2017. 3 venues were on the list:
    Methodist Church (Ryton?): This venue is too small according to Di.
    Barmoor Hub: Gwen task to check out availability there was delegated to Di (self-voluntereed). Cost to rent half a day is £50.
    CIU in Ryton, near coop: Lesley found out that it is available on the 14th, the problem is there is no kitchen on the venue.
    It was discussed if we should have the event the same day as the Ryton Market (Barmoor Hub). Di thinks it would confuse people about our presence there. Mick thinks it would brings us more people. We decided that a decision should be done early December therefore we need to have a Meeting very soon. 1st December was agreed and also that we could meet at the Wigs High Spen Micro Pub. Gweno asks if we should have a Xmas social a bit like last year thinking it had driven good ideas.
    Regarding Stalls for the 4Rs event, Mick added that Blaydon recycling Centre offered to send members of staff to have a stall and to load back unwanted surplus from the swap table. We started to discuss potential stall holders.
    Action: Di to contact Barmoor Hub in Ryton for availability.
    Nick to dig-out the list of stalls attended at previous 4Rs events.

  4. Recycling Centre – report back from Mick.
    Gary sent details of a meeting with Gateshead Council, Sita+Suez, Mick and Himself.
    The main waste transfer station for Gateshead ( and Sunderland) is at Campground near Wrekenton, at the other end of Gateshead geographically. They do the blue bin sorting there and also transfer the household non-recyclable waste ( the lighter green bin) into big lorries which go down to an incinerator near Stockton which generates electricity.
    Mick thinks that we could go political and tlak to councilors. There will be anyway some talks between Sita/Council if some extra-budget is required.
    Gary thinks that  it can generate values and that some shops could be using recylcing goods. Also the area near Blaydon Recycling Centre has vacant council facilities. The general idea is that we don’t want to run any business/shop that would spring out from this project but we want to facilitate any start-up.
    Action: Mick/Gary to follow-up.

  5. Transition streets (Gwen, Gweno, Di)
    Gwen, Di and Gweno to have a meeting in the near future to discuss a plan.
    Action: Gweno to send a formal invitaion to Di 🙂

  6. Solar array (anyone?)
    No info. On standby

  7. AOB
    No AOB

  8. Date of next meeting.
    Next meeting Thursday 1st of December 7:15 pm @ Wigs Place in High Spen (Micro Pub)

 

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