Hon. Treasurer

As agreed at the AGM on 13 June 2007, the subscriptions as from 1 April 2008 will be £8 per person and we are introducing another subscription rate for couples, which will be £14.  It has become necessary for these changes due to higher costs of insurance for the Society and we are having to pay higher fees for speakers.  From the current membership as it stood on 25 September we had collected £1,380 in subscriptions and our expenses for that period (i.e. the first 6 months of our financial year) were £1,332.  So you will see that if expenses continue at this rate until the end of March 2008 we will eat into the healthy balance which we hold. We have always relied on the sale of our publications to keep the balance in credit; however, this income appears to have peaked and cannot be relied upon to sustain us into the future.

We are also asking members to pay a minimum amount of £1 when they bring guests; this will also apply to any other visitors attending our meetings.  An Honesty Box will be provided at the meetings for this purpose.

To gain extra income we encourage members to complete Gift Aid forms, which means we are able to claim 28p for every £1 of subscriptions paid.  We have only 138 out of the current membership of 236 members who have completed these forms.  When claiming this money only the person’s name is submitted to the Inland Revenue.  There is no comeback from the Inland Revenue to individuals.  The only criterion is that you must pay Income Tax equal to or greater than what we claim back, i.e. £1.68 per person at present.  If you have not as yet completed a Gift Aid form would you please consider doing so.  Forms are available from the Membership Secretary.

                                                                                                                             Doreen Pladdys

Social Secretary

Our series of talks for 2007/2008 continued on Wednesday 21 November with a talk given by Colin Peake entitled “Hampshire Constabulary – its History”.   The next two meetings are on Wednesday 13 February, when Jeffrey Thomas will give a talk entitled “Uppark, the Phoenix from the Ashes”.  On Wednesday 12 March, John Miller will give a talk entitled “Memories of a Prisoner of War in Gosport & Fareham”.

The Annual Dinner turned out to be great success with 64 members and guests present.  We have now used the Lee-on-the-Solent Golf Club as a venue for our Annual Dinners for several years. There is no alternative in the area to seat 64 people, or to compare with the Golf Club.

Our next Social Event is on 5 January 2008 when we have our New Year Social Event, details of which you should have already received.  The cost this year has been increased from £6.50 to £7.00, this has been necessary to cover the rising costs of wine and some food products.  If you intend to attend this event would you please make application for tickets before 15 December.  The parish centre can only accommodate 100 people and this event is quite popular, so it’s best to apply early.

Due to popular request we will be running a coach trip on Saturday 14 June 2008, visiting two venues, Milestones Museum in the morning and The Vyne in the afternoon.  The cost of this trip will be £15 for members of National Trust and £22.76 for non-members. After pickups between 9.15 until 9.45am we will leave Gosport to travel to Basingstoke where we should arrive between 10.45am and 11.00 am, leaving Milestones at 1.45pm.  The Vyne is only 4 Miles from Milestones so we should arrive at approximately 2.00pm.  We will leave The Vyne at 5.00pm and arrive back in Gosport at approximately 6.30pm. We stopped running trips due to little support from members.  The last two trips made a loss which the Society had to cover, so we are asking the membership to please support us this time or it will definitely be the last trip that I personally will organise.  Details will be sent out and tickets for sale at the beginning of April 2008, so if you are interested please mark off the date in your 2008 diary or calendar.