Meeting at the Audley Clevedon Restaurant No Meeting at Northcliffe

Blaize recently donated £500 to Mind in Bradford the local charity that provides support for mental health and well being. Lydia Ngwenya (photographer) and the fundraising manager attended our weekly meeting to thank the club for the donation. The picture shows the bauble that they will hang on their virtual christmas tree as our donation was the first in their annual winter appeal.

To see how they are doing on this appeal please see https://winterappeal.mindinbradford.org.uk/ where you can make a donation.

Speaker finder Peter Meredith gave a running commentary on the Chancellor’s autumn statement as well as giving a few brief details on a charity where he is a trustee: 

The Musgrave Homes Charitable Trust own 12 Alms-houses for persons aged over 65 single or married.

The houses themselves are managed by Estate Agents. At the time they were built in 1935 they were to the highest state at that time but since then the trustees have had to put in showers and central heating.

The trustees of the charity are Peter, another accountant and whoever happens to be the Lord Mayor of Bradford for that year. This recently caused a problem when Nationwide Building Society decided to close their account. This meant that the charity had to move to Metro Bank. However, because the Lord Mayor changes every year the bank wanted a new mandate every year. Eventually they relented and allowed only Peter and the other accountant to be the only signatories on the mandate.

Over recent years the charity has had 2 bad debtors both ladies. One of them refused to pay any rent increases and other kept attacking men.

Peter said that the Charities Commission don't like small charities having too much money and they are under instructions to reduce the cash on hand below one years anticipated expenditure. They have tried to offload the assets to local housing associations, but they don't want to take over properties with established sitting tenants.