Minutes of the Trustees’ meeting of the Cricket Club Charity convened via Zoom on 20th February 2025
Attendees:
Colin Buckle, Trustee and Chairman (CB)
Donna Black, Trustee (DB)
Robbie Book, Trustee (RB)
Radhi Nanalal, Trustee (RN)
Mike Owen, Trustee (MO)
Push Patel, Trustee (PP)
The Chairman opened the meeting at 2.00pm.
Apologies for absence: None.
Previous Minutes: Adopted without amendment.
Chair’s opening remarks: CB welcomed the Trustees to the meeting saying that, due to the crowded and substantive nature of the Agenda, it may be necessary to defer some items to a subsequent, ideally F2F, meeting.
Treasurer’s Report including the 2023/24 accounts and insurance policies:
RB took the Trustees through the accounts to end August 2024. He highlighted the current (ie February 2025) balances of our two funds – unrestricted and restricted – as being significantly greater than that stated in the accounts to end August 2024, showing progress in the Charity’s fundraising.
The Trustees considered that now would be the time to redeem the previous loans to the GPLF. RB was actioned to follow up on this. RB
also pointed out that our accountants have advised that the money held by the Charity but which originated from GPLF (or from any other future third party fund) should formally be referred to as “Designated” and included within the “Unrestricted funds” column in all future Statements of Financial activities.
After full and careful consideration, the Trustees accepted the accounts and actioned RB to sign off on them on behalf of the Trustees.
RB also informed the Trustees that he has now put in place an overarching insurance policy that indemnifies the Trustees’ provided that they act within normal charity rules and regulations. In addition, he has also taken out a separate annual policy that covers cancellation for specific events, such as the upcoming SleepOut. RB stressed, however, that the cancellation criteria insured did not include cancellation due to adverse weather conditions.
After full and careful consideration, the Trustees approved the expenditure on the two insurance policies and thanked RB for putting these in place.
The Gandon Prodger Legacy Fund (GPLF):
The Trustees considered in detail the various documents generated by the GPLF steering committee as to how it should interact with the Charity, including the obligations of the Charity to GPLF.
One specific point discussed was the request by the steering committee that Ben Wilson’s involvement with GPLF be on a volunteer basis but that a “Gentlemen’s Agreement” on a subsequent payment, in the form of a donation to a charity designated by Ben, be approved by the Charity. The Trustees considered that, since Ben Wilson will shortly cease to be a consultant for the Charity, there was no requirement for it to approve any arrangement between Ben and the GPLF. For the avoidance of doubt, the Charity would not be responsible for paying any money to Ben after he ceases to be a consultant.
There was extensive discussion on whether the proposal put forward by GPLF on what its association with the Charity would look like was acceptable. There was a divergence of opinion on whether the conditions proposed by GPLF ultimately benefitted the Charity. One particular point of contention was the proposal by GPLF that they, rather than the Trustees, would decide on how the 40% of proceeds that accrued to the Charity are spent, the Trustees simply having a “rubber stamping” role. The majority of the Trustees considered this to be unacceptable and considered that they are best placed to decide on how best to spend the proceeds based on the goals of the Charity to promote grass roots cricket. In order to move the debate forward, CB as the Charity’s Chair was actioned to generate a response to the GPLF proposal highlighting issues that were either deemed unacceptable to the Trustees or where significant revision was required.
This document would then be sent to Rupert Wood, the Chair of the GPLF steering group, and used as the basis for a discussion. In addition to CB, RB and Ben Wilson would also be in attendance. The text of CB’s response to GPLF is included below as Appendix 1.
Other Agenda items:
Due to the extensive discussion around GPLF, the remaining Agenda items were deferred until the next meeting of the Trustees.
One item, however, that was briefly discussed was the increasing number of funding requests. The Trustees considered this to be a good sign. RB informed the Trustees that he has been in contact with a Foundation set up by a well-known cricketer with a view to whether the Charity could be used as a vehicle by which the foundation could distribute its funds. MO considered that this constituted a significant new concept for the Charity and merited further debate by the Trustees.
AOB:
MO requested that there be a password protected Trustees’ area on the Charity’s website where documents, such as Trustee Agendas and Minutes, can be deposited. This should enable much easier access of the Trustees to important documents. RB was actioned to contact the website manager to progress this suggestion.
Date of next meeting
9th April 2025, 1pm at a venue tbc at Cockfosters.
There being no other business, the Chairman declared the meeting closed at 4.30pm.
Action items:
| Redemption of previous loans to GPLF | RB |
| Sign-off of accounts | RB |
| Document outlining the Trustees’ response to the GPLF proposal | CB, with input from all Trustees |
| Identify venue for next F2F Trustees’ meeting | RB |
Appendix:
e-mail from CB to Rupert Wood (Draft):
We held our trustee meeting yesterday and had a very lengthy discussion about our proposed agreement between the Club Cricket Charity and the GPLF.
There are some points of concern.
I am attaching the draft proposal prepared by Nick dated 13 9 2024
We are nearly 6 months further on now and whilst many of us thought the figures were ambitious, I presume we do have a fairly good idea of how many supporters we are likely to have for the Sleep Out at Lords next week.
You will note that it was proposed that there might be 500 participants each raising £1000 but I believe this is way off the mark and that so far only about £20,000 has been raised.
It does leave us wondering how accurate some of the other figures are.
Furthermore, in Table 1 it was proposed that the funds be distributed as to 40% to East Africa Character Development Trust, 10% to the Alsama Project, 10% to Saracens Foundation and 40% to the Club Cricket Charity split 20% to Core and 20% for new projects in a specified manner.
It then states that the figures are estimates and that Saracens Foundation will receive 20% of all funds raised from the Sleep out There seems to be an anomaly here but I don’t believe the Trustees of the Club Cricket Charity will accept that 20% of what they receive will be fettered. We cannot accept that
the Campaign board of the GPLF will appear to have the right to direct 20% of our funds.
You are asking us to take much of the responsibility and as such we may feel we have to take decisions with which you don’t agree.
In the third attachment you have several bullet points. We cannot agree to point 1 and can’t believe you can’t produce your own minutes.
Could I suggest that you, me , Robbie and maybe Ben meet to try to agree appropriate amendments.