Provisional notes from the London Sacred Harp Annual General Meeting: Thursday 3rd November 2016. Contact Ed if you want changes made.

HEADLINES
* December is the last Bethnal Green as it hasn’t covered its costs in forever.
* We have a bank account. Talk to Ed or Teresa to get the account number and sort code you need to set up a regular standing order. Suggested donation of £3/week per person and more if you can afford it.
* We’ll have a very short 10 minute meeting once a month that rotates chair and rotates between Hampstead, St Mary’s and (probably) Brockley

ALL-DAY
* We were happy with how the All-Day went.
* Highgate is booked for next year’s All-Day: 28th October 2017 at a slightly increased cost of £220. This is still cheap for London.

FINANCES
* We have a bank account now. People can now donate to the group by setting up a standing order through their bank. Speak to Ed or Teresa to get the group’s account number and sort code which you need to set up a standing order.
* Suggested donation of £3 per week per person and more if you can afford it.
* We will still pass the bucket round to collect cash at singings.

LOANERS
* We have 37 Sacred Harp and 8 (soon to be 10) Christian Harmony books which are loaners. Diane lent the group £512 to pay for most of those books. The group will pay Diane back when it can afford to. We will assess our finances in 3 months (February) to see how well we are doing and what we can afford to pay Diane. In the long-term, we want the group to be self-sustainable and not need very large donations from individual singers.
* For now, those loaners will not be for sale. New singers can buy online from Ian West on Amazon. We should work out other ways for new singers to buy books.
* Joss is making promotional flyers to put into loaners with the dates of our singings on.

SINGING VENUES
* Hampstead costs £35 an evening and covers its costs.
* St Mary’s and the Brockley singings are donation-only at the moment.
* Bloomsbury costs £50 an evening and covers its costs comfortably.
* Bethnal Green costs £35 an evening and always makes a loss
* We agreed to carry on with Bloomsbury, Hampstead and St Mary’s and to cancel Bethnal Green with December being the last Bethnal Green singing.

* Ed is trying to secure a regular slot at St Catherine church in New Cross/Brockley area.
* We’ve been struggling for people to teach a singing school at Bloomsbury. Joe is going to organise someone to do it from now on. Experienced singers were urged to attend Bloomsbury as it is a good place to recruit new singers and welcome them to the group.
* We’re going to switch from the Wetherspoon’s pub to the Museum Tavern for the post-Bloomsbury pub.

FUTURE MEETINGS
* Teresa has been finding out how other groups organise themselves. She talked about Bristol’s approach of having a short 10-20 minute meeting once a month with a rotating chair.
* We agreed to have a short 10-20 minute meeting once a month with a rotating chair like Bristol. The meeting will rotate between Hampstead, St Mary’s, and (possibly) Brockley.
* We didn’t get onto talking about publicity and welcoming new singers and will discuss that at future meetings.