These draft minutes of the FoHC AGM held on Weds 28^th April 2010 at St Michael's Church Hall were approved by the AGM held in April 2011.

MINUTES OF THE 13TH ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING OF THE FRIENDS OF HIGHGATE CEMETERY TRUST held on Weds 28th April 2010 at St Michael's Church Hall.

TRUSTEES PRESENT: Mr. T. Richardson (Chairman), Mr. E. Daley, Mr. R. Kuhn, Mr. J. Shepperd, Mrs. J. B. Pateman, (Trustees); Mrs. M. Butt, Dr. J. Wolf and Revd. Dr. J. Trigg (Protectors); and 40 members.

IN ATTENDANCE; Mr. R. Quirk, Mrs. H. Deeble-Rogers, (Highgate Cemetery Ltd.), Mr. R. Morris and Miss L. Robertson (minute-taker)

APOLOGIES had been received from the President, Lord Palumbo, Mr. J. Caird, Sir Robert Atkins MEP; two Vice Presidents, Sir Hugh and Lady Rossi and 40 members.

1. Minutes of the 12th Annual General Meeting

The Chairman referred to the minutes of the previous AGM held on the 30th April 2009 and requested that these be accepted as an accurate record of proceedings and decisions taken. Mrs. S. Berdy asked why the minutes were sent out so long after the meeting as people had problems remembering what was said almost a year later. The Chairman stated that the minutes must be sent out 28 days before the next meeting for approval and were not required to be sent out earlier.

The approval of the minutes was proposed by Mr. N. Franklin and seconded by Mr. C. Ryder and were approved by the meeting.

2. Matters arising

Ms. R. Davies raised a point of concern that the Cemetery has been put on the ‘At Risk’ register by English Heritage. Mr. E. Daley stated that a budget of £50,000 has been allocated until the end of the financial year for monument repair and a scoping study has been commissioned already. Mr. R. Quirk stated that the reason the Cemetery was on the ‘At Risk’ register was to enable the Friends to receive grant aid from English Heritage.

3. The Chairman’s report

The Chairman started by paying tribute to Mrs. J. Pateman for all her hard work as Chairman in past years.

After many years of divided governance between three charities, Highgate Cemetery Charity, Highgate Cemetery Trust and Friends of Highgate Cemetery Trust, a merger was approved at the EGM held in March. All the charitable activities of Highgate Cemetery are now the sole responsibility of FoHCT.  The Trustees of HCC and HCT were very helpful and cooperative during the merger negotiations for which all the members are grateful.

The Chairman also announced the approval of Dr. B. Elliott as the first of the new appointed Trustees of the merged charities and spoke about the three categories from which the new trustees will be chosen. Dr. Elliott has been nominated by the Victorian Society which falls into the first category of Architecture and Heritage. The other two categories are Landscape and Nature and a local organisation. These remaining Trustees were yet to be appointed.

The West cemetery pathway resurfacing work was completed at a cost of £70,000. The East Cemetery’s north wall was completely reconstructed at a cost of £450,000 and the Cemetery was waiting to hear back from Camden Council regarding a contribution towards this cost.

A new East Cemetery map was launched last spring and has been very successful with over 13,000 sold so far. Visitors’ comments have been very positive. The Anglican Chapel was cleared last summer and became available for a number of talks and events held there including one funeral. For all these, many thanks to volunteer Mrs. S. Berdy and Mr. J. Caird.

Funds have been allocated to restore/redecorate the interior of the Chapel for which a specialist firm has been engaged.

To commemorate the 150th anniversary of the first burial in the East cemetery, a special event is planned for Sunday 13th June 2010. Details of which would be available on the website and a leaflet.

The Chairman also thanked all the volunteers for their help and willingness to perform any and every duty asked of them. Several staff members were named and thanked for their dedication and hard work which benefits visitors, members and grave owners alike, especially Richard Quirk.

4. Financial Statements

Mr. R. Morris, Director of Highgate Cemetery Ltd, reported the accounts for the financial year 2008-2009.

The full Financial Statements are available to download from the Website for anyone who wanted to see them and he would be using the summary reports from the Annual Review on pages 7 and 8.

The total funds increased over the financial year by just under £100,000, or 3% to £3.2million. This was on top of the 5% increase from the previous year, despite both years suffering from losses on investments.

Total income exceeded £1million for the first time which put FoHCT in the realm of a larger charity in the eyes of the Charity Commission.

The largest source of income was grants made to FoHCT from the Highgate Cemetery Charity of £377,000 from the sale of burial plots which were up by almost 50%. As the Highgate Cemetery Charity is now owned by FoHCT this figure would in future be shown alongside burial fees.

Under voluntary income, donations and legacies were increased by a substantial legacy.

As shown in the Annual Review, memorial sales were down caused by the insolvency of a stone supplier which will mean that those sales will be shown in the accounts of the next financial year.

Visitor income at £198,000 had increased by 25%, reflecting much higher visitor numbers than previous years.

Investment income had fallen due to interest rates being down.

Total expenditure was up by 50% to £729,000, mainly as a result of increased project work, under charitable expenditure, including the cost of completing the restoration of the Cuttings Catacombs and the improvement of the West Cemetery pathways.

Losses on investments of £269,000 represented a fall of 11% on the portfolio; however after the inclusion of portfolio income, this drop was reduced to 8%. The effect on total funds was further limited by the substantial cash deposit with COIF.

The value of the investment portfolio have since risen to over £2.5million currently, with the COIF deposit now standing at just under £900,000, so total funds have now risen to over £3.4million despite substantial expenditure on the East Cemetery wall.

Mr. R. Morris then answered questions from the membership:

When asked why subscriptions were down by 20%, Mr. R. Morris stated that subscriptions were not down on 2007, and that 2008 was an anomaly and could not be taken as a regular year.

Green box donations are not routinely accounted for in the financial statements but usually stand at around an estimated £20,000.

When asked how salaries were apportioned, Mr. R. Morris stated that landscape staff wages came from charitable activities and were included under project costs, burial staff were from fundraising activities and office staff came equally from voluntary income, fundraising trading and charitable activities resulting in a total expenditure of £293,000 including payroll taxes. An analysis is available in the Notes to the Accounts on the Website.

5. Appointment of Auditors

Hammonds were reappointed as Auditors for the next year, proposed by Mrs. C. Roberts, seconded by Mr. M. Morton and was passed.

6. Election of new Trustees

The Chairman requested that candidates standing for election identify themselves to the members present and asked that members vote in favour of no more than three nominees to fill the three vacancies: Mr. Peter Benton, Mr. Richard Morris, Ms. Samantha Perrin, Mr. Robert Trimmer and Mr. John Waite (absent) were all standing for election.

Members were reminded that there was no ‘against’ vote this year and an ‘abstain’ was not a vote so only ‘for’ votes would be counted.

7. Report of the Protectors

The Protectors acknowledged the change of the constitution of the three charities to one charity and congratulated the board on successfully merging all the bodies.

The Protectors also wished to record their belief that in a new situation where only one charitable body was serving the cemetery, it was even more important that some form of safety mechanism be in place to protect the interests of the Cemetery.

The Protectors also wished to record their personal recognition of Mrs. J. Pateman’s leadership up until 2009, particularly in successfully seeking major donations thereby hugely adding to the income of FoHCT.

They also repeated last year’s statement to the effect that the present condition of the Cemetery was testament to the excellent work of the Cemetery staff, volunteers and the Board of Trustees.

They also welcomed the much-improved new website.

8. Any other business

Miss J. Farley asked what the situation was with access to the archives as she would like to view them but had been unable to contact Mr. J. Gallehawk to arrange such. Mr. J. Gallehawk stated that he had not received any messages but that he was happy for anyone who would like to contact him to have his email address.

Mrs. M. Openshaw raised the point of email addresses and the possibility of emailing AGM papers and Newsletter. Mr. R. Kuhn answered and stated that although numerous requests had been made for email addresses, only about 100 had been received. He added that if members would like to contact the Cemetery office, a note would be made of their address and used in future.

Mrs. M. Openshaw also enquired whether there was likely to be a secure member’s area of the website where Newsletters and Notices could be made available to members only. Mr. R. Kuhn again answered that this was in the pipe-line and would be available soon although there was the problem of not everyone having access to the internet and of people not necessarily checking the website.

Mr. E. Albani raised the point of the translation of the website into different languages to enable foreign visitors who may not have very good English to learn about the Cemetery. Mr. R. Kuhn acknowledged that this point had been raised before and stated that he would be in contact with Mr. E. Albani in the very near future to discuss this further. He also urged anyone with knowledge of other languages to get in contact with him to discuss the translation.

Mrs. C. Roberts enquired about the events that were held in the chapel and asked whether they were open to all or just to members of the public. Mrs. S. Berdy stated that she had advertised the events to the best of her ability including in Time Out Magazine and numerous radio shows as well as on the website. Posters were also distributed around the local area but any ideas that members had for further advertising would be greatly appreciated.

Mrs. J. Pateman acknowledged all the kind messages she had received since her retirement as Chairman last year and thanked all the volunteers and staff for their support. She also stated that she would remain as a Trustee for the rest of her elected term. She congratulated the Board of Trustees on the raising of the status of the Cemetery to Grade I listing from Grade II* and thanked the Marsh Christian Trust for their help and support over the year.

Date of the next meeting

TBA