Committee meeting 05-02-2026

17th Committee meeting 5th February 2026

Attendees 

  Tony Giles

  Mark Winter

  Iain Fisher

  Jon Tompkins

  Graham Andrews 

  Mike Salmon

  Richard Ireson

  Geoff Timms 

  John Elliot

Apologies 

  Phil Ginn

Meeting started at 6:35pm

Read out Phil’s email to the committee to ensure his points are brought to the attention of all.

Wensum club funds 

As we had great difficulties changing names on the Wensum bank account it was agreed the best solution would be to close the account and start afresh.

Structure of the Committee going forward

The committee experienced a great deal of turmoil last year, learning from that, a Rethink of the tasks required in the committee and its positions was discussed.

As we agreed to have uneven numbers voting we agreed to reduce the committee to 7 and those positions voted on at the AGM. They are a Secretary, Treasurer, Technical advisor, IT systems support, Events co-ordinator both national and local (two people sharing role),Membership secretary.

Members in the committee agreed to write out the job description to enable members to understand what is involved if they wish to take on the role.

A female point of view should encourage and if they are not on the committee after the AGM then hopefully a female member or group of females would provide feedback to the committee on a regular basis 

Iain mentioned he will be organising an event starting at Holt and ending up at Sheringham in the near future.

Another drive out could be food at Bungay or Hepworth and then go on to Randall Engineering 

We are also hoping to arrange a Wensum event, this will be announced via WhatsApp 

We are talking with the railway arms about a possible a bbq and photo shoot one afternoon this summer.

Graham is happy to host an event if required 

Jon would like to host a bbq event at his farm so look out for this on the WhatsApp when the date has been agreed 

It was discussed that asking for deposits of £10 each in future, for events which are non refundable, may be something we need to think about . This would ensure that we get accurate numbers for events and no one is left out of pocket. 

The current events list is proving to be quite complicated,as there are already 192 days of events on the calendar. It’s hoped that the new events team can work on streamlining it.

Group leaders meeting is at Grayson on the 22nd of Feb 

The TR Register management has commented that Wensum is ahead of many groups with communication to the group leaders meeting. 

Thanks to members and the committee for the contribution which helped Geoff collate the group thoughts on the TR Register going forward.

Geoff, Graham and Tony have volunteered to present our members thoughts at the group leaders meeting. 

Another point to be mentioned Is, Issues relating to the Family membership, as they have less benefits than full members.

 Expectations of WhatsApp users 

The Committee drafted and issued a guide for the WhatsApp platform to ensure all members use it informatively, respectfully and positively. 

There was no feedback from members on this subject.

WhatsApp reaches a larger proportion of the membership than before and new members are being informed that they will be added to the WhatsApp with the option to come off if. 

The committee were asked if there was any issues to be raised about WhatsApp, none were raised. 

The committee feels is the best method to inform the members of any Wensum details is WhatsApp and if we are unable to contact them through WhatsApp then an email would be the preferred method. Monthly social events can be found on the Website and all events are shown on the Google calendar. 

Mail chimp is a preferred method for emailing the group as this provides an easier method to send to all members.

How things go over next few weeks will help us to decipher whether the new Sheep CRM system can play a part in the future for the Wensum group. 

Sheep CRM and the New Website is being looked at by the Committee and other members to see whether it is a usable system that the Wensum members can access easily 

Sheep CRM has three levels and the Tr register has chosen the first level for up to 5000 members.

This level has one way communication and items should never be deleted as it will reoccur later, so we are now modifying events from the previous year to stop this. 

We as a committee are unable to change members details.

We have updated the old website and can take over old reports to the new systems but this will be very time consuming. Therefore Mike has offered to create a picture gallery of the old website history, and move this over, rather than all the reports.

The Social report for the magazine will be added to sheep CRM and therefore the TR Registers website as a 6 weekly report from the Wensum group.

We have had a lot of positive feedback from the Christmas party this year . An email was sent out by Tony asking for feedback.

8 from 30 responded. The feedback showed that most liked the double sitting and the horseshoe layout and value for money. Some comments about the small bar area and of a possible bigger venue . The committee will look into the suggestions made and allow the members to vote 

AOB 

Chris Loynes honorary membership letter will be forwarded to the office asap 

Membership: recently we have 7 lapse members and One member has cancelled.

Tracking the inventory was brought up by Iain and all items accounted for except the large Gazebo. This was understood to be old and probably unobtainable therefore a new one will be purchased if required.

The TR Register has offered the Wensum group a Gazebo but only 2m x 2m and after several messages we still are not any further forward, Mark will chase this.

Regalia: we have 10 grill badges 67 Pin badges and 33 decals ready to distribute.

John Elliot’s resignation as a Treasurer will be at the AGM 

Peter Ewart has offered to continue that role for the committee 

Richard to step down as a committee member but is willing to carry on as the BIH co-ordination 

AGM agreed date, at the BIH on March the 9th at 7 o’clock 

When all Committee positions will be voted in by the membership

AGM

Q1 do we spend time to take over the history from the old website 

Q2 do you want to attend the railway tavern next year at Christmas 

Q3 What do you the membership wish to do about number of events 

Meeting closed 9:20

We currently have 9 people on the committee:-

Mark Winter:-    General secretary 

Iain Fisher:-      Whitwell venue coordinator 

Peter Ewart:-     Treasurer after 2025 AGM

Tony Giles:-       Membership Secretary 

Mike Salmon:-     TR Register website coordinator 

Jon Tompkins:-    Committee member

Phil Ginn:-         Committee member 

Graham Andrews :- Technical Advisor

Geoff Timms :-    IT Systems support 

The Wensum email address is