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Graham Smith
Jan Thompson
Graham Mumby-Croft
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From The Treasurer
As I sit down to write what I believe is my 15th annual financial report, I glance out of my window to see that, surprise, surprise, it is raining again. Looking back I am at a loss to remember a wetter year, although I am sure that there must have been others equally as miserable. It was certainly wet when I lived in Manchester, but then you do expect it to be, but Lincolnshire is usually a much drier region. At the end of October I was speaking to my neighbour, who has a small weather station in his garden, and he was telling me that we were 7 inches under the average rainfall for the year. From the day of that conversation it has hardly stopped raining and when I spoke with him last week we had more than made up that 7 inch shortfall, and were in fact an inch over the average. Having said that, it hasn’t rained for two days in a row now, so I am expecting a hosepipe ban to be put in place any day.
From a financial perspective, 2025 has been a relatively good year for the RPGA. Despite our membership falling again in the year, with a subsequent reduction of £374 in subscription income, our efforts to reduce our operating costs, specifically by distributing the Newsletter by email to those willing to receive it in this format, have now paid dividends, to the extent that even taking into account the reduction in income, our surplus of income over expenditure increased by £759 from 2024 giving us an overall surplus of £1452 for the year.
With a balance of funds in our account of £17,080, the financial position of the group is, for the foreseeable future, on a sound footing. This in turn gives me the confidence to be able to say that there is certainly no immediate requirement, or indeed any recommendation from me, for the committee to have to give consideration to reviewing the subscription rates.
However, there are some possible events in the pipeline that will certainly have an impact on our financial situation, not least of which is the exercise currently being undertaken by the PGA to review their policy of providing a diary to each of their members. This is of course something that we had extended to our own membership, for the payment of an additional subscription fee, currently set at £7 per year. Having seen the figures from the PGA treasurer I think that the writing is very clearly on the wall that the provision of a free diary to every PGA member is financially unsustainable, and that the 2026 diary will, in all likelihood, be the last to be issued. This will of course have an impact on the RPGA.
You will be aware that Harry circulated the bulletin from the PGA on this subject out to all our members who are on the email list. Interestingly, we received quite a few very quick responses from our members who currently opt to receive a diary, to say that in view of what the PGA were saying, they would like to amend their membership and drop receipt of the diary. Other members responded that they found the diary useful and that they would be sorry if it was no longer available. If, in light of the discussion and review currently being held by the PGA, you have decided that you no longer wish to receive a diary, whatever the final position will be, please remember, as treasurer I cannot make any type of amendment to your annual subscription payment. This is a matter between you and your bank and something that you must do yourself. With this in mind, I would remind you to please remember to contact your bank and amend your Standing Order to the revised figure of £13 per year. Also, please ensure that you keep the date of payment unchanged. If the PGA does decide to withdraw the provision of diaries then obviously, every one of our members who is currently in receipt of a diary will need to amend their standing orders. We will of course issue a reminder to everyone who may be impacted by any possible changes nearer to the time.
Since its formation, the RPGA has had a policy of making a donation to charity in lieu of sending flowers when a member dies, and we are informed of the funeral arrangements, and if there is a chosen charity. The rate for the donation was fixed at £25 and has remained at this figure for several years, and certainly for the whole of the time that I have been treasurer. You will see for this year's accounts that we only made donations to the value of £50 in 2025 and this was in fact a single donation, as the committee agreed that the death of Bob Duncan merited something a little more substantial. The main reason that we do not make more donations is not because we have ceased the practice but because quite often we do not get to hear of the deaths of members in time to be able to make a donation to any charity nominated as part of the funeral arrangements. Indeed it may be several months before we get the news, and it is becoming increasingly common that the first we know of a member's death is at the end of the financial year when myself, and the membership secretary carry out a reconciliation of the names on his membership list compared to the names on my list of subscriptions received. We have been carrying out this exercise for several years now and it is the main method by which we eventually determine that sadly, some people are no longer with us.
I do appreciate that when a member dies, cancellation of their RPGA membership is far from the top of the list of things for their spouse, partner or family to do. Indeed in many cases it will not even be something that registers or that they are aware of. So, by the time we do find out, it is often too late to offer a charity donation, and is not always something we feel comfortable to raise, especially if some considerable time has passed.
Back on the subject of diaries, in his response to Harry’s email, one member stated that instead of reducing their subscription by £7 they would rather we gave the money to charity. I also had an incident recently where in 2025 I had received a subscription payment for someone who I knew had died in 2024, I had after all conducted his funeral service, and his family had overlooked cancelling his standing order. Once this was corrected, they did not want a refund of the overpayment, and so this was donated to charity. These two events led me to thinking that perhaps the RPGA should have a nominated charity, and each year we could make a donation in memory of all of our members who have died within that year, as opposed to individual donations. In this way, donations would not be dependent on our being informed of a member's death so that we could make a charity donation. However, in those cases when we are informed at the time, we could still make a specific donation to the charity nominated by the family.
Each year, the PGA dedicates any money raised at their annual conference to a nominated charity which changes every year and one suggestion is that, as the PGA very kindly allow us to piggyback our AGM onto their annual conference, our donation could go to their nominated charity. I have tabled this item for discussion at our next committee meeting, and it will likely be the subject of a proposal to the AGM. In the meantime, if you have a view or opinion on this, or any other financial matter regarding the RPGA finances, I would be very happy to hear from you,
The full audited accounts will be published as usual in the Autumn Newsletter, and as always the full accounts are available for inspection should any member wish to do so.
GRAHAM MUMBY-CROFT
Treasurer
Graham Mumby-Croft
Treasurer
Issue No. 94 Spring 2025
