In the current year the Society has 228 family memberships and three corporate sponsors. It is difficult to compare this with last year as the membership records were then kept in a different form. However, it appears there may have been a slight increase in numbers.
The Society was never intended to make profits, and the Committee considers that generally the reserves of around £2,500 are sufficient to cover unforeseen expenses, and also would allow us to make one-off payments as the need arises. Audited accounts will be provided at the AGM in October, but it is anticipated that the Society will broadly break even for the year. There should therefore be no need to alter the subscription rates.
The Society has two major expenses on which the bulk of the annual income is spent: the printing of the two newsletters and the Village Green Party. For this newsletter, we are using a new printer who is cheaper than the previous one, and this allows us to have more colour in the magazine for the same price. The Village Green Party is very difficult to budget as the expenditure of around £1,300 has to be committed before the event and, since we cannot charge for admission to the Green, the only receipts are from the sales of tickets for food. While a number of tickets are prepaid at special rates, the vast majority are sold on the night, and there is always the risk of inclement weather adversely affecting the numbers. Balancing the purchase of the food with the expected demand is therefore a bit of a gamble, and of course the band has to be paid in any event. We are very pleased therefore that this year we have again been able to break even, with a small surplus of around £50 which we intend to put to the purchase of lights and cabling for the event, the need for which is the subject of another article in this newsletter.
The raffle tickets sold at the party are not used to finance the expenditure, but to raise money for various needs associated with Taplow and Hitcham. This year they provided around £700 towards necessary improvements at the Womens’ Institute building on the playing fields.
