Present: JC (Vice-President), EM (President), RJ (FCO), KM, SR, DB
Apologies: AB
Absent:
Bank Statements
RJ: There’s a folder called statements on the drive, that has all our bank statements. You guys should be able to see that and question anything you think isn’t legit.
Women’s rugby
RJ: They’ve asked to spend money on a team bonding experience after the season. It wasn’t in their budget.
JC: Have they raised enough subs to cover it?
RJ: I’ve asked them for a specific example.
SR: It’s a consumable isn’t it?
RJ: The subs money has gone into the account, and this isn’t directly related to the club activity.
SR: The JCR would still have matched any subs they paid.
EM: A team could increase their subs, have us match it and then have money spare.
RJ: They’ve raised £260 in subs and asked for £286. But there’s a lot they haven’t reclaimed yet.
Action: RJ to make a guideline for sports and socs budgets.
*Decision that this won’t be allowed.*
6 month review trustees (DB)
DB: I’ve made a document for the trustees outlining where we are compared to our budget. Our overall income was double what we expected, mainly because of the historic bar transfer. A lot of our income is actually just transfers. Expenditure was lower than expected, largely because of events, with the two big ones being next term. S&S expenditure was higher than anticipated.
RJ: That’s largely because of reserves expenditure.
Guideline for committee budgets (DB)
DB: We wrote down our discussion about spending money on consumables. Reclaims will be done the normal way, consumables will only be allowed for open events, and the FCO can turn down unreasonable requests.
Financial Procedures (AB)
RJ: We went through the financial procedures, which are new this year. We’ve made some changes. AB was meant to put them in yellow but he hasn’t. There’s no rush, because this isn’t being reviewed until the June trustee meeting. We also looked at the working policy.
Sports & Socs budget template (SR)
SR: I’ve updated it. I’ve removed the description under assets, and added date acquired.
RJ: What are thoughts on the general format? Does it make sense?
*Agreement that it makes sense*
RJ: The amendment column is there for finance comm to amend budgets. I found it confusing last year. We could just change it. But then people can’t see the changes.
SR: I’ve added a note about that column.
RJ: When the budget is approved, we’ll remove that column. There’s also a sheet for last year’s expenditure and income. But they’re likely to fill it in wrong. So maybe we should leave it off. On the last tab, for actual income and expenditure 2020/21, it would be good to have a table so that when reclaims are done it can be filled in. Make sure there’s a column for JCR allocation.
Overall Budget (KM)
KM: We thought about changing the layout of the budget, because Grey is split across multiple spreadsheets. But I don’t see the point of that, it seems like compartmentalisation. We left sports and socs for the moment, but we’ve reviewed anything. We’ve made budgeted expenditure match predicted expenditure. We want the figures to more accurately reflect what is spent. From this, our predicted income was less than predicted expenditure, but that’s what’s wanted.
RJ: The problem with the budgeted and expected columns is that there are budgets that never get spent. We set aside a lot of money for S&S that never gets spent. I don’t mind if we spend less than predicted, but separating budgeted and expected means we have a surplus every year.
JC: The idea of separating predicted and budgeted is to allow for variance in expenditure. So the budget can be balanced based on predicted expenditure, but then people are allowed to overspend, and some might underspend.
RJ: We’ve improved the numbers at the bottom. Now they match what we want. We’ve improved the budget allocation column to make it closer to the income that goes towards it. Worst case scenario is £7k deficit, likely is £5/6. In previous year’s we often haven’t spent enough. Maybe when I get figures from this year I’ll modify the predicted column based on what they spent this year.