Annual General Meeting
22 April 2024
6pm start, held virtually via Zoom
Attendees:
Emily Harley – Chair
Kirsty Smith – Secretary
Ed Ireland – Treasurer
Charlie – Lit Fest Volunteer
Izzy – Book club member
Chair’s Report:
As you may have noticed by the fact we’ve had a bit of a delay between now and our last AGM in 2020, it’s not been the easiest few years for the LGBT+ Lit Fest.
Since then, we’ve passed our name change (from Leeds LGBT+ Book Club and Leeds LGBT+ Literature Festival) to the LGBT+ Lit Fest. We’ve also updated our logo and social media presence (on Facebook and Instagram) to reflect this. A more recent change has been leaving the Twitter/X platform after Elon Musk’s take over and anti-transgender sentiments.
Since the start of the pandemic, we’ve been running our monthly book club virtually via Zoom (6.30pm UK time on the 1st Wednesday of every month). We’ve also run several virtual events leading to a free to access YouTube channel and series of blogs.
Any questions or thoughts? NONE
Treasurer’s Report:
Current Group Balance: £1,853.83
Annual Group Overheads: £368 – website domain, website hosting, half of Zoom account we share with Quinn and Mailchimp.
Happier and Healthier LGBTQIA+ Communities blogs series – only spent £456.40, got a lot remaining = £1,456.29. Not requested to be returned.
Would cover the book club for at least four years. Might be worth putting in a funding application in c.18 months for book club overheads.
ASDA Foundation does grants – might be an option to look into.
Emily and Ed registered with Barclays. Could do with an additional authorised person. Charlie provisionally agreed. Every payment has to be dual authorised, so needs two people for every payment.
Funding for Happier and Healthier LGBTQIA+ Communities – good to go back and see what we asked money for. Funding from 2022 might have also included a poster designing etc. Come back to what our plans were and to use the funds. As well as future blogs etc, but want to make sure we use it for what we sought it for if there is anything outstanding before we start spending the money.
We had requested some for the in-person Flamingos social events, but didn’t run as many as intended. Not many attended. Flamingos no longer open later in the evening.
Barclays – Not the best bank to be aligned with; Barclays is one of the worst. One to boycott; genocide funding etc. Issue is running a very small business account for a club or social group – which is what we are classed as. We would like to leave them as we have had a lot of issues, but other experiences elsewhere have not been good either. Welcome suggestions of who we could use and up for looking into changing. Not going to find super ethical bank necessarily but maybe some which are better. Not a charity or a CIC, small business group for a club/social group. Need joint signatories.
ACTION: Izzy will investigate other options.
This coming year:
Main thing prioritised is the book club – continue running virtually once a month. Wide range of diverse authors etc, genres. Final list of reading is chosen through polls. This year also had a Google form circulated via social media and newsletter. If something we feel very strongly about having, won’t include books in the poll, just include. For example, we struggled to find aromantic and intersex rep in books so if we find that, we just make that part of the reading list and the rest is polled. Try not to do that too much to be as democratic as possible.
Any comments, suggestions etc for future running of book club? NONE.
Newsletter:
This year, thanks to our wonderful volunteer Charlie, we’ve started a monthly newsletter. Nice thing to circulate.
Charlie updates:
Been monitoring how many people are signed up and we are slowly getting more and more. Not expecting hundreds of people to sign up to it but we do have about 39 subscribers and at least half of them open it each month. For our size and the purpose of the newsletter, that’s where we want to be. Charlie enjoys doing the newsletter. If we put out a call out for more volunteers, it might help to have some search upcoming events – not necessarily just local, international, or a particular day coming up. Struggle a bit with that, so useful to have help on that.
Book Club:
Book club identity – rebranded to Lit Fest, with book club as the main event. Need to agree how to refer to the book club? Virtual LGBT+ Book Club is quite a long title. Retain or change? Issue of having two different names is confusing. Emily thinks calling it ‘Our Book Club’ is fine. Charlie doesn’t think it needs a specific name as long as it clearly relates to our organisation. Online it says LGBT+ Lit Fest’s Book Club. We’d have a poster in the future headed up under Lit Fest. Other book clubs come forward over recent years, helpful not to confuse with those.
Social in-person meet-ups:
From September, Ed would be able to run those. Reach out to the library or piggyback on the Angels of Freedom social? Emily noted that whilst we have worked with Angels of Freedom in the past, they do work closely with the police and that is not always welcome within the community. Perhaps not the preferred group to work with for that reason.
ACTION: think of ideas for collaborations. For example, Bi Social, get more regulars.
Should socials just be dry spaces? Ed comfortable with keeping dry. Dry spaces more accessible. Could consider having a mix of dry and non-dry events. Always want to have at least one dry space – which the book club is. Open therefore to a mix. Events at places like Wharf Chambers have done well. Struggled a bit with getting numbers at Flamingos. Library is open later in the evening now, which may be better than what it was before. Running events with other groups.
Most volunteers are located in Leeds. Technically an international group but for social in-person meet-ups likely to arrange in Leeds. Maybe do some polls around dry, non-dry or mixed spaces, days that people prefer etc. Poster – sometimes we run social meet-ups rather than having a specific set of them.
Mobile library – as part of the social meet-up? We usually use books in a second-hand book sales. Could do a mobile library but means carrying books. Stalls are a great way to engage with people and promote us.
Blogs:
Did a call out for Happier and Healthier LGBTQIA+ Communities, chose our people but then some people didn’t follow through. Mix of people who dropped out and our capacity, which is why we have monies left. As capacity allows. Not a call out at the moment, but more of a targeted approach at individuals. Potential to pick up momentum in the future.
Other events:
We used to run in person – Lit Fest events, became virtual during the pandemic. Lots of videos, readings etc on YouTube. At the moment, we don’t have the capacity to run in-person and virtual events but would like to in the future.
Any other events for the coming year? NONE.
Moving to charity/CIC status and revising our governance:
CIC/Charity – Revised all our governance in 2021 and considered whether we ought to be a CIC or charity. At the time we were running a lot of events and were very busy, having money coming in so needed to consider this. Then we stalled due to our capacity, so the need to look at that went.
Want to do more work in the future and want to keep some continuity with volunteers in addition to new volunteers to learn.
Emily happy to be Chair for this year but would like to step down in a year, hoping new volunteers can get involved this year so that someone can potentially take over
Governance documents have old name. Code of Conduct and Complaints, Comments and Compliments Policy – Ed has updated those.
ACTION: Ed share those and check everyone is happy.
ACTION: Ed to check safeguarding policy.
Volunteers:
We need more volunteers. Not a call-out right now. We do not have very well defined roles within the Committee or wider volunteer pool which is pretty much dried up at the moment. In the past we’ve asked for volunteers and they do some work and then it fizzles out. I think that comes from not having well defined roles.
We would like a third person for the finances to work alongside Treasurer, with Chair as back-up person.
Social media volunteers, both to input into the newsletters and to post on Instagram because it’s gone a bit quiet.
Might need help with the blogs.
Might want people to help run the book club.
Define what we want from volunteers, then do a call out with specific roles. Charlie to supervise newsletter and social media. Ed to supervise on finances. Set out the roles clearly. Also set out level of commitment required, i.e. X hours per week/month. At the outset then people understand what they are signing up for. Setting out expectations and having someone they are responsible to might help having people just disappear. Monitoring access to information also if volunteers can see everything but not actually actively volunteering anymore.
Emily no longer working for NHS so not having regular safeguarding training. Might be something we put out as a role.
We did have a policy and diversity role but the person who took that on shortly after was not in a position to continue to take that on. Might still want that as a role still.
ACTION: Prepare an induction pack and carry out initial training. Not too formal but to give structure.
Be open to advice on what we need in terms of policies etc.
Emily can set aside some time each month to do website updates etc.
Election:
Chair – Emily previously been Chair and volunteered; approved by all attendees.
Secretary – Kirsty previously been Secretary. Anyone else interested? Charlie volunteered. Kirsty volunteered but happy for someone new to take over. Charlie requested; approved by all attendees.
Treasurer – Ed previously been Treasurer and volunteered; approved by all attendees.
Committee Members – Kirsty and Izzy; Izzy would like to be more involved.
Next AGM:
28 April 2025; avoiding 21 April 2025 (which would be exactly a year) as this is Easter in 2025.
Any Other Business:
Anything else anyone wants to raise? Positive feedback on the book club. Nothing else to raise.
Chair said thank you to all volunteers and book club attendees.
Next Steps:
ACTION: Charlie to share minutes in Discord so we can all check we agree and then they can be published.
Meeting ended at 7.07pm