Friends of Halesworth County Library
Annual Report 2014-15
Bookfest: QUIZ NIGHT: Games Afternoon: C re at i ve
writing:
Italian: Baby Bounce: Tot Rock: Internet access: Creative Crafts: SPANISH:TIME OUT: Book Club: Knit and natter: Rag rugs: Exercise classes: COPYING: Stitch & chatter: Cakes!
Chairman’s Report Dear Friends, The past year has been a very successful one. Not only have we had a good fundraising year, but thanks to David Olds we also have a thriving Hundred Club. This, along with the efforts of Sheila Freeman and her hard working fundraising group, has shown what determination and good planning can achieve. All the Friends’ efforts have culminated in the current refurbishment. For those of you who are unaware, the money the Friends have raised is paying for the redecoration and carpeting of the library. So I think all the members of our charity should take a collective pat on the back, because this has been achieved through the efforts of the group as a whole. As your representative, I have attended several Community Forum meetings organised by Suffolk Libraries to assist groups like ours in their fundraising activities. You will be pleased to know that we are one of the most successful Friends groups in the county, and the one with the largest membership. I hope you don’t mind if I remind you of the library structure that Suffolk County Council adopted in 2012/13. Suffolk County Council devolved the delivery of the library service to an Independent Provident Society, known as Suffolk Library Service. The Council provides the funding that enables Suffolk Libraries to deliver the service it does. With this budget Suffolk Libraries employs the staff, pays the running costs
and purchases the books for all the libraries in Suffolk while Suffolk County Council retains ownership of the buildings. Friends groups and similar organisations were established to provide extra funding for their individual libraries to ensure that items which Suffolk Libraries were unable or unwilling to provide can be bought. This is what this Friends group does, and what your donations and the funds we raise are spent on, supporting Halesworth County Library. We do not fund any other library or indeed Suffolk Libraries and we do not play any part in the delivery of the service in Halesworth library. Any funding given to us goes on our library. If it were given directly to the library manager it would go into the Suffolk Library budget to be spent on any library in the county. I can assure you we have been very good at what we do. I would like to take the opportunity to thank Ali, the library manager, and all her staff and volunteers for all the hard work they put in to making Halesworth library the success it is. They too are very good at what they do. Finally, I would like to thank my fellow trustees and David Tanner, our former treasurer, for the hard work and commitment they put in throughout the year. We have worked well as a team and have in my opinion established a sound base that will ensure support for our library in the coming years. David Thomas
Treasurer’s report The Friends of Halesworth Library has had a very successful year in its fund-raising activities, with a marked increase in income from events, and of course, the generous support of the 100 Club. It has also benefited hugely from the continuing support of Halesworth Town Council, although to date some £5000 of their grant for e-readers remains unspent. However, the library manager hopes to purchase ipads in the coming year. We were also the recipients of a sizeable personal donation from a kind Friend of the library. We are part of the way through the redecoration of the library for which we were fortunate to receive another grant from the Town Council, of which only £1500 was spent in the financial year 2014-15, the balance (£3500) will be paid out when the work has been completed in the coming months. I know the Library Manager has plans for further purchases to add value to the offering our library gives. This includes complete re-carpeting which the Trustees have agreed they will fund, partly from existing funds and from further grant applications. Catherine Draper Secretary
100 Club report The 100 Club has had a very successful first year. We started with 95 members in April 2014 and by October we had 107. So over the course of that period the prize money and Christmas bonus fund increased steadily. The total prize money for the whole year April 2014-Mar 2015 was £619.45 and the Christmas Bonus was £46.30. There is a sum of £16.05 held in the Christmas Bonus Fund for 2015 from the January— March contributions. This means the £100 Club will contribute £639.55 to the funds of the Friends of Halesworth County Library. A special thank you to Ali and her staff who dealt with all the administrative work over the course of the year. David Olds
Library Manager & Events Group report Thank you for attending our AGM this evening, it is great to see you all and I really do appreciate the support you give the library. This year got off to another busy start and we want to tell you what we have achieved so far and what we have planned for the future. The library is now widely used by the people in the community and there is something different happening every day, from baby Bounce sessions to learning to use your iPad. Also most evenings the library is used by various groups in the town as a nice central venue in which to meet. For full details we advertise in the Community News, local parish magazines and on our website. Suffolk libraries have now installed our new Dell computers, which have internet access, Microsoft Office 2013 and Skype installed. We also have a Chromebase, Chrometouch and Chromebooks to use in the library. We have now had a new printing system installed, which will enable us to print from all these devices with a new Samsung printer. You can even send print jobs from home to the library for us to print for you. I have been told the next piece of equipment to be replaced will be our self-service machines but I am not sure on the time scale for that. We have a wonderful group of people that I am very proud to call our “Events Group� and during this year we have had a lot of fun organising and running events, whilst raising money for the library.
Since the last AGM we have had a stall at the Lions Fete…….in June last year, which was not a great success for us but we learnt a lot from it. Another stall at the Antiques Fair, which we will be repeating as it was a success, hard work but we had a lot of fun. We have held a successful quiz night in October, which is now going to become a quarterly event. The Christmas Craft Fair went well, so will also become an annual event. We are trying board game afternoons, not for profit but to offer something to the community. A fashion evening “Spring into Womenswear” will be held soon. Come and join us for a fun evening and perhaps treat yourself, date to be announced. The 100 Club has started its second year. Go on, buy a number, there are three winners every month. We welcome your ideas, so please share any suggestions you may have for events and fundraising opportunities we could try. The money that has been raised by “The Friends” this year has been spent on the Wi-Fi running costs; on moveable shelving to creative more space for events held in the library; 10 card tables for general use in the library; an A3 printer, copier and scanner and a purpose built unit for our self-service machine with trolley. The “Friends” are also paying for the library to be refurbished this year. Once the decorating has been completed then a new carpet will be laid. We also have plans to make the staircase look more attractive by adding a book spine to the stair risers. We hope that perhaps local businesses will be willing to sponsor a stair and choose the appropriate spine for them including their name or business logo. We are also researching iPads to purchase as e-readers to be borrowed and loaned out like a book.
We are still selling cards for local artists and jewellery and make a small profit on this which goes to “The Friends” and we now have our own Jute bags to sell. In March this year we held our own Bookfest, which was a fortnight of events to encourage reading for all ages. During this event we had author visits, an illustrated talk on sharing stories with young children, a professional storyteller, children’s activity sessions and we started a Children’s Writing Group with the help of local author Annaliese Matheron. We had 18 children attend the first session; it has been a great success. We are still continuing to be an extremely busy library with a footfall of 64,166 in the last year. All the staff here are passionate about our library and work incredibly hard to provide an excellent service to all who come through our doors and this would not be possible without the help of our volunteers who are just simply just amazing. For another year they have supported us and without their help we would not be able to offer so much or do it so well. I would also like to take this opportunity to thank all the trustees who have given up their time and supported the library. We have achieved so much this year and I don’t know where we would be without you all.
Looking ahead The Events Group has been busy making plans for the year ahead. Here’s a list of things you can look forward to. Please come along, or if you can spare the time, volunteer to help out. Saturday 2nd May: Table top sale at The Rifle Hall Saturday 9th May: Bring and buy plant sale at The Library Thursday 28th May: Spring into Womenswear at The Library Sunday 20th August: Antiques Street Market Date to be confirmed: Autumn Quiz Night Sunday 13 December: Christmas Craft Fair
List of Trustees (2014-15) Alison Britton
David Olds: Assistant Treasurer
Alan Holzer: Vice Chair Catherine Draper: Secretary
Megan Proctor: Membership Secretary & Comms Officer
Alison Hopkins: Library Manager
Arlene Roberts
Sheila Freeman: Events Coordinator
Yvonne Sandison
Tamsyn Imison
David Tanner: Treasurer (resigned January 2015) David Thomas—Chair