Just a note to y'all:

the newest edition of the Club's Quarterly Magazine is vailable for download from the download area (bet you never would have guessed that


There is also notification of an EGM that has been called:

An EGM is called!
Location: Burnside School, St. Peters
Road, Wallsend, NE28 7LQ
Date/Time: 8pm on 8 July 2008

Note guys, this EGM is VERY important, and we must be quorate. That means that we need 21 members there, including any committee members. We are updating the rules of the club so that we do not qualify for exemption from Corporation Tax. This isn't a tax dodge, the club's activities qualify us, but the rules must reflect that. If we aren't quorate and the rules aren't changed, then profits from the new guide will be taxable. And subs will go up. etc etc.

I suggest that maybe people who will definitely make it post here and we'll see how we're getting on and how much whipping in needs doing.

ta

jd

Do you not mean so that we do qualify for exemption from Corporation Tax?

Malcolm Rowe wrote:

QUOTE:
Do you not mean so that we do qualify for exemption from Corporation Tax?

Ok ok ok ok, cut me some slack, I'm a pensioner now y'know

The committee needs to look very closely at the consequences of having to conform to the Disability Discrimination legislation. My understanding is that one reason why the YHA closed so many hostels was because of the expense that would be required to update the facilities to conform. Would we need to have disabled access to the hut/hermitage? I don't know the answer,but somebody needs to find out before we go down this route.

GrahamW wrote:

QUOTE:
The committee needs to look very closely at the consequences of having to conform to the Disability Discrimination legislation. My understanding is that one reason why the YHA closed so many hostels was because of the expense that would be required to update the facilities to conform. Would we need to have disabled access to the hut/hermitage? I don't know the answer,but somebody needs to find out before we go down this route.

We need to have an Access Statement, which would inform a disabled person whether or not the Hut was suitable for them, but I don't believe we need to alter the Hut or Hermitage as the act relates to businesses - see http://www.dwp.gov.uk/employers/dda/ .

QUOTE:
"Under the Disability Discrimination Act, small to medium sized businesses have to make reasonable adjustments so they do not discriminate against disabled customers or employees."

There was a lot of Daily Mail type scaremongering about this act when it came out, but It isn't nearly as draconian as the detractors would have you believe.

The YHA issue is a slightly different thing by the looks of it - this is from an article on closing Bangor hostel:

QUOTE:
YHA chief executive Roger Clarke said: "We've already started refurbishment projects and major training programmes and are ready to push ahead with the next batch of investments in places where people really want to stay."
.....
"The closure of sites is unavoidable for YHA, while the creation of good quality facilities in excellent locations is a necessity for our survival and growth."

Reading between the lines; amongst other alterations they probably want to improve disabled access to their hostels (no bad thing) and to finance ALL of these improvements some hostels need to close.