Letter from the Committee addressed to all members – 01/03/22

Members will be aware that for the last 15 months the Committee has been seeking to appoint a new Treasurer. However, and despite many pleas being made, no one has come forward from the membership to take on this role. For the greater part of this period the majority, if not all, of the activities of our U3a Groups were suspended as a result of legislation and recommendations from HM Government designed to curb the Covid pandemic. Only over the last 6 months has any significant activity been planned or has taken place, including the regular Tuesday morning meetings at Maghull Baptist Church.

For the first 9 months of the period, the Committee was able to function without any real difficulty, despite the lack of there being a Treasurer in post. This was due largely to the fact that there was little or no activity that gave rise to any significant volume of work in respect of your U3a’s finances. From September last year however, and as the level of activity began to grow, matters became much more problematic. As a matter of fact, it was only because one of our members then came forward to deal with much of the work that would otherwise have had to be undertaken by a Treasurer (and then only with the able support of a team of volunteers providing the Tuesday banking operations) that your U3a has been able to operate up until now. However, from the very outset it was made clear to the Committee that this arrangement was strictly time limited and would not be available after the end of the current financial year on 31^st March. Clearly, it had been hoped that during this period the situation with regard to the appointment of a new Treasurer would be resolved; as already stated however, equally clearly there has been no such resolution, or indeed progress of any sort towards a resolution, of that issue.

More recently and arising from totally unrelated matters and issues that came to a head in the early part of February, your Chair and your Deputy Chair felt that they had at that point both been put into a position whereby they felt that they had no option other than to resign from their respective offices. Consequently, your U3a has been left in the situation whereby three out of its four officer posts are currently vacant. The Charity’s constitution requires that to be properly constituted, as a minimum the Committee must comprise of its four officers, together with at least one other individual elected by the membership. Accordingly, as of 8^th February, your U3a has not had the benefit of being able to be managed by a properly constituted Committee.

Over the subsequent weeks, the remaining members of the Committee (i.e. its one remaining officer and 5 elected members) have striven to work out and to put in place suitable arrangements that would allow your U3a to carry on its activities for the period leading up to its next AGM on 17^th May, when there might possibly have been the prospect of finding three members willing to fill the vacant officer roles. Acting in what it believed to be in the best interests of its members, the Committee felt able to allow your U3a’s activities to carry on in the meanwhile, by relying on a further provision in the constitution; that further provision allows that any decisions taken by the Committee are not rendered as being invalid, notwithstanding the fact that at that time the Committee was not a properly constituted body. Clearly however, the Committee has always recognised that it could not rely on this relief provision for any undue length of time.

At this point in time, and in all the circumstances outlined in this letter, the Committee is unable currently to view with any certainty, circumstances whereby your U3a can properly manage its affairs after 31st March 2022. The Committee has determined therefore that matters can no longer continue to be left unresolved until the AGM on 17th May 2022, and accordingly it is now calling an extraordinary general meeting of the members of your u3a, as set out in the accompanying Notice of Meeting.

For and on behalf of the Committee of Maghull & Lydiate u3a

Mrs L Simms   Secretary    1^st March 2022