Committee Meetings

• Are held at 11:30 on the first Tuesday of every month at the DH except August.
• Booking is from 11.00 am to allow for any setting up the Tuesday Live tables and chairs etc if this has not been done by the DH - it usually has. 
• Meetings usually finish by about 1.00 pm.
• Technical team, Tea Duty members, the speaker and other members start arriving from 1.00 pm onwards for the Tuesday Live which starts at 2.00 pm.

Monthly Procedures

Preparations Before Committee Meeting (CM)

Monday - Eight days before CM

• Has Tea Duty Group confirmed?
• Confirm DH requirements and layout to DH
  • Email in Secretary>Email Std on PC
  • DH layouts in Secretary>DH Layouts on PC
  • Email from Webmail Secretary
• Finalise provisional Agenda on Website Committee Page
  • Add TYP actions
• Email CMs
  • Email in Secretary>Emails on PC
  • Send from Beacon>u3a Officers
• Carry out any Secretary TYP actions

During Week

• Add Finance, Groups, Budget Comparison and Membership reports to Media Library and Website (All PDF) as per structures on RHS
• Add any Agenda items received from CMs

Sunday/Monday

• Confirm Tea Duty Group if necessary.
• Prepare minutes in advance – Secretary>Misc - on PC
• Check Actions from last minutes
• Check links in Agenda on Committee Page are working and remove any unused bullet points.
• Remove 'Provisional' from Agenda

Tuesday Live (TL)

• Arrive for 11.00 am
• Check DH layout
• Check Committee room layout
• Paper and pens for reception ladies
• Committee Meeting
  • Take minutes template and recorder
• Make note of any requests from members or CMs during the TL meeting.
• If anything is agreed during TL it can be added to minutes.

Wednesday/Thursday/Friday

• Write Minutes - Add to Committee Page 2 (CP2)
• Add Button at top of Committee Page – Draft Minutes of the Last Committee Meeting - and link to CP2
• Modify Agenda for following month
• Add 'Provisional'
• Modify Correspondence Page
• Send Email Minutes on the website – in Standard Emails using Beacon u3a Officers
• Amend minutes on web page as required
• Deal with any correspondence and actions from the meeting
• Thank last tea Duty Group
• Confirm Tea Duty Group for following month
  • In July, remind Tea Duty Groups for rest of the year.

Following Week

• Copy Minutes from CP2 back to Secretary>Misc>Secretary Minutes Template
• Save as Minutes 202511.PDF to Downloads initially.
• Then add to Media Library and Website - see RHS.
• Change button colour
• Then save PDF to Z Copy to Hard Disk Folder on PC

During Rest of Month

• Update Agenda as necessary
• Add emails etc. to Correspondence Page
• Deal with any correspondence

Regular & Essential

Drill Hall (DH) Bookings

• Regular booking from 11:00am to 4:00pm at the DH for the Committee Meetings and Tuesday Live.  Bookings are usually done for a year at a time–
  • dhbookings@chepstowtc.gov.uk
  • DH bookings calendar:
• Keep a list of standard DH layouts for TL meetings, Quiz, and other DH meetings. These are set up in Excel and printed to PDF documents.
• All DH invoices MUST be checked before they are passed to the Treasurer for payment. They are not always correct!

Tuesday Live

• Held at 2:00pm on the same day as the committee meeting, with a single booking for the two. Usually 11.00 am to 4.00 pm.
• Notifications of Tuesday Live meetings are sent out by programme organiser by email to all members on the Friday before and repeated on the Monday..
• Depending on the nature of the event, there may be a need for different hall layouts.  There is a range different layouts on Excel available.
• Confirm Tuesday Live (and any other DH booking) a week in advance specifying exactly what is (or is not) required: Hall, kitchen, AV system, microphone, stage etc. with PDF copy of table and chair layout. 
• Include Committee room layout with the PDF layout.
• Can see our Bookings and Invoices but need User ID and password in Key Information File

Tea Duty

• Secretary organises the tea duty rota for groups at Tuesday Live about one year ahead and for each month.
• Link and and timetable in TYP

Correspondence

• Correspondence from u3a Office is by email to Secretary (and sometimes to Chairs and Treasures).
• This is circulated to CMs or added to Agenda if relevant..
• Correspondence on issues specific to a committee role need only be copied to the relevant CMs.
• Forward a copy to our SWN contact if it could be of interest to other South Wales u3as.
• The Secretary email receives a lot of speculative emails. Most of these can be deleted.

Email

• Emails to all members or group leaders are sent via Beacon from the Secretary email address.
• Use u3a officers for CMs - keep this up to date.
• Your personal email account should not be used for any official business.
• Members have the right to request that we do not send emails to them.  You will need to keep a list of such requests and take due account of them.  Currently, Christine Green has asked not to receive emails about regular Tuesday Live meetings.

Beacon

• Beacon login ID is 'Secretary'. Password in Key Information File
• Contact the Beacon team for Beacon training.
• Always use the Secretary email address for official Secretary business so there is an audit trail and future secretaries can see what has happened previously.
• Keep 'Personal preferences' session timeout to 40 minutes to reduce the possibility of losing data.
• Keep the list of ‘u3a Officers’ up to date. and use for communicating with CMs. Encourage all CMs to use this facility.

AGM

• Preparation starts in December.  All duties and procedures are set out in the Year Planner. 

As & When

Bookings and Temporary Event Notices (TENs)

• It is the Secretary’s job to book venues for general u3a events but not individual group meetings/events.
• This may include submitting a TEN where there is sale/consumption of alcohol or music/dancing at unlicensed premises, or when the licensee will not be present.  Copies of old TENs and guidance are on the HD (Archive>Secretary>Temporary Event Notices).
• TENs have to be submitted at least 10 days in advance to MCC but suggest at least a month.
• Best practice is to use the latest one from the HD as a 'template'.
• See MCC website for full details. Login and password in Key Information File
• You may have to complete a new TEN (template on website above) or just amend an existing one on the hard disk – much easier. Then submit it (website above) with a fee (currently £21) using (own or u3a) credit card.
• The Drill Hall and Chepstow Club have their own licences but TENs are required for other venues such as the Bandstand, Board School, and Palmer Centre.
• To seek permission for putting up a banner. See MCC website. Login and password in Key Information File

TAT Brand Centre

• Email and password: see Key Information File
• For purchasing merchandise and Logo u3a Brand Shop

Lanyards

• Are printed for Committee by Awaydays Group

Charity Commission (CC)

Updating CC Information

• Go into the u3a Website
• Governance>Trustee Information
• Go down to the CC Website and Links
• View Our CC Page and Update Our Details button
  • Charity Registration Number: 702771
  • Charity name: U3A CHEPSTOW GROUP
  • Our contact details are in the Key Information Fle.
  • Website: https://chepstowu3a.org.uk/
• Log in to online services in the top RH corner
  • Ensure log in email address is open and available
  • Enter email address:
  • Enter Password: 
  • Click Request Access Code
  • A 6 digit code will be sent to log in email address to be entered on CC screen
  • Use copy and paste for password and 6 digit code
  • Click Continue
• THE ABOVE LOGIN MUST BE COMPLETED EVERY TIME YOU LOG INTO OUR CC ACCOUNT
• You will always have to confirm who you are and that you have authority to amend our details.
• You will also get information about, for instance, Trustees, Bank Accounts etc. Ensure you read these and that we comply with them.
• Administration> Add, remove or edit a trustee or contact
  • To add a Trustee need full name and DOB plus address and phone number from Beacon.
  • After 2 or three pages confirming who you are
  • Click Trustee & Contact on top menu
  • To Add a Trustee
    • Click Add Trustee/contact option on top menu
    • Note: Post Codes require a space eg NP16 6JS
    • Doesn’t allow for joint Chairs!
    • Scan form to PDF and save as the person’s name. Save to Hard Disk.
  • To Edit or Remove or a Trustee
    • Go to each individual Trustee and click Edit or Remove
  • Services>Annual Return
    • READ ALL BELOW BEFORE YOU START
    • When ready to go, copy these notes to a temporary Word document.
    • Combine TAR, Income and Expenditure and Independent Examiners report in one PDF document in that order:
    • You can get them as 3 separate Word documents, combine them and Save to PDF as Word and combine.
      • Otherwise get them as PDF, use open with, and convert to Word.
    • Add them together in the order shown above in one Word document.
    • Print to PDF as ‘Chepstow u3a Annual Return 2026 (or whatever the year).
    • Save it and note where you gave saved it.
    • Login to the CC website
    • Go to Annual Return
    • You have a lot of questions to answer before you are asked of you want add the above file to the CC website. The whole process takes about 20 minutes.
    • Make sure you know the following before starting:
      • Total Income, Total Expenditure
      • Donations, Income net of Donations
      • Grants to groups
      • Approximate number of Volunteers (200?)
    • When finished add File to HD>Secretary>Charity Commission
• Administration>Change Charity Official Address
  • Services
  • Location

Trustee Annual Report (TAR)

• Final completion of the TAR is the responsibility of the Chairs.
• However, once the previous year's TAR has been completed, the Secretary takes the previous years TAR , changes the headings and personnel etc to start the current year and keeps it up to date throughout the year as members join or leave the Committee.
• This is not an essential task but it makes life MUCH easier at the year end.
• In December the Secretary completes the TAR with all personnel changes and sends it to the Chairs for them to complete.

Third Age Trust (TAT)

New or Retired Committee Member (CM)

• The CC website must be updated with new CMs or when CMs retire
• New CMs have to complete a Declaration of Eligibility to be a Trustee. Ask them to add their DoB on the back of the form (this is for the CC entry) and hand back to the Secretary.
• Ask new CMs for a head and shoulders photo and forward to the website manager to update Contacts page of u3a website. Ask website manager to remove retiring CMs.
• Update the CC website using data for new members from the Eligibility Form and their record in Beacon. Remove retiring CMs.
• Update u3a Officers in Beacon
• Print lanyard or recover lanyard from retiring member
• Scan the Eligibility form and copy to HD

Updating TAT Contact Details

• Go to TAT Website
• In Footer Menu
• Click on u3a Contact Details Portal
• Click on Contact Details for your u3a
• Update whenever one of the Officers or u3a Matters organiser changes
• Go to the Portal (ignore the input details on RHS)
  • Email and password in Key Information File
• Committee Details
  • Enter names, emails and phone numbers. Use domain emails where possible and take phone numbers from Beacon.
  • Note that we can only enter one name for each Office.

Submitting the TAT Annual Return

• Email received in Secretary email address in April.
• Click on box at foot of email.
• Enter number of Current members @ 31^st March. Do not include Associate members.
  • Details in Statistics in Beacon (number of Individual members) and in April Membership Report.
• Amount to pay is automatically calculated. (£4 per member in 2026)
• Submit report. Acknowledgment will be sent.
• Inform Treasurer that an invoice for £???? for Membership Subscriptions will soon arrive from TAT.

Incident Report Forms (IRF)

• These should be completed whenever there is an accident to a member or to property. They are a record of the incident in the event of future claims being made.
• See IRF Procedure for details of what the GL and the Secretary have to do.

Policies

• The secretary is responsible for ensuring that policies and procedures are reviewed and updated periodically. 
• The review date is usually noted on the latest version of the procedure and noted on the Year Planner.
• Responsibility for individual procedures may be allocated to individual committee members based on their expertise, but otherwise, responsibility defaults to the secretary!  Current versions should be archived.
• Secretary is responsible for the Data Protection, Safeguarding and EDI policies

Forward Planning and Risk Management

• The Development Plan is a short-term plan for projects that are either in the process of being implemented or about to be implemented
• The Strategic Plan is a longer-term plan with a lot less detail.
  • Both documents are owned by the Chairs.
• The Risk Register identifies risks and control measures
  • It is owned by the Chairs.
• Current versions should be archived.

Assets

• The Secretary is responsible for keeping our list of equipment up to date.

Constitution

• Responsibility for agreeing any changes rests with all the Trustees. This process normally takes several months.
• Once any changes have been agreed the Secretary will be responsible for liaising with TAT and the CC to get the nex Constitution agreed.

Portable Appliance Testing (PAT)

• This is not mandatory for u3a kit, but may be required by some venues.
• If it is not practicable to piggyback on the periodic Drill Hall PAT sessions, we have used CJS Electrical for PAT.
• If organising PAT, it would be good to invite all groups with portable electrical equipment to bring them for testing at one session. 
• The Assets page on the website Governance> Official Information > Assets has a full list of equipment.  As and when new equipment is purchased by u3a, it should be added to this