Trustee Year Planner (TYP)

• An essential month-by month reminder of things to be done.
• It is the Secretaries job to keep the document up-to-date and ensure that relevant items are on the Agenda for committee meetings. 
• It is not set in stone and can be modified throughout the year.

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 usually drawn in Excel and printed to PDF documents.
• All DH invoices MUST be checked before they are passed to the Treasurer for payment.

Committee Meetings

• Held at 11:30 on the first Tuesday of every month except August.
• Booking is from 11.00 am to allow for setting up the meeting equipment (if required). 

Tuesday Live

• Held at 2:00pm on the same day as the committee meeting, with a single booking for the two.
• Notifications of Tuesday Live meetings are sent out by programme organiser by email to all members on the Friday before and repeated on the day before.
• 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.

Correspondence

• Correspondence from u3a Office is by email to Secretary (and sometimes to Chairs and Treasures).
• Normally, this should be circulated to CMs or added to Agenda.
• Correspondence on issues specific to a committee role need only be copied to the relevant committee members.
• 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 - and 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 needs login and password in Key Information File
• Contact the Beacon team for Beacon training.
• It is a good idea to amend '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.

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 hard drive (Archive>Secretary>Temporary Event Notices).
• Use the latest one of these as a 'template'. See MCC website:  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

Annual Inter Group Quiz

• Secretary is currently responsible for organising this annual event which usually takes place around the end of January or the start of February.
• Could be allocated to another person if appropriate.

AGM

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

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 list.

Document storage

• Working copies of all documents are initially kept on the Secretaries computer but are then transferred to the Website and/or the u3a Archive hard drive. 
• Most (hopefully all) documents that you may need to update are kept on the Archive drive.
• Archiving is probably best done on a monthly basis.
• The Archive Drive is backed up periodically to a memory stick.

Incident Reports

• These are highlighted to committee members and discussed if necessary. 
• A copy must be kept on the Hard Disk (Archive>Secretary>Incident Report Form) for 3 years, in case an insurance claim arises. 
• Reports more than 3 years old should be deleted.

Zoom - see Zoom Bookings on Contacts Page

• We have a single Zoom licence which is renewed annually on 25^th October. paid directly from the Treasurer’s credit card, so this will need to be amended if there is a new card number.
• Administration privileges are kept to the Zoom organiser, who makes all bookings.  There is no reason why admin access should not be given to another trusted person (currently Hugh) (e. g. for holidays). 
• There needs be clarity on who can change any settings on the account.  Zoom bookings are normally for two hours with a minimum of 15 minutes between bookings unless otherwise required.  The current Zoom settings allow participants to join up to 15 minutes before the meeting starts. 
• We have built up some experience of running hybrid Zoom meetings and setting up the necessary kit.  The more people with that knowledge and experience the better!
• Recordings on Zoom are limited by the 1GB storage limit, which can be exceeded by only two recordings.  However, recordings can be downloaded for future reference if required.

TAT Brand Centre

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

Updating Charity Commission (CC) Information

• Go into the u3a Website
• Governance>Trustee Information
• Go down to the Charity Commission 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 document.
  • 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
• 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

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.

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.