AGM - Annual General Meeting

Coordinator's Report
At the 2017-2018 Annual General Meeting (AGM), Shaun highlighted our activities and successes over the past year. See below for the report.

Election of Officers
The election of officers for 2018-2019 are:

• Coordinator – Shaun re-elected.
• Website and Facebook - Shaun re-elected.
• Treasurer – Liddy re-elected.
• Richard was elected as Local Group Chair.
• National FoE had asked who was managing the Twitter account and Miriam offered to take on social media activity until a more local lead could be identified.  

Accounts
Liddy presented the accounts. If you would like a copy then please get in touch. see the contacts page.

Campaign priorities for 2018-2019
Air pollution has been less a priority with less steer from FoE nationally but there will be a national Day of Action later in the year we could support with a “one-off” event.

Plastics campaigning could be done in collaboration with Plastics Free Project which has 1000+ members and in developing a positive and focused campaign. Next steps would include supporting businesses to reduce plastics use and Charlotte’s group have many ideas for specifically targeting local cafes to help them to reduce their use of plastic e.g. straws or takeaway containers. There is for the local group potential to support strategy development and look for whether FoE nationally will have useful resources.

2017 - 2018 Yearly Review

April 2017 - April 2018 has been a busy year for the group. Here is a list of the highlights from the year. 

Roles

• John stepped down as the coordinator and Shaun took on the role. Shaun continued with the roles of updating the website and facebook.
• Liddy agreed to continue as our treasurer.

Air Pollution

• Had articles published in The Star (front page) and the Yorkshire Post.
• Contacted by Sky News for an interview.
• Pollution monitoring with the University of Sheffield.
• Contacted MPs and councillors about air pollution.
• Organised the Festival of Debate Air pollution: The Silent Killer Debate.
• Took part in the Midland Mainline electrification stunt.

Fracking

• Organised an anti-fracking rally in city centre (October).
• Worked with national Friends of the Earth to put on the “Robin Hood vs The Frackers” street theatre.
• Worked with other local and regional anti-fracking groups.
• Anti-fracking articles were published in The Star.
• Organised a Skip Fossil Fuel stunt outside Weston Park Museum.
• Looked into the issues with treating fracking water at the Ecclesfield water treatment plan.
• Organised an anti-fracking benefit Burns Night which raised nearly £1,000.
• Had a networking lunch with Jessica Ernst who has been responsible for a long running legal campaign in Canada.
• Organised two training workshops regarding legal issues at fracking protests.
• Richard gave a presentation on fracking to Fulwood Labour Party.

Food

• Took part in a stall at the Sheffield Food Festival in the Winter Gardens.

Other Campaigns

• Worked with Museums Sheffield for a history of activism project.

Events

• Took part in Zero Carbon Yorkshire – CAT.
• Ran a stall at the Peace and Craft Fair.
• Attended Base Camp Conference.
• Advertised free films on-line.
• Organised a stall at the Light Cinema on the Moor
• Held our AGM.
• Beatrice - talked to scouts about environmental issues.
• Tamara attended the Sheffield Renewables AGM.

Media

• Air pollution and fracking articles in the local media.
• Media training.

Social

• Watched the Al Gore film "An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power".
• Christmas meal and social.

Other Things

• Created an on-line shop selling eco-friendly clothes.
• Updated Facebook and our website.
• Respond to letters and requests from the public.
• Group development work.

2018 - 2019

Hopefully the new year of campaigning will see many more people getting involved and we’ll achieve many more success stories. Our success is 100% a result of the volunteers giving up a bit of their time to make a difference.

Annual General Meeting - 2017

Our group's AGM was postponed from April due to the clash with the Easter holidays

John is stepping down as the group's co-ordinator after a busy and interesting year. The group agreed to split the role and responsibilities of the coordinator for 2017-2018. Shaun will be the email contact and will put together the agenda; other members will rotate responsibility for chairing meetings and taking notes.

At our next meeting on Monday 19th June David will hold the role of the chair and Liddy will take notes. Shaun will circulate the agenda a week before the meeting.

Our Treasurer reported that we have £1309.20 in accumulated funds and have spent £128.16 (on stalls, toner and Facebook ads). Income (from standing orders and donations) was £110.50. Liddy is happy to continue as Treasurer and this was agreed by the Group. The annual accounts can be found below:

Printer

The printer ran out of black toner when printing the Cowspiracy documents. We agreed it was worth investing in proper proprietary toner for better quality printing. This will cost the group about £70, but the previous one lasted about 9 years so hopefully we won't need to buy another one for a while.

Accounts - April 2016

Campaigning News in Brief - July 2015

TTIP
Unfortunately François was not present so there was no update. This matter was adjourned to the next meeting. John thanked Francois for all his hard work on this issue.

Green Commission
There was no information on this subject as Beatrice was at the Green Commission SHED talks which clashed with our meeting.

Child Friendly Green Film
John had not been able to find any family friendly environmental films. Richard suggested The Lorax, which is based on a Dr Seuss book. There might be some good Disney or Dogwoof films. All suggestions will be gratefully received. Walkley would be a good venue for the next festival.

HS2

It was felt that Sheffield FoE should have an agreed position on HS2, as the subject was broached by anti-HS2 campaigners at the Beighton stall. Opinions in the group are mixed but we will try to get national FoE's views on this campaign.

Paris Climate Meeting
On Sunday 29 November, the biggest climate protest ever will be taking place in London on the eve of the crucial Paris climate talks, which will take place from the 30th November to the 12th December. 

Around the world, in major cities, people will be coming together to demand that our governments take action to save our beautiful planet. Across the UK, people will be working together to make this the biggest, most poignant demonstration yet, and our unified voice will resonate across the globe to call for a serious change in policy attitudes towards the climate. 

Time to Act will be working alongside a variety of other groups and activists for mass mobilisation to really show solidarity with our French neighbours.

We hope to take part in the march and work with Sheffield Climate Alliance to promote the event.

We also hope to have a stall at the Climiate Alliance national conference in Sheffield on 19 September.

Finances

Liddy has received £100 from FoE. Can be spent on flagpoles and a printer cartridge if Kiran has not already spent this amount on other FoE items.

Group News - May 2015

Basecamp
Three group members (David, John and Hayley) are wanting to go to our local groups' conference - Basecamp in Castleton in June. Liddy has said this can be paid for by the group

AGM & Elections 2015

Sheffield Friends of the Earth AGM and election of officers took place at the Red Deer pub at 8pm on the 20th April 2015. Present were Beatrice, John, Hayley, François, Richard, David, Dave, Liddy, Steve, Maive, Kate and Shaun. Apologies were given for Kiran, Trisha and Kerry.

Election of officers
Liddy has been unanimously voted to continue as Treasurer
Beatrice and David have stepped down as Coordinators and Hayley has been voted in as the new coordinator.

Coordinator's Report for 2014 - 2015
Well, what an exciting year we have had. Looking back through my diary it seems that we were doing stuff the whole year and it was dominated by our 40th Anniversary. Yes, Sheffield Friends of the Earth is now over 40 years old.

• We have had two film festivals; the first last May (2014) showing Gaslands II, Trashed, A Fierce Green Fire and More Than Honey. This was held in the basement lecture theatre in the Arts Tower. We all remember how cold it was.
• The second was more recently, linked with the Festival of Debate. Here due to the short time frame we once more showed Gaslands II, and Chasing Ice. All the films were very well received and everyone enjoyed the cakes. Thank you to all who contributed, especially Simon Bowens and David Burley for leading the discussions.

We held so many stalls over the past year and thank you everyone who stood by in the rain, the wind, and the glorious sunshine. We talked to so many people. The model has been a great hit; thank you Shaun for this. And we cannot talk about stalls without a quick mention of the Tour de France. I would like to personally thank the press for sending their 5 helicopters to aid the lifting of our wonderful gazebo up and over the security fence. It has also been most helpful to have the new subgroup helping to coordinate stalls and all the information packs.

After nearly two years of campaigning and hard work we have finally got our Bee Meadow. This is at Burngreave Cemetery and thank you to John and Hayley for stepping in to sow the seeds. I think that we need to go and visit to see our plaque.

Our new campaign is Run on Sun and it is great to have a subgroup to help coordinate this. It would never have got off the ground without your hard work; so thank you.

Also, thank you to Francois for all his hard work coordinating with Global Justice to spearhead our campaign against TTIP. Well done. It all started with a request to write a letter.

Our 40th Anniversary was a lovely event. Andy Atkins, CEO of Friends of the Earth came to help us celebrate. We took him round Smithy Wood, organised a meeting with Jack Scott, the then cabinet member for the Environment, Recycling and Streetscene. We then held a party at the Showroom with lots of food and cake. Thank you all for organising this.

Save Smithy Wood is still on-going but we are aware that it is now a national campaign as a test case for other planning applications under the new legislation. We are often in touch with the local campaigners to lend support.

We have had Basecamp last year and the Yorkshire and Humberside Gathering this year. I hope that all who attended had a great time, and were suitably enthused to keep going as activists. For me the other dominating item is the Green Commission which has involved many meetings, discussions, hearings in public, and back room debates. There is another hearing tomorrow night, and late spring (which maybe early summer) we have to produce a report outlining our vision for making Sheffield a greener, more sustainable city.

I want to thank you all for your help and support over the past year. We work so well as a team with everybody contributing as much as they can to make us a truly remarkable group. And although I will be stepping down as coordinator I will not be leaving. I still want to be part of Sheffield Friends of the Earth and its amazing work.

Beatrice Greenfield

Accounts
Sheffield Friends of the Earth's accounts for 2014 - 2015 are:

 Liddy Goyder

AGM & Elections

Elections
Our April meeting was the group’s AGM. The following people were elected:

• John will step down from the role of co-ordinator in June to take a break for 6 months. David will remain as the group co-ordinator, but we hope Beatrice will be able to help out when David isn’t around.
• Shaun agreed to continue with the website work and Liddy will continue her role as the treasurer.

Treasurer’s Report
Liddy Goyder was unable to attend the meeting owing to illness but emailed the following report to all members. The report was presented by David Roberts who proposed that it should be accepted. This was seconded by John Wilson and approved unanimously by those present.

Review of the Year
The year was filled with many events and meetings which are detailed on our website. As well as supporting campaigns around the country, the following are some of the highlights of the actions between May 2013 to April 2014.

Six stalls were held through the year
• Bee Action Plan Stall - May 11th - £24 donations & 60 signatures
• Firth Park - June 29th
• Ecclesfield Gala  - Sep 1st
• Peace & Craft fair - Nov 9th
• Stocksbridge - Dec 20th – raised £40 for Oxfam
• Doncaster with Greenpeace  - Feb - Anti Fracking event  8000 leaflets were handed out
• Dinnington  - Jan 24th - Singlehandedly run by Richard to highlight fracking issues & hand out leaflets

Film Festival 2013
Four films were shown in May and we raised about £80 in donations. Films shown were Blood of the Amazon, Blue Gold, Chasing Ice & The Happy Movie. The Red Deer venue was full for each event with around a total of 150 attending.

Litter Pick Sept 3rd
16 sacks we're filled by 8 members and delivered to AMEY and a photograph of the event published in The Star.

Events Supported
Anti Fracking at Balcombe, Daneshill & Barton Moor
Greenpeace Arctic30 at Waitrose Shell Garage

Media Work
Beatrice appeared on BBC Look North (20th May) about recycling and incineration. Beatrice spoke on Sheffield Live radio (16th Jan) about fracking.

Base Camp was attended by 6 members

40th Birthday Activities
Shaun has built a model Eco Village and spent an enormous effort on preparing a collection of old photos as part of our plans for a 2014 anniversary event. He also liaised with the Sheffield Star resulting in a 2 page article in the Wednesday 12 February edition.
A planning group has been set up to organise a 40th birthday event, comprising Shaun, Richard, Francois & Ann.

Tour de France 2014 - Yorkshire Depart
A subgroup was set up comprising Richard, John & Steve to formulate ideas to capitalise on this event.

Civic Activities
Beatrice has been working with Sheffield City Council, looking at the Mineral Rights Obligation & fracking issues.

Garden Organic
Richard arranged a visit to Garden organic on the 28th Sept, which was attended by himself, Beatrice, David, Francois & Shaun.

New Members
We welcomed the following new members to the group. Francois Guesdon, Phil Davies, Julie , Kerri , Saleema Imam

Christmas Party was enjoyed by all on Dec 16th.

Fundraising

We currently have about £700 in the bank and we receive about £10 each month in standing orders. Although we have enough money to fund our planned campaigns we will be very short of cash towards the end of the year. If you are able to help, we appreciate both one-off and regular donations, but the regular donors are particularly helpful as enables us to plan knowing we have resources coming in.

The funding will help to purchase the following items:

• Buy the case for the eco-model to be shown on stalls
• Buy the licences for our film festival
• Buy a flag pole(s) for our stalls and demonstrations
• Run Tour de France cycle campaigns.
• Funding for the 40th birthday work.
• Pay for stalls. Each one typically costs between £10-£30.
• Pay for the licence agreement with National Friends of the Earth
• Pay for our website domain name.

Please click on the donations tab above if you can help us.
Thank you for your support

Finances

We haven’t charged our supporters a membership fee for many years. If you are able to make a regular donation or a one off donation then please get in touch with us. See the donations tab above.

We would like to spend some money to improve our banners and in the summer we’d like to invest in some large flags for our stall to make us more visible. In total this might cost around £100.

We would like to purchase a display case for Shaun’s model which would be used to attract people to our stalls. This will cost around £150.

Our film festival usually costs a few hundred pounds and then we’ll most likely need to hire a room for the 40th celebration.

We have considered taking donations from Lush and the Co-operative as they are more ethical than most other companies.

Other News - October 2013

Off the Shelf Festival
Shaun is attending the Off the Shelf festival on Wednesday 30th October for a presentation about the University of Sheffield’s Project Sunshine. See http://shine.sheffield.ac.uk/ for more details



40th Birthday 
Next year will be Sheffield Friends of the Earth’s 40th birthday. Shaun is currently reviewing the newsletters from the 1980s to find out what we were campaigning on. Our plan is to contact the Sheffield Star to see if they would like to write a retro article about our group and publish some of our old photographs. Jon Baker kindly offered to get in touch with Jude Warrender to see if she can provide us with details of the 1970s.

Christmas Party
Our December meeting at the Red Deer pub will start earlier at 7pm so we can discuss business before eating our Christmas meal at 8pm. If you would like to join us for the Christmas meal then please get in touch with Liddy (see contacts). The menu hasn't been published yet but we’ll post more details nearer to Christmas.

Bank Account
If the Co-operative bank becomes less ethical when it is taken over then we might have to consider moving to a different bank. We are currently looking for other banking options.

Fundraising and Finances

John is hoping to host and perform in a music gig sometime between November 2013 to January 2014 at the Burton Street Foundation, Hillsborough. We hope to sell tickets to raise funds for the group. If you know of any bands willing to play for free then please let us know.

Liddy is to take Maureen's name off our bank account as she has now left the group.

Other News - June 2013

Stalls
We have the following stalls planned. If you able to help out then please get in touch.

• Firth Park on the 29th June from 11am – 4pm.
• Ecclesfield Gala – 1 September
• Peace & Craft Fair – 9 November

Finance
Due to Maureen stepping down as coordinator we have updated our bank account so that Maureen is no longer able to sign cheques for the group.

Psychology Discussion
We decided to hold a discussion about psychology and environmental campaigning. The idea for the discussion was to find ways to improve our communication and messages to the public. Shaun is currently conducting research and the notes will be made available once complete.

Old Pictures and Press Releases
More old pictures and press releases have been added to our Facebook site. The photograph below shows Sheffield FoE's recycling service (most likely late 1970s or early 80s)! More will be added over the next 6 months as we try to get material together ready for our 40th birthday next year. To join our Facebook site please click on the tab above.

Accounts 2012- 2013

The Sheffield Friends of the Accounts for April 2012 - April 2013.

If you can send us a donation to help us with our work then please click on the donations tab above. 

AGM 2011 & Accounts 2010 - 2011

Beatrice has stepped down as the group’s coordinator after doing a fantastic job for the past year. Maureen has agreed to take over the vital role of keeping us "co-ordinated" for which we are extremely grateful. Many thanks are also due to the new management at the Red Deer who since last summer have been letting us use their upstairs room for our monthly meetings free of charge and to our generous donors who have enable us to almost break even this year. Thanks in particular to the organisations that sponsored the film festival and the members whose annual donations or monthly standing orders make all the difference to our bank balance."

Accounts 2009-2010

The accounts for the year 2009-2010 can be found below. Although we still have a reasonable amount of money in the bank our campaigning work cost £477 last year whilst our income was just under £200.  Any donations to the group would be appreciated. Please see the donations tab above.

Accounts 2008 - 2009

Sheffield Friends of the Earth group accounts from April 2008 to 2009 can be found below: