Chairman's Remarks - Trust Annual Report 1989
The most important event since the last Annual Report was the sale of 24 Canon Street. This eighteenth century house was given to the Trust in 1960 by its first Chairman, Sybil Tremellen who was mainly responsible for frustrating plans to demolish part of Canon Street. This threat was one of the factors that led to the formation of the Trust. We obtained vacant possession last year when the last surviving tenant decided that the house was too big for him to manage and moved to St John's Winchester Charity in the Broadway. We sold the house in September 1988 and it has now been completely refurbished by the new owner.
As a result of this sale, as will be seen from the Treasurer's Report and Annual Accounts, the financial position of the Trust has been completely transformed. Without it we would have been faced with a choice of either, increasing subscriptions substantially or, of cutting back on our activities. Happily, neither of these will now be necessary and, furthermore, we have sufficient resources to embark on ventures involving fairly substantial sums, should suitable opportunities or occasions arise. In the meantime, our policy is to concentrate on ensuring that the value of our funds is not eroded by inflation, whilst at the same time earning sufficient income to cover our running expenses. For this reason, the bulk of our funds have been invested in index-linked Government Bonds.
I am glad to be able to report that there have been fewer changes than usual amongst members of the Council of the Trust and its officers.
We are delighted that Pamela Peskett has become Deputy Mayor of Winchester. Happily she will be able to remain on our Council.
To our very great regret, however, Hugh Watson resigned due to pressure of work in his successful Landscape Architectural practice. Hugh was a member of the Council of long standing and we very much miss not only his expertise in his own field but his experience and knowledge of the affairs of the Trust as a whole.
During the year we have co-opted on to the Council Michael Kilroy and David Spicer, whose re-election will be proposed at the forthcoming AGM.
Michael Kilroy was formerly Solicitor to Winchester City Council and Deputy Town Clerk and subsequently was in private practice as a solicitor. He was Under Sheriff of Hampshire and the Isle of Wight and has lived in Winchester all his life. His fund of knowledge is of the greatest value to us and he has been Chairman of one of our two Development Control Panels which monitor all City planning applications.
David Spicer has acted as Deputy Chairman of the Management Committee of the Heritage Centre and has stood in for the Chairman, Ken Johns, who recently sought release from the cares of office by making a trans-Atlantic crossing in a small yacht. David's career has been in Industry, mainly in the field of Personnel Management and he now lives and works in Winchester.
Clarissa Turner was appointed Secretary to the Trust at the last Annual General Meeting in succession to Gill Graham, who is now an Honorary Life member of the Trust. This was a difficult act to follow but I would like to congratulate myself on making what has proved to be a most successful appointment and to thank Clarissa for all that she has done, and is doing, for us.
I would also like to thank Robert Cross, under whose EditorŽship, as I think members will agree, the Newsletter goes from strength to strength.
It is perhaps worth mentioning that we have made some alterations in the way that the Trust is organized. We have a very large Council which is advantageous in that it provides a wide range of experience but which, by virtue of its sheer size, is not always well adapted to discussion on matters of detail. We now tend, therefore, to set up sub-committees or working parties, on an ad-hoc basis, to consider particular matters which can be referred back to the Council for final decision. Examples are the Peninsula Barracks and Traffic.
We have also decided to disband the Executive and the Town Planning Committees - their functions being replaced partly by a small Planning and Policy Committee, which meets monthly, and partly by the working parties mentioned above.
Finally, growth in membership has been steady if unspectacular. The Trust now has about 900 members.