Greater Glasgow OWLS 20th August 2014
Present
Chris
Fred
Morven
Tom
Kim
Laura
Matt
1. Name of group
As there was some confusion after the last meeting, we clarified that the name of our group is Greater
Glasgow O.W.L.S. The old F.E.I. group we are replacing was simply the Glasgow FEI.
Kim has been in touch with Penny Martin, the Forest School Scotland Co-ordinator to ensure that we are not
infringing on the ‘territory’ of any other groups. It has been confirmed that we can choose our own
jurisdiction, which may be flexible. Kim has a list from Penny of the other groups that exist around the
Glasgow area.
Tom has spoken to Mike Brady, of the Lanarkshire F.E.I. who is amenable to the sharing of events and
resources with our group.
2. Bank Account
We believe that the old group’s bank account still holds around £2-300, which should come to us, but so far
we do not have access to nor information on the account. Sally York is chasing this for us, but Kim will follow
up with her to ensure this is happening.
Chris has largely completed our bank account application, and brought it to be discussed, approved and
signed. A number of projected figures are required as part of the application: Chris has prepared these, and
they were approved by the group.
Kim will ask Bonnie about our legal status, which is required to be stated on the application, whether we are
incorporated, unincorporated, etc.
We need to state when we expect to receive our first funding grant. We have agreed that it should be
applied for and in our account by 31st December 2014. This is likely to be our admin grant of up to £500,
which will pay for our launch event.
We discussed bank account authority levels and decided that Dual Authority would suit our needs best. We
will receive quarterly statements on the accounts, and all signatories will have equal authority on the
account.
Signatories on the account will be Tom, Laura, Chris, Morven and Matt. Two signatures will be required to
make any changes to the account. Individual signatory forms are to be completed, and ID will need to be
provided.
We will be using the Urban Roots address as the GGOWLS address for the time being.
The declaration was signed.
Kim will ask Sally to clarify how we access the money held in the old F.E.I. account. We need to find out
whether this is transferred directly from one account to the other, or if it is legally given to us as a
‘donation’.
3. AGM, Launch Event, Grants and Funding
Laura has looked into the admin grant – we need to have the bank account up and running before we can
apply for this. Tom is forwarding the appropriate form to Laura in order to apply. The deadline for this grant
is early December 2014.
Due to timing issues, it was decided that we should aim to have our AGM and Launch Event in spring. This
will give us time to get the bank account set up, apply for and receive funding, and hopefully engage with a
larger group of people, who may not be willing to attend in the middle of winter
We discussed other potential funding streams. One is Scots Pine funding – we have decided to wait before
pursuing this. We then spoke about Continuing Personal Development and the possibility of us applying for
funding to stage some events. We have begun discussing engaging ideas and potentially running weekend
events, which may be more convenient for teachers, and better-attended. We can receive up to £300 in CPD
funding, which can be used to cover our venue costs, leader’s fee etc.
Any event we stage must have a minimum of twelve participants and be advertised on the F.E.I. website at
least 8 weeks in advance. We have all agreed to come up with some ideas to create engaging, effective and
useful events – to be discussed at our next meeting. Some things we have identified so far to look into are
enabling teachers, giving practical advice on purchasing, storage, funding….
There is a CPD teachers’ intranet site that may be useful - Matt has a link to this.
We tentatively agreed to combine our first AGM with our launch event for practical and momentum
purposes. We aim to hold a CPD event after Christmas, but before our spring launch, so that we can launch
with some kind of track record.
4. Social Media
Fred has set up a Facebook page for our group, but has not yet been able to add group members as
administrators. We discussed the merits of the various ways in which we could be represented on Facebook.
A Twitter profile for GGOWLS is the next step on social media.
5. OWL Networking
Laura is attending an OWLS networking event in Fife on 3rd and 4th October. There is another taking place on
the 19th and 20th September. Kim, Matt and Fred are looking into attending.
Next meeting – 4.30pm on 1st October at Toryglen Community Base