MINUTES of the Annual General Meeting held on 14 April 2005 at the Guildhall, York, commencing at 2.00pm

Present: Jackie Wilkes, Ray Wilkes, Anthony Rae, Graham Collett, Paul Chattwood, John Hoare, Anne Robinson, Brian Whitty, Simon Geller, David Wragg, Colin Clarke, Councillor David Merrett.

Apologies: Colin and Fleur Speakman, Tony Ross, Alan Sutcliffe, Peter Davies, Pam Ashton, Martin Bright, Nick Stoker, Ron Healey.

Minutes of the 2004 AGM were circulated and accepted as a correct record.

Chairs Report. Anthony Rae

Funding had become a major problem. Countryside Agency money had ended. The Regional Assembly had accepted that there should be capacity building money and £1000 had been granted. It is in the post. Note. It arrived following week RW.

Anthony attended Regional Transport Forum (RTF) meetings along with Ray. John Hoare was the Chair of these meetings.  AR also attends Regional Planning Commission. Our voice is needed and heard.

Regional meetings in London-Anthony has been to all of them. The last meeting was in York and focused on rail. National TAR continues. Anthony will check circulation and minutes from these.

TAR co-ordination. Little formal physical meetings between officers-this has strength and weaknesses.

Anthony Thanked the Co-ordinator, Ray Wilkes, Treasurer, Graham Collet and Website and Focus editor, Paul Chattwood. He said the newsletter was best of all the TAR newsletters.

In view of the financial difficulties we should have a quarterly or half-yearly "health check".

Expenditure on ‘Focus’ is the main spend 500 copies cost £300 and £100 in distribution. About 75% was mailed and the rest hand delivered. There was a discussion and cost-effectiveness and whether it should be an online publication. Anthony stated that as reserves came down we must face issues.

Ray Wilkes said that it all depended on sponsorship. If we got the sponsorship we can carry on as we were. If we didn't get it we would have to change to an e-mail format. We did not need to make a decision now.

Anthony thanked Paul for the high quality of the TAR ‘Focus’.

Anthony described the Northern Way and cross regional groupings. The focus was on economy, not transport and Sustainable. The airport section was the worst. Anthony has challenged these arguments and the arguments have not been substantiated.. Port, public transport sections OK, but will it result in anything?.

The Regional Environmental Forum was discussed. John Hoare sent Anthony a report after each meeting. Stronger links need to be taken forward. Brian Whitty is on the Hull and Humber forum.

YHTAR FINANCIAL REPORT FOR 2004-5

General
Work agreement with the CA ended on 31/3/04
Despite a lot of work put in nationally, attempts to find a new sponsor for the TAR Network were unsuccessful
However, some extra funding was provided from National TAR member organisations
This paid for a one day per week TAR Regional Co-ordinator and our travel costs to quarterly Regional TAR mtgs in London
To keep within budget meant careful control of funds

Receipts
Seminar income up substantially on previous year
New sponsor found for ‘Focus’ – First Group provided £900 for 3 issues (thanks to twin approach to bus and rail divisions)
Seminar income up on previous year and with reduced costs, led to a small profit
Thanks to T2000 WY for continuing to support TAR, through purchase of ‘Focus’ and to T2000 NY for their subscription (only one received!)

Payments
Newsletter costs about the same per issue ( 3 issues this year)
Still need to watch distribution costs – greater use of weblinks needs to be investigated, plus pruning of list
Expenses lower overall this year, reflecting less conference and seminar attendance due to budget restrictions
Seminar catering costs lower (though lower standard?)

Summary
Ended year with much reduced funds
Late good news – our bid to the Assembly for a grant of £1000 has been successful!
But this will only enable us to produce 2 more issues of ‘Focus’ in 2005-6 unless national or other funding is provided
Suggestions for sponsorship or other sources of funds welcomed, as are donations (particularly from member organisations)
Thanks to all officers and supporters for donating their time and minimising TAR costs

There was a discussion on subscriptions. Ray said it would be difficult to persuade individual members of affiliates to also pay a subscription to the umbrella body. But it would be difficult to persuade these bodies to donate funds to TAR. Ray thought that without separate sponsors we put it would be very difficult to carry on. Graham thought that we would be able to get money from the affiliates.

Graham Collett, Hon. Treasurer, 15 April 2005

Co-ordinators Report. Ray Wilkes. This was circulated

We are still very West Yorkshire based and we are still under staffed by volunteers.

Yorkshire and the Humber Regional Transport Forum.

I have attended the RTF meetings and argued the case for greater safety and a higher priority to buses and road safety at every opportunity. I have also responded to several of the Topic Papers.

I have attended several associated meetings, Freight Policy, Public Transport policy.

John Hoare has continued as the Chair of YHRTF despite stepping down as a councillor.

I have attended the T2000/TAR meeting in York and several WYPTE LTP meetings. YDPUT put in a lengthy report to the NYCC LTP on Dalesbus issues and I put in a brief one on behalf of YHTAR.

Seminars. In conjunction with 2 Bradford District Councillors, Paul Flowers & Lynne Joyce I organised the following seminars which were each attended by about 50 people and seemed to be well recieved. The reports are on the website.

Shipley Sustainable Transport Seminar at Shipley Town Hall on Tuesday, July 2004.

Keighley Seminar on Road Safety November 2nd 2004 at Keighley Town Hall

Funding. First sponsored the last three YHTAR Focuses ‘Focus’.  I am seeking further funding via local CPT. I have had a decline from Northern Rail.

Mailing list. 372 on list, - up 22 from last year. I have continued to update mailing list. However, if there is to be another Focus we should use the opportunity to get people to opt in to future editions but also try to get people to opt in from T2000, CPRE, FoE etc lists.

Focus Costs. 1 second class stamp per person up to 16 pages.

Printing up to 8 pages £150, 9-16 pages £300. So a 16 pager gives the lowest cost per page and an 8 pager the second lowest cost. I have tried to scrounge articles from outside YHTAR/T2000 and succeeded with two.

Focus Policy. It is very difficult to get articles in for deadlines. The policy is to be heavy on deadlines but events often force us to be lax. If I am accepted as editor, I will try to have an editorial on front page, and restrict article to 2 sides of A4 - except reports of seminars, conferences and the like which will be at the back.

YHTAR focus. Paul is relinquishing the editorship. The finished article was helping to spread the word. Getting a content in on time is is a big difficulty.

Paul was willing to continue with the website. Paul was found for the essential work he did to quality standards

Elections As Anthony had to go at 14.30 we had the elections earlier in the agenda.

Chair Anthony Rae.

Treasurer  Graham Collet

Co-ordinator Ray Wilkes. Ray was also willing to take on the editorship of the newsletter.

Website Editor  Paul Chattwood

Lead officers.

Buses Ray Wilkes

Water Transport. Anne Robinson

Roads in South Yorkshire Anne Robinson

Walking Colin Speakman

Rail. Peter Davies.

Aviation Anthony Rae

Reports

Aviation. Anthony had been very busy on this subject and it continues to be a strategic challenge. On the road issue: this had not been as busy. The rule management strategy: air quality issues not properly dealt with. In local transport plans the RSS slippage mean this it doesn't tell the LDP's what to do. The LDP's are proceeding on their own steam. We need to attend on whatever comes rule the LDP road schemes. West Yorkshire and South Yorkshire were not at the same point in the LTA peace.

Buses. Ray Wilkes Report Circulated

I continued to attend Transport 2000, Bradford passengers consultative committee, Harrogate Bus Users Group and (as chair) Keighley Bus Users Group. I also attend Ramblers Association meeting, Executive Committee and Local Access Forum.

I have continued to lobby Metro about bus stop publicity, bus stop clearways and bus priority. Prospects for active travel continue to be a major area of concern.

PTEG commissioned a report on LRT by Steer Gleave Davis. This had some very good arguments for LRT but tried to bolster the case by downplaying the role of buses. I wrote a critique which Colin Speakman and Stephen Joseph were very supportive of and I have sent this to Government Office, and various other bodies.

This April the 662 Keighley Bradford bus route will be upgraded to the standard of The36.

Anthony suggested that the next seminar should feature on buses.

Cycling. Simon Geller was doing a holding operation until a more enthusiastic person came along. He was continuing to wear the TAR hat in regional and cross transport issues. He had campaigned on bikes on trains. The position was very difficult on GNER trains.

Simon will be on the northern rail cycle forum. He went to the Cycle Campaign Network conference in Wolverhampton and will be going to the next one in Godalming. He had campaigned on bikes on trams in Sheffield. There was going to be a summer Sunday trial. He'd attended the TUC transport conference and reported in focus. He was a member of the SUSTRANS Ranger team. He was a member of the living Street Sheffield branch. He was involved in the Sheffield Local Transport Plan. Sheffield had produced a cycling strategy, useful for other areas to look at. Talk of regional cycling strategy to be pursued. Several speakers voiced the concern that we were losing A roads as cycling routes for quick travel and been pushed onto quieter routes which were too slow.

Colin suggested a seminar on cycling. Ray suggested getting a report together and sending it to the government office.

Funding. There was further discussion on funding. Rae said we are all subscribing to individual organisations and as Volunteers we should not have to pay more to be members of TAR. If there was no for sponsorship we should consider ceasing. We should tell Transport 2000 this. Graham said that members organisation should contribute to the costs. Some are well-funded we can always ask or persuade. The newsletter appeal usually gets nothing. We would try to get sponsorship for on transport organisations such as ATOC and the bus companies. We should investigate what the other TAR groups do.

Date of the next AGM. We discussed having the AGM in March instead of April to avoid conflicts of dates. We would need to check what the constitution said.

AOB. The e-mail list was discussed. This is not operating very efficiently at present. We decided to ask Anthony to appoint a co-owner.

We need to promote the e-mail list more generally we could have a panel on the back of focus.

Graham would check about the official name of the TAR as we had been asked to drop the word activist.