Committee Minutes

HALLING GARDENING SOCIETY

MINUTES OF COMMITTEE MEETING HELD ON 11th AUGUST 2025  From 7.30 pm At Manor Farm

1.      PRESENT
Pat Catchpole, Kaeren Daunt-Jones, Barbara Hopkins, David Hopkins and Matthew Wells.

2.      APOLOGIES
Phil Badman and Barbara Mead

3 MINUTES OF THE MEETING HELD ON 28th April 2025
The minutes of the last meeting were agreed.

4 TREASURER'S REPORT
Income £                                              Expenditure £
        Plant Sale              338.35          Insurance               89.60
        Lullingstone trip       332.50        Lullingstone trip       345.00
        Bank Interest   13.76                  Hall Hire                48.00
                                                          Website         11.96

Total income    684.61          Total Expenditure          494.58       

Current account     46.59
Reserve account  3796.15
Cash                       149.32
Total                    3992.06

5 PLANT SALE 7 JUNE 2025
This event took less than previous 2 years .Some items sold later so total raised was £338.35. Weather forecast was very wet and windy so that may have deterred some from coming but was in fact dry for all the time that we were open. Wind did get up in afternoon but not a problem for us. Many plants left over and these were taken to Strood club, Big Lunch and to Helen Gates Open afternoon in aid of the  Strood club funds.

6 LULLINGSTONE VISIT
This event made a loss of £12.50 as we were 1 person short of minimum number.(20). Very much enjoyed by all who attended. The tour guide round the house and church was very knowledgeable   and Tom Hart-Dyke showed us round the garden himself. We all came away with a selection of purchases.

7.NO NAME NURSERY VISIT 5 AUGUST 2025
This event was attended by 18 people. The garden was only 6 years old but contained a fantastic array of rare plants   in its own microcosm (Planted too close together for the long term I fear!!). With no services on the site the prosecco seemed to go down well!
Steve was also very knowledgeable having been gardening since a teenager and we were also very lucky with the weather again having been gales the previous day. Another chance to come home with new plants!!!

8.AUTUMN SHOW
David and Barbara agreed to do refreshments and make cakes for this show. Pat would prepare a poster and send it round.
Phil would put the banner up on the Sunday before. Purchase and donation of raffle prizes was agreed. Meet around 9am to set up etc.

9.AGM
This is booked for 3rd November. All present agreed to stand again although both Chris and Pat would be happy to stand down
if anyone wanted to take over our roles. No offers came forward but agreed that we need some younger blood on the committee and to canvas anyone suitable!

10.ANY OTHER BUSINESS
Boughton Monchelsea Place Visit – David had spoken to the owner and unlikely that she will be having visits in 2026
as filming more lucrative. David would investigate Stoneacre and Matthew would research NGS Private
openings for 2026. It was noted that it was basically the same people attending all 3 trips that we had this year
  We had no more positive responses to emails sent out to members and nothing from the leaflet distributed
to all in the village in January. We understand that trips were all during the week but that is when sites
will book these visits. We would continue with the leaflet drop for next year so need to
continue with the research for places to visit and speakers for talks. Hall has been booked for 29th March 26 for Spring Show to avoid clashing with Easter . End of financial year was agreed at AGM to be brought forward to 30th September 25 so Pat will need contact details of Auditor (Jeff Lee?) to arrange this.
Agreed to circulate invite to Open Garden at Helen Gates’s on 31st August to members.
Halling View require an article for their next issue but will be too late for show so general information only to be sent.
David had looked at events to be used as themes for next years’ shows but could only find sports events so agreed
  that we would try to use the home nations to base our ideas on!

11.DATE OF FUTURE  MEETINGS
Committee
Monday 13 October 2025          7.30pm
Monday 24 November 2025         7.30pm

Autumn Show     Sunday 7 September 2025
AGM                     Monday 3 November 2025  7.30pm
Spring Show             Sunday 29th March 2026

12.  DATE OF NEXT MEETING

Monday 13 October 2025 from 7.30pm at Manor Farm.