The Melksham News - July 2012 - Part 1, Campus and Chamber of Commerce
Archive - Originally posted on "The Horse's Mouth" - 2012-07-22 13:09:49 - Graham Ellis
Update, 22nd July 2012. With so much going on over the last few weeks, and summer holidays now with us, it's a good time to summarise where we stand on a number of issues.
For Part 2 - Rail and Canal - see [here] Further sections to be added
Melksham Campus .... The SCOB has completed the feasibility brief - in other words, we've worked out what we would to achieve and we've passed it through to architects to look at the various options for achieving this on the Melksham House site. Over the next month, there will be discussions back and forth to clarify some elements of the request, culminating in options being presented by the architect to the SCOB and - at a special area board meeting early in September - to the Area Board and public.
I believe that the feasibility brief covers the aspects that are important to Melksham, and it includes the mandated elements required as part of the Campus projects by Wiltshire Council. Community inputs are strongly featured, with groups, clubs and associations concerned with each activity having contributed, and indeed with such groups working with their sport's governing body or equivalent where applicable to ensure that the facilities sought are appropriate, and also to help us leverage funding via such groups to support their element in the campus. Individual / additional inputs - from the MCAP consultation, from the SCOB website, from the youth survey, older people's meetings, discussions and emails direct with SCOB members (this is not a complete list) have also been reviewed, and have gone forward as Yes / Maybe / No items to the feasibility brief. Strategic approaches such as "we want to spend our money providing things that are NOT going to be otherwise available", "we are not in the business of providing something that should be commercial" and "what we provide needs to be maximally used and operationally practical in the longer term" feed these decisions, which will be published on the SCOB website in due course.
At this stage, little is completely set in stone, and the feasibility brief may well be tweaked by "have you thought of ..." from the feasibility architects, who after all are the experts on the practical. And then once the options offered by the feasibility brief have been considered by the Area Board, we'll be into detailed design for the selected option, architects yet to be chosen, planning, and implementation.
Melksham Chamber of Commerce and Industry .... The Chamber met last Tuesday, takes a break in August, and meets again on Tuesday 11th September, at Well House Manor. All Welcome.
Melksham Chamber is a member of the Wessex Association of Chambers - originally set up to let all the various Chambers share admin / office / secretarial / phone / postage services, and to provide a co-ordinated voice to local and regional government. Over time, the Wessex Association grew much bigger and stronger than the individual chambers - in Melksham's case being responsible for some 94% of our expenditure, with just 6% of the money (collected by the association on our behalf) paid back for local activities and works. However, expenditure has been exceeding income at the Wessex Association, and the new CEO there has the unenviable task of building an organisation for the future. Some plans were presented in the Spring, with further rather different plans to Chamber Presidents at the end of June, and in turn these were presented to the Melksham Chamber at last week's meeting.
Wessex's plans suggest a radical change - a dramatic rise in entry-level membership price, a major enhancement of benefits for members, and an elimination of the local membership tier with all members being the equivalent of what are the second tier "association members" today. It's fairly early days on this just yet - plans are being made - but it would appear that on current membership levels that it's proposed that the extra income generated be used to fund the Wessex Association with (in local member's cases) even less of the fees in actual terms coming back to Melksham.
Are these changes right for Melksham? There are some excellent ideas but there are elements which (as proposed) aren't right for our members and would leave the Melksham Chamber much weakened. And whilst there's logic in being active in making inputs to the process, we're not in a position to nail our flag to the new Wessex Mast - we don't even know what shape it will be. But we do need ongoing operations, and we have been without secretarial support from the association since April.
So, until the end of 2012, Phil McMullen will take over the role of Secretary of the Melksham Chamber, minuting meetings, managing mailing lists, sendout out Agenda, updating websites, and general correspondence (on a contracted time basis). The Wessex Association will be providing training for its own support staff, and that training will be open to Phil. A financial settlement (see minutes of 17th July meeting) has been reached for members payments for last year, based on the provision of a secretary for just 4 of 12 months this year, to cover the extra costs incurred by the Melksham Chamber.
During the Autumn of 2012, the Melksham Chamber will engage with the process at Wessex to see if the Chamber wishes to remain as a full member of the association, or to take a detached role where the Wessex Association represents all Chambers including Melksham and others in our position, but our membership becomes "town local". We have a choice to make, and our route forward in 2013 will depend on that choice.