Dear Member,

This year’s AGM sees our return to an ‘in person’ meeting and we are looking forward to welcoming you to our new AGM venue, The Burrell Theatre at Truro School. The provisional running order and registration and joining instructions for the meeting are available on our website here. The finalised agenda, the programme for evening and meeting papers will be published on our website on 18 September 2023.

I am therefore writing to encourage as many of you as can make it to come along, and also to remind you to register to the attend the meeting – the deadline for doing so is noon 18 October 2023. The meeting offers you an opportunity to hear about the Trust’s work and plans for the future, and an opportunity for us – the Trustees and staff – to meet and speak with you.

Meanwhile, as we are making preparations for the meeting, I would also like to tell you about some changes we have implemented to the AGM procedures and agenda that we have followed in our previous meetings and explain our reasons for making them.  Briefly, we shall no longer be putting the Trust’s accounts and the appointment of our auditors to our Members for a vote on their adoption.

As many of you will recall the Trust carried out a governance review in 2020/2021 that resulted in a comprehensive updating of our charitable Objectives and Articles of Association. The latter were adopted at the 2021 AGM and replaced governing documents that had been in place since the early 1960s and that reflected legislation and charity practice at the time. Since the adoption of these new governing documents, we have been reviewing our business practices (for example, updating our procedures for recruiting and appointing new trustees) and more recently we have also examined the AGM procedures as they reflect the provisions of both current company and charity law and best practice. Our conclusion (reached in consultation with our legal advisers) is that Members’ votes on the accounts and the appointment of auditors are not required under either our Articles or the Companies Act 2006, and therefore have no effect and serve no purpose within our overall governance framework. Accordingly, we have removed the votes from the AGM agenda.

Please be assured that this change will have no impact on the governance and oversight of the Trust and that elections to our Board – where responsibility rests for all the Trust’s actions and activities - will continue to be made by our Members. The Board will ensure that you are offered a full presentation of the accounts and all related information on our finances from our Treasurer at the AGM, and there will be an opportunity for Members to comment and/or raise questions both in advance of the meeting and on the day.

We look forward to seeing you at the AGM.

Oliver Blount