Final minutes for Autscape board meeting 26 July 2025
Meeting opened 16:05
Present: Elaine, Heta, Kacey, Martijn, Richard, Trish
Apologies: James, Sam
1. Approvals
1.1 Minutes of Jun 2025 meeting - deferred to the next meeting as not yet received.
2. Ratifications
2.1. The decision taken on list on 30/06/2025 to amend the Bronze Tier sponsorship package from "Company logo on the handbook back cover" to "Company logo in the handbook"
Rationale: this gives more flexibility to get the best handbook layout. (7 For)
Motion passed: 6 votes for
2.2. The decision taken on list 13/07/2025 to stop using Lea Forge Self Storage and move to The Storage Team in Winsford. (7 For)
Motion passed: 6 votes for
3. Proposals
3.1. The Treasurer proposed that we accept the insurance renewal for £782.82 covering the period 02/08/2025 to 01/08/2026.
Motion passed: 6 votes for
3.2. The chair of proposed that we approach the following organisations to act as as sponsors.
1. Autism East Midlands
2. NDA Toys
3. Thrive Autism coaching
4. Spectrum Gaming
5. Inclusivity Films
6. Rolls Royce Cars
7. Bowner & Kirkland
8. Toyota UK
9. TC Harrisons
10. Vaillant Boilers
11. Bentley
12. Mathmos
13. Thriving Autistic
14. Grove Neurodivergent Mentoring and Education
(Carl has suggested Rolls Royce, Bowner & Kirkland, Toyota & TC Harrissons because their head office is close to the venue, and Vaillant because they have a large production factory close to the venue. Bentley are a large employer close to where 3 sub-committee members live, and one sub-committee member may have a contact)
Motion passed: 6 votes for
4 Follow ups
None
5 Role Reports
5.1 Chair
Nothing to report
5.2 Company secretary
Nothing to report
5.3. Treasurer
Nothing to report
5.4 Fundraising Coordinator
The Fundraising Coordinator reported they have been very active with weekly meetings. Carl is now starting to contact people. Ian has been putting a lot of work in.
5.5 Tech Coordinator
The Tech Coordinator was happy to report our email delivery problems seem to be largely solved with the measures he managed to implement recently. He apologised for not getting this done sooner. However, he still doesn't think it was a major factor in losing us participants.
He has been making some updates to the website, especially https://www.autscape.org/donations/
He really needs updated versions of various outdated texts throughout the website. He has been requesting this for years. More images would be good as well, though Heta has really helped with that already.He agreed to email the list with what needs updating so we can get to that after Autscape. Still to do: finally complete the transition to a new/modern operating system on the server (the current one is hopelessly outdated). Hopefully he will be able to get that done after Autscape
5.6. Membership secretary
Nothing to report
5.7. Event manager 2025
The Event Manager reported: Things are coming together. Numbers are better than we thought as we had a few last minute bookings. I can’t tell you exactly what they are atm but not far off minimum numbers. I have also had a few problems with room allocations which has lead to them agreeing that for future bookings we can consider the extra day as exclusive use as well. This is a big thing for them to do as they potentially lose out on other bookings by doing this for us. We are probably about 10 places short now.
The Chair added IIRC we're about £18.5k short of covering the second deposit in February right now )
Closed part of meeting - not for publication
7. Elections
7.1 Election of the Chair of the Fundraising Subcommittee
Nominations: Ian
Motion passed: 6 votes for
NOTE: Today is exactly 20 years after the start of the first Autscape. So happy 20th anniversary to us!
Meeting closed: 16:58