I have had my handover meeting with the outgoing treasurer and membership secretary of my beekeeping division. I just have to get the bank mandate form completed, and signed by the appropriate people, and be formally voted on by the rest of the committee at the next meeting, and my three year tenure will commence. It doesn't look too onerous. Last year's accounts are done and dusted, and the last treasurer said to refer any queries to him. At the year end we had no debtors or creditors, I've got the bank statements for the year so far, and while we need two signatures on cheques, I'm the one with the cheque book. All equipment bought out of divisional funds is written off as an expense, not carried on the balance sheet as an asset, so the only assets are in the bank. The balance sheet at the end of the year will therefore consist of the start of year balance, plus receipts, less outgoing payments. As long as I can tell from my records what the money going in and out represented, the income and expenditure account will practically write itself. That's the theory.
There are one or two wrinkles, of course. The membership secretary's membership records look very clear, as I expected they would be, and she banks the cheques from members, so I don't have to do that. I do have to split every subscription between contributions to the division, the county and the national association, plus payment for bee disease insurance. BDI looks the most potentially fraught. Full members get cover for two hives automatically with their membership, and can pay for more hives if they think they might need them. The forms issued by the national body apparently don't make the distinction between total number of hives, and additional hives above two, as clear as it might be. The worst thing would be to accidentally under-insure somebody with the central body, who had paid the division for sufficient cover. (Two hives scarcely gets you anywhere. If you start the year with one colony, then if you split that in the course of swarm control you've hit your limit. Collect a swarm and you have three colonies, just like that).
I won't be able to use the bank mandate form that the last treasurer printed off, and started to fill in, since he didn't know that the name I'm always called by isn't my full baptismal name, and put my nickname in the box. Given that the bank's instructions on changing signatories require me to turn up with a passport and additional means of proving my address, I don't think the everyday name will do. If I have to get the old treasurer to sign a fresh form that will be rather a bore, as we don't live very close to each other, and could have done it this afternoon, if it weren't for the confusion with the name. (In the modern age of computers, databases, identity checks, identity theft and all the rest of it, it is better to stick with your given name as it appears on your passport. If you're a Patricia then try to avoid being saddled with Pat, or Patsy, and especially avoid diminutives that don't immediately look or sound like part of your name, like Trish. And try to avoid combinations like William-Bill, because it will throw out your initial. I knew a Christopher who firmly put me right the first time I absent mindedly referred to him as Chris. At the time I thought he was being precious, but now I see he was right).
Fortunately I have been given a folder, issued by the county association, that sets out what the treasurer has to do, and when things like paying for bee disease insurance and county subscriptions fall due, and even a proforma of what, eventually, they would like every division's accounts to look like, with standard headings for outgoings, though I understand this isn't being applied yet. And I have been told that the county treasurer, and the BDI treasurer, are very nice and helpful. That sounds good. Also I have inherited a bag containing the last three years' accounts. My predecessor is an organised sort of person (another reason why I felt reasonably safe volunteering for the job) and I don't expect to have any trouble with them. In addition I've been given a box containing earlier years' financial records. Nobody knows how long we are supposed to keep these, and it was suggested that it would be OK for me to chuck them out. My guess is that they will spend the next three years in my spare bedroom, before being handed on to my successor. Without a very definite instruction from somebody that the old accounts can be binned, I'd feel exposed throwing them away, and I don't know who would be competent to give me the go-ahead to destroy them.
We'll see how it goes. Compared to £39 billion of pension fund assets it should be straightforward.
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