admin

This morning was earmarked for writing up the music society committee minutes and my final set of beekeepers' accounts, so I didn't mind that it poured with rain until lunchtime and then blew half a gale for the afternoon, apart from the fact that the lawn is quite soggy enough as it is, and the wind brought another load of dead, leathery, everlasting leaves out of the Eleagnus hedge and littering across the gravel, ready for me to spend half a day picking them out from among the thrift and Eryngium with my fingertips.

As I went through my notes of yesterday's meeting I discovered another complicating factor for our next season's programme, that I'd forgotten about by the time I got home, which is that we will not be able to use the village hall at all during November because it will be needed for amateur dramatics.  The discussion had covered all the right points, just not in the right order, as tends to happen in our meetings.  My technique nowadays is to start by writing out all the agenda item headings, then slot each part of the discussion under the relevant heading.  The result is not a chronologically accurate account of the proceedings, but does help somebody reading it in two or three month's time make some sense of what we were talking about, whereas a literal transcription would at times read more like an early experiment in stream of consciousness by Virginia Woolf.

The beekeepers' accounts came together remarkably easily, unless I get a rude shock when the person inspecting the books has had time to look at them.  I have never really felt comfortable with the balance sheet layout adopted by the beekeepers, which is not the same as the one used by FTSE 100 companies.  In fact, the first time I had to prepare a balance sheet I simply cribbed what the previous treasurer had done, shifting the previous year to the left and slavishly copying the relevant information from the current year.  The following year, despite all my nagging to get it paid in before Christmas, we had a cheque outstanding at the year end and I had to work out how to do accruals, and somebody paid a subscription for the following year in advance.  I never intuitively understood what I was doing, but it passed muster with the auditor and the County treasurer.

This year was easy, with just one measly uncleared expenses cheque for £8.70 (which the person concerned made an inordinate song and dance about claiming) outstanding at the year end, and it all fell into place.  I think.  The County Treasurer's comment on my accounts last year was At least yours add up.

Meanwhile another challenge looms on the horizon, as I am going to have to learn how to do links from the music society's website.  The trouble with experimenting with their website is that when you press Apply to site, whatever you have done is there for all to see.  It would be nice if only there was an offline facility where I could fiddle about in private until I got the hang of it.