OVERTON BUSINESS ASSOCIATION
MINUTES OF THE ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING HELD ON Tuesday 1st April 2025
at Stanleys, High Street, Overton
Attendees:
Lucy Sloane-Williams, John Mitchell, Ian Elkins, Rebecca Benton, Jo South,
Apologies: Celeste Stanton, Marion Reed
Numbers in attendance a reflection of the current low membership
1. Apologies
Celeste Stanton, Marion Reed
2. Chair's Welcome
LSW opened the meeting at 19:38 and welcomed the attendees.
3. Minutes from last meeting
Minutes of last meeting circulated – and agreed as a true and accurate record of previous discussion
4. Chair's Report
As the lead in the digital promotion of the OBA the website had received updates by Holly Foat but now needed new photos, a search function and the additions of events including workshops and launches to keep the site fresh and relevant.
Open Overton, the public facing Facebook page of the OBA, now had 1,400 followers and displayed 3 posts since Christmas. New photos were needed to create more posts. Open Overton Instagram with 1,420 followers had featured a reminder to book Santa. The OBA page itself had had 763 followers, a slight 2.6% increase on last year. Meanwhile the OBA members Facebook group of 69 businesses was used by Kate Llewelyn to prompt post ideas for making the most of Valentine's Day. In general members needed to post using the hashtag #Open Overton so that the OBA was alerted to repost. The Chair also mentioned making some simple videos of members for use in Open Overton pages. In conclusion posts in OBA pages were monitored by Overton Radio which did a great job of announcing events. As representative of Overton parish Council IE was asked to review the possibility of creating a village diary to enable better liaison between event organisers and alert the local community to forthcoming events.
Communication amongst members was seen as beneficial and the Chair offered to set up a members' WhatsApp group.
A key event, the annual Christmas market was again brilliantly organised by MF whilst this year was to see another musical event in the summer organised by the OCA with opportunities for members to have stalls.
The year ahead held promise with the 250th Anniversary of Jane Austen and the opportunity to pick upon the theme with special offers or events as well as the OBA's sponsorship of the Overton Walking Group's membership of Walkers are Welcome (WaW) , a national project promoting towns with good footpath networks, that were well managed and promoted. The Chair stated that WaW stickers could be obtained for local shops.
In conclusion the Chair thanked Gaynor Francis and Marion Reed for their amazing work identifying local businesses and creating the Joining Information form for prospective new members. Much work was still to be done reaching out to businesses in and around Overton in order to amplify the voice of Overton businesses and promote them.
5. Financial Report
£1248 Membership fees for the year
£2251 Christmas market income
£2204 Christmas market costs
Marketing costs £669
Total Income: £3524.50
Total Outgoing: £3450.77
Currently in the bank: £2422.11
6. Approval of officers
Low attendance at the AGM prevented formal approval however Committee members John Mitchell, Martin Fielder, Celeste Stanton (Treasurer) and Lucy Sloane Williams
(Chair) had agreed to continue in post.
7. Annual Subscriptions
The annual full Premium OBA Membership of £48 remained unchanged.
LSW outlined the proposed 2 level scheme as described in the circulated joining document “Working in Partnership”
8. AOB
IE: Parking issues:
1. Utilisation of existing spaces
a. Additional spaces - a working group is being set up to investigate potential sites
2. OPC consistently petitions BDBC to maintain free parking in the village
3. Residents parking also adds complications
4. JS raised the issue of wider access to Overton with the closing of bus routes
The businesses would like to see more short-stay spaces on the High Street – would be useful, but where can it be located is the main issue OPC encourages alternative methods of transport – the HCC funded free community bus service is being reduced and might disappear
Action: OBA to promote the service on the Open Overton website
Action: Await the outcome of the working group’s findings
LZSW membership
Attendance has been poor at members’ meetings. Previous events have taken place in local pubs, but numbers have dwindled. LSW to post the dates for the coming year in the hope that members will attend
LSW noted that there are 104 businesses which could potentially join the OBA – from Overton and the surrounding villages
Committee members will be promoting the OBA to the list over the coming weeks in the hope of increasing the membership
JM to manage with LSW the mailing to the membership utilising the Wessex mailing software
The meeting closed at 20:20