House Martin Conservation UK & Ireland
Annual General Meeting
Sunday 1st December 2024, 5pm by Google Meet
Attendees: Ian Donovan (Chair/Trustee), Ben MacDonald (Trustee), John Feltwell (Trustee), Ben Ward, Louise Bentley, Bill Grayson, Heather Bland, Jonathan Pomroy, Karin De Rijck, Barbara Polonara, Nigel Matthews, Paul Stevens, Peta Sams, Rupert Earl, Sheila Penfold, Tracey Ellen, Brian Cahalane, Leisa Milne, Becky Jones, Julie Alexander, Tom Parsons, Duncan Streeter, Sophie Streeter (Minutes), Additional attendee – name not provided
Apologies: Martin Tickler, Mike Priaulx, Rhys Jones, Angela Saunders
Welcome
Ian welcomed everyone to the meeting and shared the agenda on screen.
Chairperson: Year in Review – Ian Donovan
The charity has had a good and productive year, starting 2024 well working with National Trust Sandilands in Suffolk, providing artificial nest cups to them to mitigate for the loss of a single house martin nest there on a toilet block affected by the wholesale redevelopment of the site.
Paul Stevens, our conservation lead provided 6 double nest forms that Sandilands
purchased, and were installed on a pumping station very close to the aforementioned nest. We provided our assistance virtually from Sussex, with the utilisation of Google Street View, of which the NT ecologist was very complimentary!
The charity started 2024 with 410 official members, through our website and at present, we accommodate 497 members. Our social media presence is strong, particularly on Facebook, where we started the year with 2,900 followers and currently have just short of 6,000 followers. We also have a presence on both ‘X’ (through our previous account on ‘Twitter’) and more recently on Bluesky. These platforms are a source of joy and inspiration throughout the year, particularly as birds start to return all over the UK and Ireland.
Within our small charity and management committee, we have been busy behind the scenes developing working projects that we are gradually making available to the public in support of them and all of our birds.
The House Martin Mapper App had been bubbling under for quite some time, and although we released it in the spring, we were unfortunately beset with GDPR issues that have currently reduced it to ‘functional’ but not yet ‘optimal’. We have a small working group communicating with the developers to be assured the app is where it should be both legally and productively by the spring of 2025.
We also launched our ‘House Martin Haven’ initiative this year.
The aim of this project is to award institutions that actively encourage, support and even flaunt their HMs to the wider population!
There are large colonies of birds on stately homes, old educational campuses and listed buildings all over our islands and we have actively encouraged those to join our scheme in celebrating and protecting these colonies together.
On admittance to the scheme, members are automatically signed up to the charity as specific HMH members and issued with a certificate that we encourage them to place
prominently on site close to their birds. They are also invited to be featured on our upcoming House Martin Haven dedicated website page.
To date, we have seven members including Ampleforth Abbey, N. Yorks, National Trust Croome Worcester, the Chequers Inn Lamberhurst, Holcombe Moor Territorial Army Centre near Bolton, Haileybury School in Hertford and Ludgrove School in Wokingham.
For the last couple of years, our live HM emergency helpline has been active throughout the breeding season that Ian has been coordinating along with our accredited HM rehabbers and carers. Calls start coming in via our website and social media platforms from as early as April when the first birds arrive back on our shores, sometimes tired and emaciated after their mammoth migration from Sub-Saharan Africa.
The emergency service has become more streamlined and effective with each passing year and we are currently developing it further ahead of each breeding season to ensure its effectiveness and durability. As part of the project, a group of our accredited rehabbers have developed a HM Care Manual that we have shared with our accredited rehabbers and we will send this out generally to wildlife rescues nationwide to encourage safe and correct care protocols for our birds. Ian is currently writing a 2024 season resume that will be included in our upcoming members newsletter.
Our conservation department have been very active as always, particularly Paul Stevens and Becky Jones in producing bespoke HM nest cups made available for sale to members of the public and wider conservation initiatives nationwide. Barbara Polonara has been active within her role with the Wildlife Trusts promoting HMs through their platforms and Jonathan Pomroy has continued producing his amazing paintings of our birds and publishing his weekly diary throughout the nesting season. Mike Priaulx has been encouraging members and the wider public to become involved in their ‘Local Nature Recovery Strategies’ and HMCUK-IE are current members of a ‘Planning Networks for Nature’ initiative set up by the RSPB in Kent and Sussex, soon to be rolled out nationally.
Our most recent initiative, an educational pack for schools, is currently under development and will be made available in 2025.
As a small, national charity, we are willing to offer funding for national conservation
projects, be it provision of HM nest cups or funding for approved HM rehabbers. However, we are currently developing charity policies to account for this that we will hopefully activate and pursue ahead of the 2025 season.
Although we are a national charity, we are very small, and all of our committee members are volunteers fitting in charitable work around their busy lives, juggling family, professional commitments and other local community initiatives of their own. With this in mind, we are very happy to receive offers of help from our wider community in joining us as part of our management committee in aiding us to continue offering support to these incredible birds. If you do feel you would like to be part of a vibrant and committed group of like minded people, please don’t hesitate to email or message us through our various platforms!
Ever since our formation, we have felt the effectiveness of becoming a national charity
other than a small pressure group on social media, in the way that we now have developed a working relationship with various larger wildlife and conservation charities including the National Trust, RSPB and the British Trust for Ornithology. The RSPB now refer all HM emergency enquiries over to us as a matter of course!
As chairman of the charity, I have been privileged and fortunate enough to be involved with an incredibly committed and passionate group of people, overseeing the advancement and development of a very small charity that we all intend to take well into the future. We need to ensure we give HMs in our little corner of the world, the best chance possible in reversing their decline, securing a sustainable quality of life for them and for their future generations. We need to continue encouraging the human population to enjoy them along the road with us forever.
Thank you for all your support and commitment this past year, we promise to continue
working hard within the charity to evolve and develop as we become another year older.
Trustee Annual Report- Ben MacDonald
The treasurer went through the accounts and explained that restricted funds were given by trustees, unrestricted funds were via donations from the public or members.
The treasurer explained that there was an income difference from 2023 – £2193, and 2024 £1983, however in 2023 we were present at BirdFair, and therefore an injection of funding (restricted) was made to cover the costs.
The treasurer explained that we have a sustainable pathway, and enough of a fighting fund to allow for systematic allocation of funds.
The treasurer explained that the expenditure was down this year, again because we had
expenditure last year for the BirdFair event. Expenditure costs of £180 this year were for nest cups for a colony project.
The overheads at around £480 were to keep the charity running, the treasurer explained these covered costs for insurance, email accounts, transaction admin fees, membership account, and BWRC subsidies. The overheads are all paid for by trustees, or committee members.
The treasurer explained that all monies received from donations and members, are put
towards the fighting fund for house martins.
The treasurer reported that the actual end of financial year balance last year was £1208, this year it was £2533, which is a substantial level for 2024, and into the year ahead. To date we are holding around £4000 in unrestricted funds. This money is for our three core objectives; education & awareness, house martin rehabilitation care, and colony restoration projects.
The financial statements, which were also issued to members in the AGM invite were
presented for approval and were accepted by the attendees. The treasurer will submit these to the Charities Commission.
Trustee Annual Report – Ben MacDonald/Ian Donovan
The treasurer showed the trustee annual report which was also issued to members in the AGM invite. The trustee annual report was presented for approval and was accepted by the attendees. The treasurer will submit this to the Charities Commission.
Proposed Resolutions – Ian Donovan
No new resolutions were being put through by the chairperson.
Questions to Trustees
It was confirmed that the current trustees are Ian, Ben and John and those present were invited to ask questions to the trustees – no questions were offered up to the directors or the executive.
Election of Trustees
In line with the conditions of the constitution, 1 of the trustees (the longest serving) was
required to step down. Ian Donovan, stepped down.
Ian Donovan was nominated for re-election by Ben MacDonald, and Ian was re-elected by a show of hands.
Closure of AGM
Ian summarised the activities at the AGM, and closed the AGM meeting, and thanked
everyone for their support and gave thanks to the members who attended.
AGM formally closed.
Attendees were invited to stay on the call for a presentation by film maker Ben Ward from Birds Beyond Borders, about tracking house martins in Africa for an upcoming documentary, the science found and behind the scenes. Key notes from these have been issued via a separate document
