STAG Committee Meeting 31st July 5-7.30 p.m
At: Over the Yardarm, Abbeydale Rd
Present: Woll, Ruth, Helen, Isabel, Mark, Alison
Observers: Dave Dillner, and Ruth Drury
Apologies: Paul Selby, and Kevin Folger
Minutes to be agreed online
Matters arising
- A member of the committee who resigned asked for their resignation letter to be circulated via email. The Committee decided that this was not an ordinary practice and agreed it was not necessary. Resigned member made a long post on social media which ought to suffice.
- SSTP Representatives – the committee wishes to reach an agreement on a protocol for the selection of representatives to the SSTP with the membership. It will require a constitutional change to effect. Interim reps will be Isabel O’Leary and Helen McIlroy. Ruth presented the STAG organisational development plan.
The original STAG rep on SSTP has resigned as the STAG rep but was asked by the SSTP to stay with the Partnership in a voluntary data management role. - Woodland Trust connection to STAG. Helen Mc agreed to contact Sarah Shorley to get a name at the Woodland Trust we can contact to find out what has happened to the “900 trees” that the former committee were unable to handover any info on.
- Spending – it is the 10th anniversary of STAG. Discussed possible activities and venues. Dave Dillner agreed to be tasked with researching options and will liaise with the committee. The committee will notify members and invite them to feed in ideas on how they might like to commemorate the 10th anniversary.
- The committee discussed the former committee’s decision to assign funds to a tree charity if the funds from the litigation crowdfunders were not spent by STAG before March 2026. The committee agreed to ask Paul Selby to take the lead on this, with support if required, to enable STAG to demonstrate that action has been taken to direct the funding in Sheffield in a timely way.
- Undertaker’s outcome was discussed – the impact had a chilling effect, raised serious questions about council governance and costs to the public purse. Should STAG issue a statement? Discussed media contacts and outlets. Isabel to pursue.
- SSTP was formed to change the authority’s culture, but there are clear power imbalances between the unpaid volunteers from STAG and most other members of the SSTP.
- Facebook Management: The committee discussed the effect of the loss of the main Facebook group and agreed to write again to the group that acquired it undemocratically.
- Organisational Development – Note that this has been received as a table of steps for implementation.
- Correspondence / Newsletter. Alison agreed to write the Newsletter, which will include SSTP, Undertakers, Code of Conduct, and the 10th Anniversary.
- We have some new members.
- Correspondence will become a standing item.
- Data Breach: This item was moved to the end of the meeting so that observers and committee members with a potential conflict of interest could leave. We received an email from a complainant regarding a Subject Access Request. Replying to it is difficult/impossible as there is missing data. We continue to ask the former committee to provide access to this information.
- Helen to book Sharrow Community Forum for a members meeting on 13th September, 2-5 pm.
Next committee meeting on 18th August.
AOB
Woll presented a report that documented the handover timeline in detail. This was done to learn what went wrong this time so that STAG can learn from it and put in place mitigations. This report is available here.