After a long year and a half dominated by COVID, in September 2021, the Hampshire Writers’ Society cautiously began a new season. COVID was still very much on all our minds and we weren’t sure if members would return.
Our old treasurer stepped down, and I became the new treasurer.
We also faced a new financial challenge. In previous years the University of Winchester had kindly permitted us to hold meetings in the Stripe Theatre without any charge. The HWS doesn’t have any formal connection with the university. In 2021, they decided we would have to pay for room hire.
As a non-profit organisation, the Hampshire Writers Society aims to spend most of its income every year. In previous years, we sometimes made a small loss, sometimes a small profit.
The cost of hiring rooms was a considerable new expense, and it wasn’t obvious we could afford it. We certainly couldn’t afford the Stripe Theatre.
Income
The HWS does not receive any grants or other external funding. Our income comes almost entirely from member subscriptions, with a minor contribution from sales of visitor tickets for talks.
Member numbers grew steadily through the year, ending at over 90 members.
Expenses
Our major expenditures were on speaker fees and expenses, and on room hire. We kept spending on non-essentials to a minimum.
Over the year, this is how your subscription fees were spent:
Overall
We ended the year with a small loss. This impacts our reserve (the savings we keep), so we start the next year with a bit less in the bank. However our reserve is still healthy; we aren’t about to go broke.
Changes
To increase our income, for the year 2022/23 we have raised the membership fee. To reduce expenses, we are lowering what we pay our main speakers, though we also decided to start paying a small fee to some guest speakers, which we feel is appropriate for the value they provide.
Outlook for 2022/2023
Unfortunately, in January 2022 the university raised the room hire charges. The changes to speaker payments should in theory deliver substantial savings (as much as half) , but we can’t be sure of that, as the expenses requested by speakers are unpredictable and sometimes larger than the fees. So we still expect to make a loss, though hopefully a small one.
The good news is that with most of last year’s members renewing, we currently have over 80 members, and can hope this will grow through the year.
So please remember to recommend the Hampshire Writers’ Society to your writing friends and acquaintances. Whatever their interest and level of experience, we love to welcome new members. And if they’re not ready to join, they can still subscribe to the newsletter just by entering their email address on our website.
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