The Essex Naturalist
1
Report of the Essex Field Club for 1996/1997
Approved at the Annual General Meeting on 15th March 1997
The Council of the Essex Field Club met five times during the year 1996 - 1997
discussing a wide range of topics. As usual, all the meetings took place at The
Old House, Brentwood. Much of Council's time was occupied debating the
wisdom or otherwise of applying to the Charity Commissioners for charitable
status for the Club. The initial need for this discussion was brought about by the
threat of having to pay a very large sum in tax on the Harley bequest, details of
which are given in a moment, though there are also a number of other
advantages as well as some disadvantages in having Registered Charity status. In
particular, Registered Charities are exempt from Inheritance Tax and it was
therefore felt that the situation warranted investigation in case we should be
fortunate enough to benefit from further bequests in the future. In order to
become so registered, however, we would be required by the Commissioners to
revise our existing Rules and Council spent much time in discussion on this
topic.
We were fortunate indeed during the year to benefit from the estate of the
late Shela Harley who was a former member of the Essex Field Club as was her
late husband, Laurence. The Executors of the estate are still involved in sorting
a number of minor difficulties and have been unable to tell us to date the precise
sum involved. However, we expect the total of the bequest to be in the order of
£40,000, of which we have to date received just under half. It still remains
unclear whether or not we can avoid Inheritance Tax which, if applied, could be
as high as 40%.
Council has encountered a number of difficulties in finding an appropriate
place to invest the money received as most investment companies appear
unwilling to invest on behalf of "a club". With this in mind, Council has also
been investigating the advantages and disadvantages of the Essex Field Club
becoming a Limited Company. These investigations are still at a preliminary
stage. On a more positive note, however, it seems likely, at long last, that a
suitable insurer has been found to take on the third party liability risks of the
Essex Field Club at reasonable cost.
The year still has not seen the Club's museum collections properly housed and
they remain in wholly inadequate temporary storage, with no curation, at the
Burgoynes building in East Ham. Arrangements are in hand to return them,
temporarily, to the Passmore Edwards Museum building but we still await
finalisation of the lease before this can take place, when we shall be assisted by
the Corporation of London in their transfer. Progress in finding a permanent
new home for the collections is very slow but a firm of consultants has now been
engaged by the Corporation of London to plan building, investigate the possible
role of the new museum in a local context and prepare an application to the
Heritage Lottery Fund for additional finance.