The Trustees’ report for 2014 was presented at the AGM of the Farnham Trust at the Garden Gallery, Museum of Farnham on Friday 19th June 2015.
The Chairman opened his address with the sad news that Bob Parks, a long serving Trustee and supporter of this Trust, had passed away.
This year has been quiet on the projects front but we stand ready to act when a suitable project presents itself.
We were pleased to receive a bequest from the estate of Beryl McKay, due to her love of the buildings of Farnham. The Trust will find an appropriate use for it that she would be pleased with.
We have continued with our bursary to Sam Taylor, woodworker, who is now studying for NVQ level 3 in Wood Occupations.
On the grants front, we have made grants to The Deadwater Valley Trust for Walldown Earthworks, to the Rural life Centre in respect of their original cycle repair workshop and to St Leonards Church at Hartley Mauditt. This is in addition to our promised contribution to the publication of the book about our founder, Sir John Verney.
Our Verney lectures continued with a talk in March on the Eden Project in Cornwall, given by the co-founder architect Jonathan Ball. I was pleased to note that the numbers were up this year and look forward to the year we manage to pack the Great Hall at the Maltings.
After the Chairman’s address, there was a talk by Julian Pooley, the archivist in charge of Public Services at the Surrey History Centre.