2012 Autumn - The Fell Pony Society

penses slightly, as Mrs Wilkinson had done fewer extra hours in the year. Insurance
costs reduced slightly as Mrs Parkin had been able to arrange for two policies
to be combined at a lower premium.
FIS testing had impacted on the accounts for the first time: Council agreed to
fund testing for newly licensed stallions and affected foals, and to absorb the VAT
increase. This didn’t affect the previous year’s accounts as we had secured a
one-off grant from the RBST to cover it, so this year there was a charge of just
over £2,000. Overall the Society had made a loss of just over £2,000. Our reserves
policy as a Charity was to hold 75% of fund expenditure. Last year our reserves
stood at 94%; despite the loss in this year, because of the reduction in expenditure,
they now stood at 96%.
There were no questions from members. Adoption of the accounts was proposed
by Mrs Mallinson, seconded by Miss White and agreed by members.
7 Resolution to appoint Langdales Accountants Ltd as Accountants to the
Society
The resolution was proposed by Mrs Morton, seconded by Miss Walker and agreed
by the members.
8 Secretary/Treasurer’s Report
Mrs Parkin told members that the latest updates from Defra told us that they
had been unable to come up with a feasible way of improving the ‘efficiency and
effectiveness of the current system’ – their words. Ministers had therefore
agreed to initiate a procurement process for a new central database contract.
The tender had subsequently been published and the closing date for bidders to
respond is 20th April, after which Defra would assess all bids and conduct a costbenefit
analysis. A decision whether to award a contract would not be taken before
these analyses had been completed.
The FIS test was now available from the Van Haeringen lab in The Netherlands
and would soon also be available from the lab at Texas University. The Dutch Fell
Pony Society Secretary had told Mrs Parkin that the Van Haeringen lab did not
offer a ‘fast-track’ service for sick foals, so it was likely that their members
would still use the AHT for some tests. Additionally, Mrs Parkin had been contacted
last month by Dr June Swinburne who was part of the team who developed
the test. She and Laura Fox-Clipsham were no longer working for the AHT as
there were no funds available for research. Dr Swinburne was in the process of
establishing a new business to perform animal DNA diagnostic testing and hoped
to be up and running by mid-June. She would be providing dog and horse genetic
diagnostics and DNA profiling, and had offered to provide diagnostic testing for
FIS and/or DNA profiling for our Society at rates slightly lower than those we currently
pay the AHT. She would also be able to provide the fast-track test for sick
foals. Still on the subject of FIS testing, Council had agreed at the last meeting
that where colts had been FIS tested and subsequently licensed, the refund for
the FIS test would only be paid where the colt was in the same ownership.
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