A11 – Financial Records

 

Archive Document Title:	FINANCIAL RECORDS (OF THE FRIENDS)
Archive Document Type:	Bookkeeping
Archive Document Date:	2003-2013
Archive Topic Category:	Administration
Archive Digital Document Format:	Adobe Acrobat (PDF)
Number of Pages:	a few samples only
Author:	Neil Stuart (as Secretary, amongst many other of his  organisational responsible roles/duties)

Abstract:

The Friends bookkeeping records since 2017 have been gathered and re-sorted into the archive and are dated between 2003 and 2013.  This is noted that even though The Friends existed as a functioning legal community-based, not-for-profit organisation between 1989 and 2016.

So, for some unknown reason, the bookkeeping records (1989 to 2002) and (2014-2016)  are not present in the archive, so likely they might have been lost or else misplaced somehow. It is not known.

The activities of The Friends had waned from 2014, once Neil Stuart had been diagnosed with a brain cancer, and despite extensive medical treatment, Neil sadly succumed to the cancer and tragically passed away in May 2016.  To all who knew Neil, it was an untimely end of a wonderful chapter of his life and of his tireless dedication to community and to the place, The Valley, where we live.

The Friends Committee (Working Group) then sadly decided to legally wind up the organisation by December 2016.  Nevertheless, it is pointed out that in the years between 2014 and 2016, other committee members had stepped in appropriately to maintain the bookkeeping and financial records of The Friends.  All financial records are above board and were signed off annually by an independent auditor.

The Friends had incredibly survived as a commuity environmental activist group for twenty seven straight years.  The group’s voluntary bushcare work in The Valley however pervades, albeit in differing structures. It is the second oldest bushcare group of the Blue Mountains region and as such this is an encouraging legacy.

The attached documents (in PDF format) are simply samples of the type of handwritten bookkeeping records of revenue and expenses.  The records were consistently kept  honestly and accurately to the cent, kept regularly, meticulously and yet still by hand writing by Neil over the decades.  There was no bookkeeping software initially nor that existed later that could be afforded by The Friends budget.

This core accountability bookkeeping task was thus undertaken by Neil manually from the 1989 outset.  It was amongst his many other organisational roles which he volunteered personally and committed without praise to tirelessly.

Other Working Group members of The Friends may offer their recollections of the roles that Neil contributed to the cause, since this author was a comparative ‘short-termer’.

 

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Archive Documents:

The following are just a few samples of the handwritten bookkeeping of The Friends.  The judgment of this Friends Archivist is that in discussion with other former members, the digital publication of the full record of such bookkeeping is not necessary nor deemed to be of readership value.

Rather the few samples provided below of the bookeeping records serve to demostrate the extent of the administrative workload that Neil Stuart (and others at times) endured over the years in the unceremonious administrative background so as order to comply with due administrative protocols and legal responsibilities as Secretary, to their credit.

Anyone considering in some way to follow in The Friends footsteps to in their locale take on such a community-based mission, should objectively first recognise the burden of doing so.  This webpage is published mainly for this reason.