BGA Chair Andrew Ridley writes:
“At our AGM in June 2024, I broke the news that the BGA is considering becoming an incorporated charity. Currently it is an unincorporated Association, which has the advantages of being simple to set up and operate, but also has some very significant disadvantages. Firstly, an unincorporated charity cannot enter into contracts and secondly the Trustees and Officers are personally liable for their actions, such as signing contracts. Many charities are therefore also considering incorporation to protect their Trustees. As a first action and with the agreement of the Executive Committee, we put appropriate insurance in place to partially protect the Trustees and Officers. We also put provision into our 2025 Budget to cover the process of incorporation, which is mainly for legal fees, but we have also decided that this might be an appropriate time for the BGA to consider becoming VAT registered and this was also presented at the AGM in June. The Budget was unanimously approved at the AGM and I am therefore using this opportunity to update you on the progress.
To minimise the risk on the Trustees further, we have reduced the number of Trustees from more than 20 to just the 11 elected members of the BGA Executive Committee, those being the 9 elected by the members plus the Chair and the Vice-Chair, who are elected by the Executive Committee. This has also been reflected in a draft update of our Statutes. We have also engaged a solicitor, experienced in incorporating charities and they have started work on the new constitution (statutes). During the initial discussions it has become apparent that the principal reason for the BGA needing to register for VAT is the hugely successful biennial conferences, which periodically elevate our income. However, the world of VAT is very complex, and we have therefore also engaged a VAT specialist to review our situation and advise accordingly. It has also been suggested that a possible solution to this could be to set up a not-for-profit trading entity to run our biennial conferences and other similar events. This was the approach taken when the BGA hosted the XVI European Conference on Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering in 2015. The trading entity for that event was eventually closed, but the proposal now is to keep the entity open between events, with the surplus proceeds from each event being donated to charities, such as the BGA. All of this is still at quite an early stage, and we will continue to update you as things progress.”
The BGA welcomes any comments from members on these developments. Comments must be received before midnight on 31 January 2025. Please send your comments by email to bga.chair@gmail.com
