Quite a few documents on this hunt, they are presented in chronological order starting with minutes from a meeting in May 2017, leafleting for the general election is mentioned and there is some concern with the younger members of the hunt that want to sit in on committee meetings. You can read the entire document here.
The next document covers finances for 2018 & 2019, subscriptions are halved in one year, the fundraising money drops drastically, 2019 income includes a loan so actual income is half the total from the year before.
In October of 2019, the meeting minutes which can be read in full here, something very strange is going on with Andrew Smith, who is seemingly holding the hunt to ransom in some way.
The meetcard referred too is here:
Whatever it was that Andrew Smith was doing, it was seemingly resolved by the end of October 2019;
Going forwards a few months to April 2020 when Covid was firmly on the radar, the hunt is facing having only £750 in the bank by May 2020, they’ve already received a loan of £3,000 the previous year. How they managed to offer Andrew Smith £12,000 is unknown, but maybe involved more loans. They also mention the chance of getting a covid £10k grant from West Devon Borough Council.
By July 2020 some fundraising has been done and the hunt have around £3,000 across their two bank accounts, you can read the document here.
What comes next via personal emails is quite shocking, the previous Master of the Hunt Andrew Smith appears to have stolen the hunt’s gun, with members of the hunt and Andrew’s own father concerned for his mental health.
In September of 2020, the committee meeting minutes confirm that a covid grant has been received and that the hunt has around £5k in the bank, where would they have been without the coronavirus grant of £10k. The missing pistol is also mentioned, you can read the minutes here.
The finances doc from that month Sept 2020:
The subscribers for list for Sept 2020, seems very few people want to ride with this hunt:
Next set of minutes from January of this year, which you can read here, goes into some detail about the hunt’s poor finances and also mentions that the police will not retrieve the stolen hunt gun, due to covid regulations and fox control is still to be offered “on the grapevine” to farmers.
February 2021 and the Master suggests that trail laying should be done properly this year, because Mark Hankinson is in court. Full minutes here.
Finally this Newsletter from this month May 2021, which suggests a number of hounds will be killed this season, as younger ones will be replacing them:
We would like to ask anyone who knows why the previous Master Andrew Smith was given a large lump of money to leave the hunt, then please do email us on huntingleaks@tutanota.com we treat all information with utmost confidentiality as to where it has come from, we haven’t ever revealed where any of our information has come from, nor will we going forwards.