13th July 2017 – AGM Report

This afternoon we held the Foundation’s Annual General Meeting at Rowdown Primary School.  We had a very full agenda of the usual boring legal requirements such as approving the 2106/17 annual accounts, minutes of previous meetings and so on.  We also elected the Executive Committee with Gary Coy remaining as Chair, Janet Parsons as Treasurer and Mel Hartley as Secretary.  We are grateful to Marion Burchell for stepping up to be Deputy Chair, filling the very big shoes left by Dave Parsons, who, of course, will be sorely missed by us all.

We celebrated the successes of the last 12-15 months, especially the Tuition Programme and Christopher Opoku’s continued progress on the piano.  But then we got down to the more tricky business of setting a strategy for the next 12 months.  Basically, we have predicted that we will have a few thousand pounds of surplus income in the period and we debated how best to use this.  It was decided to largely stay with what we are doing now.  It was recognised that the surplus income was not enough to offer all families a grant towards the costs of the selective education at their secondary school, so instead we would set up a reserve fund to be applied for in case of financial hardship.  We do not want any of the children we have supported to miss out on any opportunity these excellent schools present to them just because of the financial position of their parents.  We will let the parents know that there is a fund available for them, should they need it.

Similarly, an amount of funds has been put aside to assist parents of the current Year 5 Trinity Programme where they may not be able to cover the cost of the entry fees to the private school exams.  Again, this will be on an application basis with each application being assessed on its individual merits.

We would have loved to expand all our operations to a wider community within New Addington, but preferred at this stage to build up our surplus funds to such an extent where we can be confident that there is enough money to go round to support these pupils for the long term.  Hopefully sooner rather than later.

If you have any questions on the Foundation and its strategy for the future please contact us.

If you wish to make a donation to help us support more children in New Addington to fulfil their dreams, please follow this link to our donation page.