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SOUTH WEST DISABILITY AND WELFARE RIGHTS LIMITED Directors’ and Trustees’ Report for the period ended 30th November 1997 The Directors and Trustees present their report and accounts for the period ended 30th November 1997. Objects of the charity, principle activities and organisation of our work: The charity is constituted as a company limited by guarantee, and is therefore governed by a Memorandum and Articles of Association. Our policy is to purchase equipment to enhance the quality of life for our disabled clients and to help all that request of our organisation reliable help with welfare and benefits advice. The charity’s object and its principal activity is the provision of welfare and benefits advice to all that request it. The charity is organised so that the trustees meet on a regular basis. Development, activities and achievements this year: In the first year, we have established ourselves in the arena of welfare and benefits advice within our chosen area. We have made small donations of equipment, such as walking sticks and daily dosage boxes; these pieces of equipment were only small due to the lack of funding. We have had to put in more telephone lines so that we are able to take the amount of calls we are getting. We realise now that although we thought that not enough attention was being given to this side of our work by other agencies, we did not know at the time how much time and resources would be required. This has meant a very sharp learning curve and has been more costly than we ever imagined. We have asked for help from a few companies with equipment to aid us in our work but so far have been unsuccessful with our requests. We have therefore had to rent the telephone equipment, which is very expensive, and buy a computer and programs to aid us in our work. We have set up a database of disability information, which we have had for some time called the Digit Filebase; this is useful to people with disabilities of a very wide range a copy of the database is given upon request. We have tried an initial fund-raising effort by mail but this was not successful and did not fully realise the cost of the exercise. Future Developments: We have so far this year tried a firm of fundraisers to get us enough funds to pay off the loans we have secured from the trustees and to enable us to put into action the donations of equipment that we know are required. So far, this has not shown any significant progress although we are optimistic of this working well. We realise that if the level of requests for advice and equipment continues to rise we will be unable to fund it even with this level of fund-raising. The trustees have mulled over this problem for a long time now and there seems to be only two alternatives, these are that we no longer do as much advice work, and the same with equipment donation, alternatively, we have to think very seriously of fund-raising on a much wider scale e.g. national. Transactions and financial position: The Statement of Financial Activities shows a net loss for the period of £3,161, which has been funded by a loan from the Chairman of the Trustees. The loan will be repaid, without interest, when the Charity has sufficient funds. Post Balance Sheet Event: There is one area of particular significance. It has come to light that the number of tickets purchased by the fundraisers may have been more than originally accounted for. There is an ongoing investigation by the authorities into this matter. 4 |
