AGM Insights: A look back on the year from our Chair Linda Swan

Introduction
Looking back over previous years we appear to have similar successes and challenges.

Although the pandemic is over, there has been a ‘hangover’ since. Many meetings have continued to be virtual, which can have a negative impact on networking and local schools were less keen to have visitors which meant the Youth Philanthropic Initiative was slow to get going again. Thankfully, towards the end of the year, face-to-face events have begun to increase and things are looking positive.

Charity Staff

We have had ups and downs with staff over the past year both from an admin and marketing perspective but it has kept us ticking over with the ongoing and dedicated support from our vice-chair Amanda.

Last year, we introduced Lucy-Rose and Nicola as new members of the Executive Committee. It has been very helpful to have new perspectives for the charity and they have both had a positive impact on the work of the committee. We also welcomed Claire later in the year to the Executive Committee – she started with a baptism of fire, looking after the refreshments at our Garden Party.

Ben Mudge has been a member of our committee for quite some time now and will be leaving us this year. I want to thank Ben for his thoughtful insights over the years. His knowledge of the ‘bigger picture’ when it comes to cancer / macmillan grants etc has been very useful. He is remaining as a ‘friend to TCS: and will be taking part in the Kiltwalk later this year for us!

Services

Arlene continues to offer training and support to our befrienders while being supported by Ros at Supervision of the befrienders. As I have alluded to, life has been challenging and Arlene has relentlessly offered training, sometimes to very small numbers, just to help us recruit that crucial one or two. Towards the end of the year, however, recruitment has improved as training groups are beginning to get bigger. We want to thank Arlene & Ros for all the hard work they have put in.

The number of people we have for therapies has continued. Maureen continues to offer holistic support for clients in need of counselling and / or comp therapies to help them deal with trauma and anxiety, which can come with a cancer diagnosis. Maureen also works very hard for the charity to give excellent service. Feedback from clients is always extremely positive. Thank you to Maureen who is now as of recently stepping down.

Our Drop-in Café continued to meet monthly. Our numbers have continued to vary for this event. Thank you to everyone who volunteered for the cafe, Amrit, Marion, Ros & Arlene.

Fundraising events

Our Christmas Fayre & Easter Raffle raised £1700
Our Annual Golf day raised around £8k
Our Garden Party raised £2,600.

A HUGE THANK YOU TO ALL VOLUNTEERS, FRIENDS AND FAMILY AS WELL AS SPONSORS FOR THEIR TIME, MONEY AND PRIZES TO MAKE THESE SUCCESSES POSSIBLE!

What are our next steps?

Communication – making sure people know we’re here. We continued to attend all networking meetings on offer. We were present in City Square in August for THE BIG HELP OUT – where volunteer groups could tell the public about TCS. We engaged with a printing company and had 1000 magazines published and circulated. We joined Linkedin to reach a wider range of people and continued with other means of letting people know about the Drop-in Café.

A Big task was taken on by Lucy-Rose last year, to engage with a local IT company to redesign our Website that this blog is now currently on. Big shout out to Barry from Purple Imp!

Recruitment – we increased the advertising for volunteers to include Linkedin as well as the usual Volunteering routes. We managed to recruit a number of new volunteer befrienders. We also recruited two volunteers for the Drop-in Cafe.
Fundraising – we added in an Easter Prize Draw last year. Our Golf Day in June raised around £8k – the largest amount ever. We also had our first ever Garden Party, held in Invergowrie which was a great success. We also held out Christmas Fayre, which raised more than the previous year.

We have roughly 50 clients, receiving one-to-one support from Befrienders and our therapist as well as a small number at the Café.

A big thank you to Exec members, Arlene, Maureen, befrienders and all volunteers for believing in what we do and doing what they can to meet our vision of supporting as many people as we can who are affected by cancer.We are excited about 2024 where we will focus on: