Melksham & District Link ANNUAI REPORT 2023/24 **LINK SCHEMES** have existed in Wiltshire since 1979 and can be found in most rural and urban communi8es. The Schemes are set up in response to local people recognising a need for the service. They provide a safety net for those unable to access services in other ways, such as public transport. ***************************** **MELKSHAM & DISTRICT LINK** Include: ## **TRANSPORT** For appointments to Hospitals, Surgeries, Den8sts and other Medical appointments. ***************************** 1 ## **Charity Registra;on No. 1044337** ## **MELKSHAM & DISTRICT LINK COMMITTEE 2023/2024** **TRUSTEES Chair Liz Rowley Treasurer Richard Clark Secretary Katherine Mills OFFICERS Volunteer Recruitment Richard Lamprell Welfare and Safeguarding Ruth King Webmaster Ian Argyle** **TRANSPORT CO-ORDINATORS** **Jackie Hislop** _(re$red May 2024)_ **Ruth King John Rowley Ron Walby Helen Romaine Gillean MacDonald** **DBS OFFICER Peter Simmonds HEALTH & SAFETY Liz Rowley ASSISTANT TREASURER Phil Davies** 2 ## Chair Another busy and rewarding year seems to have whizzed by. Melksham & District Link is now in its 30[th] Year of service to our local community. Inaugurated in April 1994 with a £500 grant from Melksham Town Council and with 33 volunteers we have expanded to being one of the largest Link schemes in Wiltshire. Despite many comings and goings, we maintain a core base of around 43 volunteer drivers and 5 coordinators. Demand for our service con8nues to grow but we manage (just about) to meet the demand, and we should all be very proud of what we do. I must men8on and say a par8cular thank you to some of our long-standing drivers. Peter Simmonds joined Link in 2009 and although has recently, and reluctantly, had to give up his driving du8es he remains as our DBS coordinator and is involved in maintaining other data for us. Richard Clark our Treasurer and one of our busiest drivers joined us in 2010. Drivers Judith Blakeney (2013) Pat Graham (2014) and Anne_e Hucknall (2014) are all s8ll ac8ve a`er 10 years. Ron Walby is our longest serving coordinator at 9 years plus. It has been a tough challenge to a_ract new volunteers this year, but we are not alone in this. Speaking to other Chairs of Link Schemes in the County and other chari8es there does generally seem to be a dip in volunteering. However, we are constantly adver8sing and the recent Food and River Fes8val again proved to be quite successful in a_rac8ng interest. 3 Thank you to those who came and helped look a`er the stall. If you came to visit us, you may have no8ced the rather swish new gazebo we have purchased which we aim to use at several future occasions. The management Commi_ee has con8nued to improve and invest in our publicity materials and give us a more professional look. New Melksham Link Lanyards and ID badges to make our name more visible are gradually being rolled out. The best moment of the year for me was receiving a Civic Award, on your behalf, at the Mayor's Recep8on. It was given in recogni8on of the inspira8onal dedica8on to the Melksham Community given by Melksham & District Link. It was not the presenta8on itself that made me feel so proud but the response from the audience – people shaking my hand, paeng my back and saying thank you as I walked up to receive the award. It was truly overwhelming. 4 As Chairman I regularly and frequently receive thanks and compliments about our service. I try to pass these onto individual drivers if they have been named. I can also tell you in the 18 months I have been Chairman I have not ever received a single complaint from a client! Amazing. To maintain this high level of service I know every single volunteer gives their 8me and compassion to make it work. But there are also several people who add a bit extra by helping with all the tasks that need doing to keep a sizeable charity running. You know who you are – thank you for everything you do and for your support. Looking a`er our money, upkeep of the database, handing out blue badges, doing DBS, interviewing new volunteers, publicity, running the website, general admin and safeguarding and welfare are all essen8al tasks. If anyone has any exper8se or knowledge that they could share and help with these aspects, then please step forward and tell me. New ideas and new people would be very welcomed by the Commi_ee. Most volunteers have now registered to gain access to the volunteer’s area of our website. The driver’s handbook, newsle_ers, policies and all our documents can be accessed here. You can also print off expense forms from the website. The aim is to keep this up dated and relevant to all our volunteers so please do keep having a look at it. Again, if anyone has an interest in developing the site further then please do step forward. So, in summary I would like to say to all of you be very proud of what you do because we really do follow through on our strapline - we are MAKING A DIFFERENCE IN MELKSHAM. ## **LIZ ROWLEY** 5 Melksham & District LINK pyoyrcomm¥nlty LUNTEER ERS NEEDED - D.&if & Dilti ## **Treasurer** This is my second year in the role of Treasurer. I con8nue to find the role interes8ng and rewarding. It is sa8sfying to know that the finances of the organisa8on are in good shape, and that all drivers are recompensed promptly with the money owed to them at the end of each month. Like last year it took several a_empts to precisely balance the end of year accounts. It is the small differences that take 8me When I took over the role, I created a spreadsheet which quickly adds up both the monthly figures and contributes to the end to end of year figures. This helps in providing data for the various returns that Link has to submit. However, I s8ll retain the manual books which are completed each month. This makes it easier to detect anomalies, faults and differences when regularly comparing the two independent sets of figures, rather than just leaving it all to the end of the year. It also significantly helps the auditor at the end of a financial year. our current account, and another with the Coventry Building Society which is essen8ally a savings account. depending on the dona8ons received in client envelopes and the amount paid out in driver expenses. The amount in the Coventry Building Society has increased gradually throughout the year. On average the number of drivers submieng an expense claim form each month is approximately 31. 7 Income and EXp￿dIlure Year Endlng 31 March 2024 This Year Last Year Envdo >).013.90 297.77 70.70 321.58 31XIJ95 Travd Cost Travd Cost 27,895.94 p￿ng A•froshrrthts 129. 113.85 249.40 Equlpftwt 1231.98 9142T on• 18&18 268.91 254.30 Unk Owt 61140 V*b 088hJn Donatlon to Mgrfty)rrAyh Unk Flfvernkle Hir• fy) 478.97 7&C#) DrThtkn to Marftwh Unk 5&50 28. Other C08ts IGla8888 HlrB) MI￿lIan￿￿E CrAt other Costs (Glasses Hhl Ccet 1&47 2.81 317•4.14 4ty).19 29￿0 Expen8 32751A8 761aO 3/&12* sl kn la4 I would like to thank all the drivers who collected envelopes from clients and delivered them to either myself or the Assistant Treasurer each month. I would like to thank drivers who donated money to Link and clients who donate more than expected in the envelopes. I would like to thank Phil Davies (Assistant Treasurer) who has assisted me in emptying the envelopes at the beginning of each month, preparing the money to be banked and helping to pay all the drivers. Finally, I would like to thank Ian Argyle and Ron Walby who independently audited the end of year accounts. It would help us if drivers regularly submit their envelopes and expense sheets on 8me, each and every month so that the amount of money held in the bank is sufficient to pay our drivers on 8me. When several months expenses are submi_ed together, it increases the overall amount needed to sa8sfy demands. It can also create issues with the banking of a larger amount of cash. As the balance sheet shows, Melksham & District Link remains in a healthy financial posi8on, ## **RICHARD CLARK** 9 ## Auditor Accounts were in good order and audit as follows: 1. Drivers’ expenses/trips – 10% of all claims checked 2. Drivers’ expenses paid – 100% x 4 months 3. 4. Bills; Telephone, Insurance, Purchases - 100% both Auditors. ## **RON WALBY** ## **Volunteer Recruitment** It has been a strange year for recruitment with our best new recruits coming from accidental introduc8ons rather than resul8ng from the efforts of local adver8sing and exci8ng ar8cles in the Melksham News. In gaining two or three new drivers we have had two or three moving away or re8ring. Even the keenest of us can’t do it for ever. supermarket trying to recruit and geeng no response. The second was at the Food and River Fes8val where we got a lower than expected response for new volunteers. A big thank you to all who helped on those occasions. ## **RICHARD LAMPRELL** 10 ## **Welfare & Safeguarding** I con8nue to send cards to drivers who leave Link thanking them for their support and get well cards as required. Any safeguarding concerns about a client con8nue to be raised with Adult Social Care in Wiltshire Council. ## **RUTH KING** ## Webmaster During the last year membership has grown to 44 members. All components of the Melksham and District Link website have been updated to the current released level. The website represents our public internet window and a valuable place for volunteers to find current versions of forms, documents and newsle_ers. ## **IAN ARGYLE** ## Appendix 1 - Data This gives some high-level sta8s8cs since the last AGM of the demand on the service and how the service has met that within in the last year. 11 ## September 2023 - August 2024 The demand for Link's Services in Melksham con8nues to grow. In the period since our last AGM we have made 2791 journeys in comparison with 2415 in the previous 12 months. This was an increase of 14%. For Community First we provide data for January to December, which we have used in our Currently we are 8 months into 2024 and in comparison with the same 8 months last year we have con8nued to see this trend of increasing demand. At the end of August we had completed 1906 journeys in comparison with 1683 in 2022-3, an increase of 13%. ## Pattern of Requests |Jan-
August|20+
Requests|15-19
Requests|10-14
Requests|5-9
requests|4 or less| |---|---|---|---|---|---| |196 days|3|25|81|63|24| |%|1.5%|12.7%|41.3%|32.1%|12.2%| Looking at request trends the days when requests exceeded 15 or more are those when our service can be stretched to the limit depending on Driver availability for that week. There were 28 days so far when this was the case (14%). The three busiest days this year were in March. Two were on Wednesday and the other was a Thursday. This bulge in the middle of the week has been a feature of 2024 as a whole. Typically, on average, Wednesdays are our busiest day with 15 requests or more and Thursdays the next busiest with 13 or more. 12 Weekend drives have dwindled. When vaccina8on programmes were in full swing we had many weekend requests but currently weekend drives have become few and far between. ## Destinations Des8na8ons are dominated by journeys to Royal United Hospital in Bath. In the 8 months we have made 862 journeys to the RUH. The next busiest des8na8on is the Melksham Campus which runs its stroke/balance classes on Monday to Wednesday. Third is Spencers leg clinic on Thursdays where we have quite a few regular clients who a_end. ||Top 10 Destinations - January-August 2024|| |---|---|---| |1|RUH - Bath|862| |2|Campus - Melksham|174| |3|Spencers - Leg Clinic Melksham|141| |4|Spa Medical Centre Melksham GP Surgery|102| |5|Trowbridge Alzheimers|96| |6|Giffords Surgery Melksham GP|72| |7|Melksham Community Hospital|64| |8|Chippenham Community Hospital|49| |9|Bath Sulis Hospital (was Circle)|45| |10|Great Western Hospital Swindon|35| ||Total|1640| 13 Our top ten des8na8ons accounted for 1640 journeys (86% of all drives) made by our drivers. Though not a popular des8na8on with some drivers we made 97 journeys to Bristol to various hospitals; 32 to Southmead, 20 to Bristol Eye Hospital, 17 to Bristol Royal Infirmary, and 15 to Bristol Haematology and Oncology Centre. 5 of the des8na8ons in the top ten list are local drives in Melksham. Collec8vely these account for 553 journeys or 29% of all journeys We have made 1 journey to each of the following - Oxford, Salisbury, Poole and Gloucester. ## Drivers Currently we have 41 drivers. Our 10 busiest Drivers have made 937 journeys between them which is 47% of all drives. 73% of all drives have pick up 8mes between 9.00am and 2.00pm, 50% are between 9.00am and 12.00 midday. ||**5.00-**
**7.00**
**am**|**7.00-**
**9.00**
**am**|**9.00-**
**10.00**
**am**|**10.00-**
**11.00**
**am**|**11.00-**
**12.00**
**am**|**12.00-**
**13.00**
**noon**|**13.00-**
**14.00**
**pm**|**14.00-**
**16.00**
**pm**|**16.00-**
**later**| |---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| |Drives|18|175|**432**|**325**|**239**|**192**|**257**|306|40| |%|0.85%|8.8%|**21.8%**|**16.4%**|**12.0%**|**9.7%**|**13%**|15.4%|1.95%| 14 ## Clients During this 8 month period 65% of our clients were female (313) while 34.7% were male (167). Nearly twice as many females use our service. The clients who use us the most are unsurprisingly our regulars. In this period we have taken 481 individuals to their appointments. 79% have had 1 - 4 journeys. We a_ract on average 18 new clients each month, and our client database has just over 1000 clients who have used our service in the past 3 years. ||**1 journey**|**2-4 journeys**|**5-9 journeys**|**10-19**
**journeys**|**20 and**
**above**|| |---|---|---|---|---|---|---| |**Clients**|**199**|**181**|**62**|**26**|**13**|| |**%**|**41.4%**|**37.6%**|**12.9%**|**5.4%**|**2.6%**|| ## **Monthly Drives** In terms of drives per month each month has seen an increase on the same month last year. The first 4 months of 2024 this increase averaged over 20%. The period May-August saw the increase reduce to 3.5% on average. 15 |COMPARISON||| |---|---|---| ||Last Year
2022/23|This year
2023/24| |September|182|211| |October|191|245| |November|210|231| |December|149|198| |January|192|252| |February|183|229| |March|219|263| |April|177|217| |May|236|241| |June|220|230| |July|236|249| |August|220|225| ||**2415**|**2791**| 16 ## Melksham & District Link Journeys each Month - Comparison this year (2023-4) with last (2022-3) 17 ## **MISSION STATEMENT** **WILTSHIRE LINK SCHEMES** believe that local communi8es and volunteers can have a posi8ve impact in maintaining the unique quality of life in rural areas. Declining services and an increase in the popula8on of older people and others, who need support, leave many people vulnerable and unable to access essen8al services and social ac8vi8es that enable them to maintain an independent and enjoyable life style. **LINK SCHEMES** draw on goodwill in communi8es to provide a voluntary good neighbour service, assis8ng to fill this gap. Volunteering has many benefits for individuals and communi8es and vulnerable residents receive a much-valued service. **LINK SCHEMES** welcoming dona8ons from their users. All dona8ons are used in the provision of the service which is run en8rely by volunteers. ## **Charity Registra;on No. 1044337** 18