CHAIR’S ANNUAL REPORT 2022/3
Overview
Friends of Wool Library (FoWL) is a registered charity and we submit our accounts and our annual report to the Charity Commission each year.
Friends of Wool Library has continued the management and running of Wool Community Library and successfully completed the tenth year of operation on 15th January 2023. We celebrated our tenth birthday with a party for Friends, volunteers and invited dignitaries including His Majesty’s Lord Lieutenant for Dorset, author Minette Walters, and representatives from Wool Parish Council, Dorset Council and the Dorset Library Service.
The library has continued to open on Tuesday afternoons and on Thursday and Saturday mornings, and in January this year we started our Wednesday afternoon sessions which have proved quite popular. We had a great deal of support from the Parish Council who agreed unanimously that an extra session could be added and that the Parish Council would cover the additional running costs involved. The library is now open for 8 hours a week across the 4 days.
We have 82 members and we are extremely grateful for the support they give. Membership fees contribute to the running costs of the library and help to support initiatives such as the Summer Reading Challenge.
Trustees
The Trustees are: Sue Kerr - Chair Secretary - Jane Pearson Treasurer - Annette Dyke
Committee members - Judith Beeby, Andrew Kerr, Claire Kingman, Rosa Adams and Lizzie Chilvers. Rosa and Lizzie were co-opted as Trustees on 21st September and 16th February respectively and I’d like to welcome them to their first AGM as Trustees. We hope to welcome Judy Price as a new Trustee at our next meeting.
The Trustees have met 6 times since the last AGM.
Under our constitution, the longest serving members of the committee are required to stand down after they have been re-elected 3 times. We’ll discuss this under item 6 on the agenda.
The Trustees have worked hard this year to ensure that the library meets the needs of the community in terms of accessibility, and I’d like to thank Rosa
Adams especially for her help in making sure we improved the library in this area.
Every one of our Trustees makes a contribution, and I’d like to thank them all for their support and hard work over the last year.
Activities/Operation
We currently have 29 volunteers, most of whom are active either on shift or organising children’s activities. We are very lucky to be able to attract so many willing helpers, and I’d like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who gives up their time to help us. A special mention is due to Eileen Osgood who celebrated a wonderful anniversary of work - 15 years - with the RVS and who helps to supply books via the Home Library Service. Thanks are due to Claire Kingman who leads that initiative.
We welcomed several new volunteers since our last AGM - Ali Burnal and Harriet Green started helping on shifts earlier this year and we welcomed back Jenny Villis and Arun Orgee. Arun is using his volunteering with us to help him to achieve his Duke of Edinburgh award. More recently we have been approached by Pat Stanley and Jenny and David Hyde who have just started their volunteering with us.
We have up to date policies on Health and Safety, Safeguarding and Data Protection which are reviewed annually and which all volunteers sign to say they have read and agreed.
We run each shift with a Duty Coordinator and a volunteer. The Duty Coordinators form the Operational Management Group, reporting to Trustees on the day to day running of the library. We currently have 5 Duty Coordinators - myself, Jane Pearson, Annette Dyke, Pauline Diment and Claire Kingman, and those 5 are shortly to be joined by Lizzie Chilvers and Ali Burnal. Thank you, Lizzie and Ali, for agreeing to take on the extra responsibility. Having a small group of people who have access to the latest information from Dorset Libraries means that we can offer the very best customer service to everyone using the library, and it also means that everyone who wants to volunteer can enjoy the experience and let the Duty Coordinator take the strain!
We are supported by Dorset Council with the help of a Community Library Liaison Officer - Petra Peters - who is on hand for support with the day to day running of the library. We also have support from the Customer Service Manager Nikki Blair who can give advice on operational matters.
Achievements
We were once again able to run a successful Summer Reading Challenge with free activity afternoons that were much enjoyed. 31 children signed up to take part and of those, 17 finished the challenge. This is a better percentage of finishers to those signing up than previous years. School visits proved difficult to organise again this year, as reduced staff numbers made it impossible for schools to arrange supervision for visits to the library. However, we are just about to start regular visits from the reception class at Bovington Academy for a story time on Thursday mornings and we hope to rearrange a postponed visit from Winfrith and Lulworth in the near future. A huge thank you to all those who put the time in to make these activity sessions and school visits a success, in particular, Esther Farr, who takes the lead on these important initiatives.
Esther also helps us with coordinating the support we get from local businesses. Recently she has been joined by Sharon Palmer and between them they have encouraged many new supporters who advertise in the library lobby and also have a presence on our website. Thanks to both of them for adding to our funds in this way.
We made an attempt to reinvigorate our work with Dorset’s Digital Champions last November and we have had some success in helping a few people to get online.
We’ve worked closely with our colleagues in Dorset Libraries this year - participating in the second phase of the library survey, and working to develop a revised Service Level Agreement with the County. Our relationship with County and the Parish Council continues to flourish, and we are still working hard with the Parish Council to realise our dream of a bigger library. This has only been put on hold because of the rise in interest rates but we hope to progress this in 2023. It is my hope that we’ll have something good to say about this at the next AGM.
In October last year we were visited by a delegation from Kent authority to investigate how we run a Community Library and to discuss best practice. It was encouraging to note how complimentary these visitors were about how we go about things and particularly how welcoming they found us. All of us on the committee are convinced that the personal service we try to give at Wool is the key to our success.
The people at the heart of that success are our volunteers. We are only able to continue to serve the community because of the dedication and commitment of our volunteers and the Trustees would like to say a huge thank you to everyone who helps us - we couldn’t do it without you!
Friends of Wool Library Strategy report 2023
These were the points discussed at the strategy meeting held in February:
On funding - it was agreed that there should be no increase in subscriptions. No plans are in place for any fundraising activity this year at the moment but we noted that if the Parish Council decides to press ahead with the extension to the D’Urberville Centre, including the library extension, we would need to approach grant aid providers for financial support.
On marketing - it was agreed that we should continue to promote the library especially to children and young people. We have agreed to support the Summer Reading Challenge with the purchase of some branded merchandise which will be given to children to encourage them to continue with the challenge once they have signed up. We noted that the Home Library Service needs further promotion.
On operational matters - we agreed that we would develop willing volunteers to become Duty Coordinators and that we would seek to recruit more Trustees.
On our policies - we have updated our Safeguarding and Data Protection policies with guidance from Dorset Council and we simplified our Health and safety Policy using the template supplied by the Health and Safety Executive and with their guidance.
On training - we agreed that we would continue to train new volunteers on the job rather than in out of hours sessions, and that we would reinstate the volunteers’ summer party so that volunteers have a chance to meet each other in a social setting.
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