EAST KENT BABY MEMORIAL GARDENS TRUSTEES’ REPORT FOR 2020-2021
Background
The charity was established in August 2020 and much of the first year to March 2021 was during the Coronavirus restrictions, preventing us from undertaking most of the fundraising and awareness events we had planned.
Money
In financial terms, in the light of our inability to undertake most of our planned community fundraising, we were lucky to secure grants
from a range of sources, including the Kent Community Foundation Coronavirus Fund (£3k), the Colly Fergusson Charitable Trust (£2.5k), the True Colours Trust (£2k) KCC through local councillor (£1k), the Godinton Charitable Trust (£1k), Ashford Borough Council through local councillor (£300) and the Rowan Bentall Charitable Trust (£100). We are grateful to each of them for their support although we recognise we will not have similar opportunities in the future.
We also agreed a small ‘divorce’ payment from Sands charity (under whom we and the Ashford Baby Memorial Garden had previously operated, and for which our volunteers had raised an estimated £100k over the years). As a small organisation so dependent on community fundraising, and on the time and energy of a very small number of key volunteers, we realise our financial vulnerability and took a conscious decision to create a reserve of £7,500 which should be sufficient to meet our key commitments and core costs for one whole year. That, we believe, is a proportionate and realistic figure.
Ashford Baby Memorial Garden
We continued to manage the unique Ashford Baby Memorial Garden in Ashford Town Centre which remains a beautiful place for us to remember our special babies. We record our appreciation to Ashford Council’s in-house grounds maintenance team (Aspire) which maintains the Garden for us on a repayment basis, but which has always supported us above and beyond the formal contract.
Support to families
We have supported families as best we could during the various lockdowns and restrictions and have signposted people to a range of organisations and support. We have also added a significant number of new nametiles in the Ashford Garden, each one recording the name and special date of a precious baby. We now have well over 300 baby names recorded forever.
Raising Awareness
We have taken as many opportunities as possible to raise awareness of baby loss and the support available to families, although Covid severely limited what we could do. Networking with other organisations has continued virtually.
Projects
We are working with partners on a number of projects, including the East Kent Hospital Trust in relation to its baby cemetery in Canterbury, Folkestone Cemetery volunteers who are hoping to create a special stillbirth area, West Faversham Community Association where we are hoping to have a ‘satellite’ nametile area, and others. NCS (the National Citizens Service) activities were curtailed but we are hoping to work with them, once again, on raising awareness among young people.
Volunteers
As a very small community charity we are totally dependent on volunteers for everything we do. We want to acknowledge the fantastic work of our volunteers, and to acknowledge the time, and energy they gave so freely. Thank you to them and to everyone who has supported up, in whatever, way, during these past very challenging months.
Emma Oram (Chair)
April 2021
EAST KENT BABY MEMORIAL GARDENS GROUP FINANCIAL SUMMARY FOR 2020-2021
Opening Bank Balance at 1 June 2020 - Zero.
| Income | Income |
|---|---|
| Name Tiles | £520 |
| Fundraising | £0 |
| Event Donations | £0 |
| Other Donations | £1,531 |
| Grants | £9,900 |
| Other(Sands charity) | £5,480 |
| Total Income | £17,431 |
| Expenditure | Actual | |
|---|---|---|
| Garden Maintenance | £3,400 | |
| Name Tiles | £277 | |
| Fundraisingand Awareness | £439 | |
| FundraisingPrizes | £83 | |
| Other Gardens | £10 | |
| Events | £208 | |
| Storage | £642 | |
| Insurance | £0 | |
| Other GroupCosts | £887 | |
| Printingetc | £764 | |
| Transfer to Reserves | £7,500 | |
| Other | £2 | |
| Total expenditure | £14,212 | |
| Balance as per accounts | £3,218.63 | 31-Mar |
| Bank balance as per Bank | £3,218.63 | 31-Mar-21 |
| Difference | £0.00 | |
| Balance in Reserves Account | £7,501.86 | 31-Mar |
Chris Twydell Treasurer 06-Apr-21