Trustees Annual Report 2022 - 2023
Workshop was set up in August 2021, we are making slow progress towards the Charitable activities we have proposed in our principles. We are however determined to overcome the challenges of setting up a successful mentoring scheme.
At the time of writing there is one mentor-- mentee partnership working, it is between myself and a young college student who is socially isolated and at risk. Another young man has been identified for mentoring and will be introduced to a mentor soon. As yet other mentors have not been assigned a young person. We are addressing the difficulty of establishing a regular sources of referrals from among local schools.
A bank account was set up for Workshop earlier this year. We do not have any funds at this point and will be considering the issue. This has not so far been a problem as we have not had to draw on funding, DBS checks have been paid by the applicants themselves.However we will be considering fund raising in the coming year.
Workshop had two main aims over the past year; recruiting mentors and exploring sources of referrals. We have tried recruiting by word of mouth, in keeping with Workshop ‘s ethos of building a personal network of volunteers. While some efforts to recruit have not been successful, new recruits have been found and two new volunteers attended a mentor training/induction group on Saturday 14[th] May 2022. They have DBS checks but not yet been assigned mentees. Workshop DBS checks are conducted through Disclosure Services Ltd.
Including three trustees, Nathaniel Clark, Josh Kenard, and myself, five mentors have under gone DBS checks for the charity and are ready to take on a mentee. Attempts to develop a working relationship with a local school as a sources of referrals have not so far been successful. I have been in contact with Durrington High School , and teachers at Worthing High School, and Bohunt. So far the schools have not returned my communications.
As a result I contacted the Chaplain at LIttlehampton Academy and Sir Robert Woddard, who supports the aims of Workshop. He recommended working alongside a local organisation called Electric
Storm who have similar aims in order to open up a source of referrals from these schools and perhaps others. We are currently exploring the possibility of working together in schools, with our organisation taking on the role of mentoring.