Aura’s 2nd Annual General Meeting covering October 2022 to March 2024
KAY GLOVER
Welcome
A massive welcome to our AGM. (Toilets, fire etc)
Thank you all so much for being here at this exciting time for us all.
A little later in the meeting we will ask our members to vote to accept the finances and to vote trustees onto the board. Members will have been given a voting card when they have arrived. Could I ask for a show of those cards so we can count how many in attendance. Please also when you are asked to vote, can you leave your cards in the air until we have counted them.
You will be asked by our Chair to accept the minutes of last years agm, a copy of which was sent with your invites, although there are a few in the room also and asked by the Treasurer to accept last year’s figures, again included in the minutes you recieved.
Thank you.
Apologies
I do have apologies from ??? (if there is any)
We do not intend to keep you long, we can all get to the refreshments very soon!
The CEO, Gemma and Auras Chair, Helen Lockett will update you on what we have been doing in the last year and how or if we have met our aims from the last agm. They will present to you our new aims for the forthcoming year and how we propose to achieve them, including how we are working in line with the Governments 5 year strategy for Suicide prevention.
Karen Cork, our Treasurer, will present our financial figures for the last year with a report about Aura’s spending, funding and fundraising.
All our 3 trustees shall retire at this meeting. We will then ask our members to vote in the trustees for the next year. Each year a minimum of 3 trustees shall retire, these 3 usually being the 3 being in position for the longest. If you have any questions or other business you would like to bring to our attention, we will be open for that and then we can have refreshments and an informal chat.
CEO speech
What a year, from October 2022 to March 2024 has been a whirlwind but a good one of course. We hosted a Christmas wreath making workshop in December 2022 ,which was amazing, bringing lots of people together doing a festive fun activity. This not only helped alleviate insolation but raised awareness of who we are as a charity and what we can offer in way of support.
In March 2023 we hosted a mums night at Johnston Brady salon in Alsager, being a mum of 3 I know how wonderful and magical motherhood is but also you crave a little time for yourself sometimes, so the evening was for mums of all ages to come together have a chat, ice breaker games, have a pamper and relax for a few hours. I can’t believe it was this long ago, another one is definitely overdue. For many reasons some mums can find being at home with children isolating and this leads to depression, anxiety and sometimes with questions around who this new person you find yourself to be is. This night we hope, helped with some of these issues, giving mums a time to talk and to realise their feelings are not unique to them. We had an amazing 9 mums who attended.
In April 2023 we became Organisational members of the BACP (British Association of Counselling Psychotherapy) Me and Kay worked very hard behind to scenes in making this happen. This is a huge deal for us and means we are committed to providing safe, ethical and professional counselling and psychotherapy services and/ or training. It will also assist us with tender applications and contractual requirements.
In May 2023 we were over the moon to have received funding from The National Lottery Community Fund This helped us to work with a local company to produce a professional website, new IT equipment to help us with our virtual counselling sessions and meetings and helped towards the costs of supervision and training for the next year.
In this year also we attended many networking events from the Create and Cultivate nights at a local gym ‘The Fitness Collab’, to the Congleton Partnership meetings, helping us to keep up to date with the local communities goings on and connecting with other local services and charities.
In June 2023 Kay our service manager and counsellor was asked to be part of ‘The Fitness Collabs’ Retreat day and did talks on self reflection & change.
In August 2023 we attended Click Dealers charity football match and family fun day in Eccleshall, this was lots of fun and as their charity of the year all money raised at this event was split with ourselves and Donna Louise which was amazing Thank you.
In September 2023 we received funding from Congleton Town Council to run a 6 week Drama Therapy workshop, our talented volunteer Sadie who is an ex drama teacher kindly offered her time and knowledge. She developed an empowering workshop. This was a huge hit by all who took part and those who attended took a lot away. I’ve lost count of how many people have asked if this workshop will be run again.
In September our chair Helen and some of our lovely volunteers ran a stall at Stafford carboot sale and raised a whopping £223.
In September we also secured counselling room at St Johns Community Centre in Buglawton, Congleton. Having secured this room helped us to support clients face to face, meaning we were able to welcome our first intake of student counsellors who joined us on placement from Keele University. This has proven to be successful in many ways:
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Reducing the waiting list
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Meeting the needs of clients wanting in person sessions
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Assisting us in our last years aim to work with Keele University.
November saw Laura Glover organise and run, with support from TFC, a fitathon. Laura completed a whole day of exercise, joined by many others, supporting each class. Brilliant idea which raised funds, helping to get the local community together and easing isolation.
December saw us organise a Christmas Fayre, the morning of which we woke to snow everywhere. We need not have worried it was attended by lots of people, Santa was a huge success and so were the food stalls that did a roaring trade all day, as did the horse box bar!! A huge success that brought people from the community together for fun and chats.
So as you can see the service has been working hard to meet our aims that we set last year, to:
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Work with Keele University offer students counselling placements
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Setting up diverse events to try to engage hard to reach communities and individuals
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Becoming members of the BACP
TICK TICK AND TICK.
I will now pass you over to our wonderful Chair of Trustees, Helen Lockett
HELEN
Good evening all and thank you for joining us this evening.
Although we started out in a couple of years ago now I feel that this year the charity has grown legs and began to actually take on a life of its own.
Thinking about the whirlwind that has been this year as chair I was heartened to notice, whist researching the Governments 5 year suicide prevention plan that our aims as a charity were firmly aligned to their priority groups which are:
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children and young people
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middle-aged men
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people who have self-harmed
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people in contact with mental health services
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people in contact with the justice system
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autistic people
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pregnant women and new mothers
Risk factors that make groups a priority for support are:
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physical illness
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financial difficulty and economic adversity
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gambling
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alcohol and drug misuse
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social isolation and loneliness
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domestic abuse
Of course there are lots more changes within a person’s family that can cause a negative impact on mental health, but it is a positive move that the government are prioritising and acknowledging that these changes will, and do make a difference and that there is a need for services to offer early intervention to help stop the escalation to suicidal thoughts and attempts.
The strategy talks about working together to prevent suicide and that it is everyones business. Aura have made sure that all volunteers feel confident to talk about suicide by offering training to all, including Trustees. Something that Aura strongly agree with is that physical and mental health run parallel, and each have a massive impact on the other. This is why our CEO. Gemma is undertaking level 2 fitness and
working in collaboration with TFC and Laura, a trained pt and nutrition expert to run classes for mums with emotional support on hand if it is needed.
We recognise that we are a small charity, we have big ideas and aim to be part of the community for a long time to come, offering our services and delivering our goals to benefit our communities. This could not be achieved without us all working together.
I know that Kay Glover and Gemma Glover have put so much work into getting us to this position and I’d like to thank them for all their hard work. I would also like to thank Karen Heath and Karen Cork for their parts throughout the year and Sadie Beresford and Samantha Boden for all their volunteering efforts too, wonderful guys and thank you.
I’m so proud of Aura and all the progress made and I hope we can carry this on in the forthcoming year by aiming to:
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Help clients to improve their emotional health by offering support to improve physical health and fitness.
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Work in collaboration to help prevent suicide.
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To promote counselling support and drama groups in schools and education facilities in and around Stoke on Trent.
Thank you for listening,
If I can ask members to now vote, if you haven’t already done so, to accept and adopt the minutes of 2021 to 2022 agm.
For = 21 Against = 0 Abstain = 1
THANK YOUS FOR ……………………………………………
CLICK, MEGAN ATKINS, LAURA GLOVER, BATHROOM BASICS, ALL WHO ATTENDED THE CHRISTAMS FAYRE, INCLUDING SANTA, ALL WHO HAVE REFERRED TO US. ALL CLIENTS, ALL TRUSTEES AND VOLUNTEERS
Here is to our future year being another success.
I will now pass you on to Karen Cork to present
Aura’s figures for the past year and to say a few words before the voting for our trustees takes place.
Treasurers report
Our biggest challenge has been the acquisition of funding to keep us going and to enable us to support as many people as possible. Everyone involved in Aura does this voluntarily to ensure costs are kept to a minimum but there is definitely still a cost involved to provide our service. All of our volunteers work tirelessly to ensure the running of Aura and the services offered are maintained for our clients.
Mums get together at Johnstone Brady was enjoyed by 10 ladies
We began with just 2 volunteer counsellors who volunteered their time for us, then we were joined by a supportive listener and in September 2023 we were happy to welcome on board 5 volunteers from Keele university to help them gain their counselling hours and offer support to more.
In this reporting period Aura have offered 103 clients, 12 weeks of one to one counselling and support, meaning over 1200 hours of counselling have been given. This figure allows for holidays and client and counsellor cancellations.
This reporting period other volunteers have offered us over 250 hours. These hours are needed for fundraising, administrative tasks, organising events and ensuring that Aura are running legally and in line with The Charity Commission. What a massive amount of support we have been given throughout this time, we want you all to know how grateful we are. THANK YOU
All that is left for me to do is bring your attention to the figures that were submitted at last years agm and ask you to vote to accept and adopt these.
For = 21
Against = Abstain =
The figures for this financial year, 2023 to 2024 are listed here, for your perusal and will be accepted at the 3[rd] agm. These figures cover the period 1[st] October 2022 to 31[st] March 2024. Aura have uploaded all financial reports necessary onto the charity commission website if you would like further information.
Income
| Income | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Income | Date received | Funder/Donation | Restricted/Unrestricted |
| £219 | October 2022 | Donation BRB | Unrestricted |
| £90 | December 2022 |
Johnston Brady | Ladies night donations |
| £60 | December 2022 |
Donations at wreath making | Unrestricted |
| £500 | January2023 | Click Dealerdonation | Unrestricted |
| £9,780 | May2023 | TheNational Lottery | Restricted |
| £800 | July2023 | Congleton TownCouncil | Restricted |
| £390 | July2023 | Click Dealerbonus ball | Unrestricted |
| £25 | August2023 | Click Dealerbonus ball | Unrestricted |
| £223 | September 2023 |
Car boot | Unrestricted |
| £383 | September 2023 |
Choir donation | Unrestricted |
| £104 | October 23 | Clickdealerbonus ball | Unrestricted |
| £270.00 | October 2023 | stalldonation - Xmas event | Unrestricted |
| £40.10 | 4th Oct - 23 | Website donation - Click BGC |
Unrestricted |
| £25.00 | October23 | Click Dealer Bonus BGC | Unrestricted |
| £35.00 | October 2023 | Vinted | Unrestricted |
| £750.00 | October 2023 | fun day donations | unrestricted |
| £25.00 | 26/10/2023 | Click Dealer | unrestricted |
| £120.00 | November 2023 |
stall donations | unrestricted |
| £9.00 | November2023 | vinted | unrestricted |
| £25 | 16/11/2023 | Click Dealer | unrestricted |
| £307.20 | November 2023 |
Donations fitathon (Laura Glover) |
unrestricted |
| £54.60 | December 2023 |
Xmas event (card) | unrestricted |
| £455.00 | December 2023 |
Xmas event | unrestricted |
| £2,000 | December 2023 |
albert hunt | Restricted |
| £20 | December 2023 |
Click Dealer | unrestricted |
| £2,500 | 27/12/2023 | Cheshire Community Foundation |
Restricted |
|---|---|---|---|
| £70.00 | January 2024 | Click Dealer | unrestricted |
| £65.30 | February 2024 | paypal donation | unrestricted |
| £40.00 | 15/02/2024 | Click Dealer | unrestricted |
| £1,000 | 22/02/2024 | Alsager Round Table | Restricted |
| £175.00 | March 2024 | wellbeing fayre stall | unrestricted |
| £23.75 | 04/03/2024 | paypal donation | unrestricted |
Total Income £20,590
Expenditure
| INCOME | |
|---|---|
| Rent | £990 |
| Supervision | £1,155 |
| Running costs, marketing & insurance |
£5861.53 |
| Vol expenses |
£3807.54 |
| Training | £921.06 |
| Project costs |
£1602.40 |
Total expenditure £14,337.53
This leaves us with £6,252.47 to take into our 3rd year.
Thank you to all our funders and supporters.
I will now pass you to Kay who will ask you, if you have not already done so via online or postal vote. to re-elect our trustees wishing to stand again for the next year and to elect 2 new trustees.
KAY
Election of trustees
Is there anyone present today who has voted prior to this meeting for any of the above candidates? If so please hold up your voting cards, you need not vote again today.
At this annual general meeting, it being the 2[nd] for Aura, all member of our board of trustees shall retire.
Karen Heath has decided not to stand for re-election. She will however continue to volunteer and help out where she can. A big thank you from us all for the support you have offered to Aura.
As sent out in the invitation for this meeting 2 trustees wish to be considered for re-election of their posts. This being the case I will ask for your votes please to re-elect:
Helen Lockett for the position of Chair
FOR 21 AGAINST…………ABSTAIN
Karen Cork for the position of Treasurer FOR…21 AGAINST………….ABSTAIN
We have 2 new candidates, their bio you have seen, either tonight or in the invitation. Could I ask for your votes to newly elect:
Sam Boden for the position of secretary
FOR 21……..AGAINST…………ABSTAIN
Sadie Berrisford for the position of trustee
FOR…21….AGAINST………….ABSTAIN
THANK YOU FOR YOUR VOTES AND A WARM WELCOME TO OUR 2 NEW TRUSTEES AND A THNK YOU FOR YOUR CONTINUED SUPPORT TO THE RE ELECTED ONES.
If there is anyone here today that may be interested in volunteering their time for the advancement of Auras objects, and would like to join our trustees, or have other ideas about how they could help us please speak to one of us.
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1 Any other business
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8 Lastly (KG)
I want to thank our marvellous board for all their hard work and support, without whom we would not exist.
Our clients who offer us their vulnerabilities and trust us to support them to change.
Cheers to a wonderful next year.
ENJOY THE REFRESHMENTS.