Chair’s Report 2025
Our Board of Trustees welcomed Siobhan Goodwin and Trisha Leigh and accepted the resignations of Alan Sanderson and Rebecca Mather. Denise thanked them for their hard work and support in setting up the Charity and other support they give to WDAA.
We started our year by reviewing the policies and procedures required by the Charity Commission and good practices to ensure due diligence. These included Safeguarding, Data Protection, Equality Diversity and Inclusion, and Financial Controls and Conflicts of Interest. We recognised the need to check the Safeguarding requirements for the Memory Café within its location at the Methodist Church Hall, with a DBS check for the organiser and training session for the volunteers. The Aims and Terms of Reference for the Memory Café were clarified and documented.
As you will see from the accounts, we financially support our Memory Café to continue its activities, and gave a grant to Somerset Arts Well Music for Pleasure. WDAA has remained financially healthy thanks to donations from Wells Lions, Carlton Court and Methodist Church, as well as fund raising events – the Street Collection in Dementia Weeks May 2024 and 2025, and the Autumn Quiz night. We are extremely grateful to the small but dedicated volunteers who helped with these events and the wonderful volunteers of the Memory Café. In particular, thanks to Philp Welch, Trisha Leigh, and the WCN team last year for running the 2024 Quiz.
We have offered Dementia Awareness Training Sessions to organisations in Wells over the year and gradually increasing a small team of people who can deliver the sessions. They include Claire Chettoe, Jane Mann, Trisha Leigh and me. Whilst take up is slow- we have tried to raise the interest for the sessions by renewing the certificate of achievement and publicising the organisations taking part.
Finally, we are very sorry to be saying goodbye to Sian Bainbridge as our Treasurer/Trustee as she returns to fulltime work following her maternity leave, and I would like to thank her, on behalf of the organisation, for all her hard work in helping us maintain our accounts in a very professional manner and supporting me in particular. We all wish her all the best for her future. We have been very fortunate to recruit Chris Charles to take on the role of Treasurer as he comes with a wealth of experience and is very much a Wellsian resident and will be a great ambassador for WDAA. Chris will not be taking up a Trustee’s role so we would very much welcome another Trustee to replace Sian on the Board of Trustees and hope that this will be achieved in 2025/2026. \Please don’t hide your light under a bushel- we are a very friendly bunch!
Denise Denis (Chair) 5/11/2025
| 14th July 2022 to |
1st April 2023 to |
1st April 2024 to |
|
|---|---|---|---|
| 31st March 2023 |
31st March 2024 |
31st March 2025 |
|
| £ | £ | £ | |
| Donations | 5 0 |
214 | 646 |
| Charitable activities |
682 | - | 798 |
| Grants | 1,000 | - | - |
| Total income |
1,73 2 |
214 | 1,444 |
| Adminstrat ion: |
|||
| Radar keys | (67 ) |
(35) | (75) |
| Information leafets |
(91 ) |
(252) | - |
| Insurance | (110 ) |
(120) | (131) |
| Website | (54 ) |
(30) | (45) |
| Room hire | (15 ) |
(108) | - |
| Stall costs | - | (20) | (25) |
| Miscellaneo us |
- | (70) | (73) |
| Charitable activities: |
- | ||
| Memory café |
(250 ) |
(316) | (145) |
| Equipment | (210 ) |
(207) | - |
| Singing for the brain |
- | (250) | (200) |
| Total expenses |
(796 ) |
(1,408) | (693) |
| Net movement |
93 6 |
(1,194 ) |
75 2 |
| Opening balance |
648 | 1,584 | 390 |
| Net movement |
936 | (1,194) | 752 |
| Funds remaining |
1,58 4 |
390 | 1,142 |