FoC AGM Chair's report 2011

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FoC AGM Chair’s Report: 25 April 2011; Country Club, Chintsa East

Almost 3 years ago a group of local residents sat around a table trying to develop a vehicle for development initiatives in the Chintsa area, and this was the birth of this Friends group.

We are affiliated to WESSA, the oldest and largest NGO in the country and this provides a network and skills base into which we can tap. As an organisation, although we are autonomous in our projects and actions, our affiliation to WESSA does place certain responsibilities on our operations. We have applied for independent NPO status and are awaiting the outcome of this. Two key factors have motivated us to go for independent status:

1. Organisational Objectives –

As an organisation, we have broadened our scope of operations to encompass more than what could be strictly defined as WESSA’s core focus. Although our broad objectives fall within the ambit of Education, Conservation & Social Transformation, which aligns to WESSA, the sub projects we implement under these banners are diverse and, in reality, exceed WESSA objectives for their Friends Groups.

2. Organisational Growth –

FoC has grown rapidly over the past 14 months, as will be seen in our financials after this report, which saw us managing close to R 94 000 last year end and this year end is close to R 520 000. It is rapidly growing beyond the manageability of a completely voluntary organisation into one which requires permanent and professional capacity.

The Friends ethos of voluntary championed and implemented community based projects will continue to be our priority but this will now be backed by organisational capacity and organisational operating costs will be assigned budgets.

The immediate developments to staffing that we are implementing will be a full time administrator, who we are fortunate enough to have as a volunteer for up to six months. This will allow us to run an improved all round operation. The committee has agreed that all funds coming, as well as exiting funds in the bank, will have a standard rate of a minimum of 10% allocated for operations. All proposals requiring a dedicated implementation team will have these positions written into the budgets.

This past year:

FoC’s projects number close to 30 individual initiatives. We have built an extension to a crèche, refurbished numerous classrooms, won an award for a community waste management project which was the runner up project to the Southern Africa winning project, fed close to 40 000 meals through the feeding scheme, facilitated numerous adult and youth training opportunities, launched a development surf school, begun a sport development project for Chintsa, put the Big Green e-Machine, a mobile 4x4 computer and training centre, on the road and provided a scholarship fund for adult education in the form of a bursary to Nokuphumla Phakamile who is studying ECD. Phumla achieved two distinctions in year one and we feel this potential in our community needs to be nurtured and supported in every possible way.

Not everything has been as smooth and effective as we would have liked, but on reflection, it has been an exceptionally positive and productive year.

Our vision going forward:

As the Friends of Chintsa, we have seen how effective we can be at the grass roots level of positive change for our area as well as seeing the benefits to numerous individuals who are impacted on by what we do. We have learnt a tremendous amount over the time since we formed and we have taken this into consideration going forward. We believe we can increase our impact on Chintsa and its surrounds through a more professional operation. As it stands, we have some very big proposals in the pipeline for education. We will continue to encourage partnerships between FoC, local businesses, civic associations and individuals in order to maximise our work. Finally, I’d like to take this opportunity to thank the committee for their dedication to the organisation this past year. I’d also like to thank the various project champions and individuals who have put in considerable time and effort to make the projects successful.

It is with much sadness that we say goodbye to Mikee Ford and Jo Ford, who leave us physically to return to the UK. They have been core drivers to FoC since its formation. They will continue with certain responsibilities from abroad.

Thank you for coming this afternoon.