Chair’s Report

At the Annual Meeting of 2007/8 I set out a modest agenda for the Trust which, put very simply, was:

1 - The Trust will play a major part in the social and economic regeneration of our community.
2 - The Trust will operate as a team, with Directors and staff working in partnership.
3 - To appoint from the Board a number of portfolio holders working closely with staff on key areas.
4 - To be as open as possible with our membership, keeping them informed of our plans and providing opportunities to shape the direction of the Trust.

The second and third aim have been relatively easy to achieve and are in place. The first and the fourth are the real challenge, and they remain firmly in focus for the Board and for me as Chair. We are grateful to Colin Stares who undertook a review of our organisation and its working practices and has offered some very helpful suggestions on how we should reform ourselves in order to achieve this goal.
 
A crucially important decision made by the Board has been to move away a scatter gun approach to spending our surplus, albeit on good causes. We determined that, if we are to make a real difference that benefits our community we must take a long term strategic approach to this. Widening Horizons is and will continue to be a beneficiary of this change. This contribution cannot do that project justice so I want to encourage you to read the literature and, perhaps above all, to speak to Year 5 and Year 6 children in our Primary Schools. They will give you a first hand account. It is a programme of opportunities targeted on them and the name says it all – it seeks to widen their horizons of life’s possibilities for them. We are especially grateful to Rhea Brooke for her generous commitment to this project.

We have also asked two Board members, Jean Trevaskus and Bruce Firth, to attend to the urgent business of growing our membership. The Trust belongs to the community of Stonehouse and we are determined that this fact is going to be demonstrated by involving as many members of our community in our membership as possible. The Board also has an agenda of exploring how we can use volunteers to undertake and secure pieces of work that make a real difference to the quality of life of our community. We hope you will want to be involved.

And we dream dreams of what the HQ site might provide if it was redeveloped. It will need to provide business units – they provide both our income and the possibility of generating jobs and training for local people. The site could and should also provide a community heart – a place where a whole range of good community things could be on offer, designed, managed and used by local people. One of the major pieces of work that lies ahead for the Trust is to begin a real encounter with local people and to discover what they want to see being provided for them by their Trust. My hope is that those of you who read this Report will want to be actively involved.

I conclude with another quote from last year’s Report, namely: Directors, staff and members working together can ensure that Millfields gives us the opportunity to break out of a culture where others do things to us and into a culture where we are leaders in achieving the uplift in our community’s fortunes for which we all long. That is our ambition. It is bold and it will be a challenge to achieve but with increasing numbers of people involved we can make it happen. Come and join us!

Rev. Sam Philpott
Chair