Financial News

July 9/10 & 14/15
Developing Sustainable Income

Over the last four working days I have been fortunate to be invited to put forward a project case study to two groups of graduate trainees from the large global accountancy firm, Ernst & Young. As part of their training programme teams of 6 are given a brief by a charity to solve a specific problem. In our case I asked them to identify how best we could sustainably double our guaranteed income from around £2500 pa to £5000 pa.
The process involved my giving them a written brief on day 1 and attending a one hour meeting with them. For the next two days they worked on the problem calling me back at the end of the second day to present me with their findings.
Both groups worked very hard for us and we are very grateful for their efforts. Their findings were never going to contain the "magic pill" but they did contain some useful specific suggestions for fundraising and some interesting contacts as well as a broad and general conclusion that our major problem is really to do with "exposure" to a wider audience who may make the one off donations, large and small, as well as our band of regular supporters who join in on events. In addition they highlighted the fact that our biggest single fundraiser over the past 10 years has been an Everest Base Camp Trek and that if we could get enough exposure we should attempt to run one or two more which would easily help us to raise £40,000. This could then be invested with our other funds to give interest income therefore meeting the objective.
Al their ideas will be incorporated into the discussion at our next planning meeting of the Trustees.

Haverigg School News

The Black Combe Challenge 8th July 2008The morning of 8th July began with rain and low cloud on the west Cumbrian coast. Oh dear, not good news for the 100 or so five to ten year olds attempting to summit the peak of Black Combe today at just under 2000ft from sea level. A few frantic phone calls later and an easing in the size of rain drops saw the first of numerous school buses disgorging hordes of children at Whicham Church. Most were dressed already in rainwear ranging from the classic dark green to the not so classic bright pink. All were carrying a rucksack or lunch box of varying size carrying food and drink of unknown nutritional value! Shortly, we were off, shuffling down the lane to our base camp, a single tent manned (or womanned!) by a couple of teachers doing sterling work to entertain those who couldn't make the attempt, counting them all out and .... making around two million jam butties for the end of the descent.

Probably around two hours later one large group was on the summit, celebrating their success under the Buddhist prayer flags with one big cheer and a lengthy tucking in to their "carefully chosen mountaineering nutrition packs"! (How do you get strips of cheese to look like chips, and how can you eat them with tomato sauce on them?) A second group emerged from the mist and we were almost complete for those who could manage it.
The descent was completed in good time with no "casualties" and thankfully the rain kept away for the duration. The jam butties were the best I've ever tasted, I met an old school mate from the 1950's half way up, we all had a good time and everyone probably had the best night's sleep in ages. What more could you want?