At Guild Care’s AGM on Tuesday 12 October, the charity’s yearly accounts showed a much improved situation on the previous year. Paul Knott, Finance Director said ‘After taking into account investment gains or losses, the overall surplus for the year was £89K compared to the previous year’s deficit of £557K. The positive results were down to restructuring staffing arrangements, appointing a purchasing consultant to negotiate reduced prices and removing the risk of equity investment values falling by disposing of equity investments.’The theme of the Annual Review was ‘Meeting Care Needs in the Community’ and Suzy Braye, Professor of Social Work at Sussex University gave an informative talk during the evening on ‘Carers as Partners’.
Hari Chokkar, Manager of the Worthing & District Carers Support Service said ‘Suzy's presentation focusing on the importance of social workers developing good practice around involving carers as partners, will make a huge difference to the many carers in our communities who still feel they have to fight for recognition of their caring role’.
The Carers Support Service which is hosted by Guild Care continues to meet an ever increasing demand for their services. During 2009/10 they had more than 2,200 contacts with carers with the greatest need being for face-face support to help people pick their way through the maze of how to arrange services for themselves and the person they care for.
At the meeting Peter Robinson handed over the chairmanship to Vice-Chair Carol Roberts who has been a trustee for 4 years. Carol thanked Peter for his many years of dedicated service to the organisation and Peter welcomed five new trustees to the board ~ John Albon, Olive Christian, Peter Reeves, Kathleen Hutchinson and Rodney Woodward-Court.
Chief Executive Suzanne Millard said ‘The fundraising support we have received from our members, service users, businesses and the local community has been invaluable to Guild Care for both the Healthy Living Programme and the Ashdown Club Appeals.’ I would like to personally offer my thanks to everyone who has contributed both their time and money.’Guild Care receives just under £90,000 in grants from West Sussex County Council, West Sussex NHS and Worthing Borough Council to help run the Healthy Living Programme for older people and carers at Methold House and the Lovett Centre. Users of the service contribute to expenses through the payment of charges for services but the programme costs Guild Care around £320K to run each year only two thirds of which is directly covered though regular income. Suzanne Millard said ‘The appeal will run until the end of March 2011 and the charity are pleased to have achieved just over £70K to date. However, by their nature appeals are time limited and we will need to continue to work closely with all our partners to ensure that the service is sustainable for the longer term.’
Seventy attendees stopped to enjoy a hot supper prepared by Healthy Living Centre chef Nina Bohm and served by volunteers.
Copies of the Annual Review are available from Methold House, North Street, Worthing and all Guild Care shops and services.