AGM Minutes - 8th June 2021

Welcome and Apologies for absence

Gill Dean chaired the meeting and welcomed everyone attending. Thank you to Dick Richards for hosting via Zoom due to COVID-19 restrictions.

There were 36 attendees including clients of TAB.

Apologies were received from Sarah Steel.

Minutes of the special meeting

The Special meeting was held on the 15th September 2020 as a replacement of the AGM. Minutes from last meeting were approved.

Matters arising

No matters raised.

Trustees Annual Report

The chair introduced the reported and highlighted our successes over the past year. Thank you to all supporters over the past year. You have enabled us to continue our work and even expand our work. Thank you to those who supported our fundraising for the new premises.

Our staff have been incredible, adapting well from face to face work to at times, completely online sessions. Thank you all for you hard work and for making this work for our young people. Our Group sessions will be increasing, and our outreach team will also start running sessions. A new addition for this year was our parent programme, offering support to parents and carers. Thank you to Gary who has been an outstanding leader of the team, always enthusiastic with a “can do” attitude.

We now have a team of volunteer receptionists who work in our new premises, they are vital in ensuring we can deliver our work successfully. We record our data on ‘Views’, Howard is key in our reporting from this system and ensuring we can understand the data. Thank you to Roland for his work completing our DBS checks and also to Pat who will soon be back running cooking courses.

We have worked hard to create a great fit for purpose new premises. A lot of work has been put into this piece of work and thank you to those that have supported including the Coventry Building Society, Andrew Snowdon and Steven Pain. We hope to welcome you all to this premises soon, COVID-19 dependent.

Whilst COVID-19 has had a huge impact on our work, we have managed to continually work throughout the whole year.

Impact report, current issues and future priorities

Impact report was delivered by Gary Hibbins, Manager of The Abingdon Bridge. Input also from Melanie Richards, clinical lead, Justin Langford, Healthy Lifestyles Co-ordinator and T’Quan.

It has been a challenging year:

There has been an increase in referrals.
Having to adapt to change.

The impact and aftermath of the three lockdowns.
Facing the new normal and the fear of the unknown.
Learning to be seen and in public again.

We supported more young people and delivered more sessions than ever before. The types of referrals we have received have also been more complex with a particular increase in over 18’s.

Although our waiting list for counselling is much shorter than other services, we want to decrease it further. We are going to alter our triaging system to ensure that those most in need are seen promptly.

Our healthy lifestyles and wellbeing team are crucial to building up relationships with young people and moving them away from county lines and involvement with other risky behaviour.

Key impact figures presented, of those that complete our programme:

92% of our clients have a greater sense of their emotional wellbeing and are less anxious and stressed.
73% of our clients have improved aspirations and are more confident about their futures.
97% of our clients who were previously engaged in risky behaviours or self-harm now show increased resilience, participate in less risky behaviours or self-harm.

Billy from our Youth Ambassadors team spoke about the work they have been doing. There are 5 members on the team, each with their own passions and areas they focus on. They help bring different views, awareness of current issues and a perspective to The Abingdon Bridge that we would not otherwise have.

Looking toward the future, we are looking to be more proactive. Preventative interventions and collaborative working will help reduce the demand for our reactive work.

Annual Statement of Accounts

Tim Eustace presented the financial statement for 31st March 2021.

The accounts show that our total income increased by 34% to £247K, at the same time our expenditure increased by 29%.
A slide showing our income sources was presented.
Expenditure is primarily on Counselling and Healthy Lifestyles. COVID-19 Next Steps and Youth Intervention Programme are our other programmes.
A slide showing the huge amount of growth that TAB has experienced was presented, this represents the huge demand for TAB’s services. The chart also shows that the majority of spending is on staff costs (over 90%) with minimal admin costs.

This year we also raised £120,000 to meet the refurbishment costs of our new premises.

Download full details of TAB's finances here.

Election of Officers for 2021-22

The trustee nominations had been circulated and those proposed were re-elected for 2020/21. They were Chris Bryan, Mike Brown, Laurence King, Luke Mattam, Steve Oakes, Dick Richards, Hillary Daffern, Tim Eustace, Sandy Kruger, and Sarah Field.

Election of the Chair

Laurence King took the chair and explained the process of electing the chair. Dick Richards nominated Gill Dean as chair for the forthcoming year and Chris Bryan seconded his election. Gill Dean was duly elected by the AGM.

Appointment of the Independent Examiner

Tim Eustace proposed Mr Stephen Lawrence as Independent Examiner. Seconded by Laurence King

AOB

No other business raised.