CHAIRMAN’S  REPORT

                  Fifth  Annual  General  Meeting   18th  September 2004

                                      CHAIRMAN’S  REPORT

We have now been a registered charity for three and a half years, having obtained charitable status on the 2nd March 2001.  

Perhaps our motto: “Great oaks from little acorns grow” should be changed to : “Great oaks and little oaks from little acorns grow”.  This year  we have continued to receive support both moral and financial, regular and occasional from old friends and new, including one anonymous donation. 

Fund raising continues to be a challenge as more and more charities are appealing for help, but this year we have been well supported by our sales, including our hand-made Christmas cards, and our quiz nights and a first-time opera evening  courtesy of the Fettucini Opera Company.  We have had a request for another evening.

It was at one of our quiz nights that Mitchem Cleaners stepped in with an offer of £2000 to pay for the Factor 8 drug necessary to save the life of Ionut, a young man with haemophilia.  His allowance from the hospital had run out.  Later he wrote to say how amazed he and his family had been to think of people who had never met him and who lived so far away caring so much.

We value any support given and the trust placed in us, more so because we are a small charity and can only operate as far as funds allow.  Unlike many other charities working in Romania we cannot allow ourselves to undertake heavy commitments such as building projects or regular monthly financial commitments  not covered by  outside sponsorship. Though we continue to have links with various organizations, centres and professionals our main work continues to be with families in various areas in Romania coping as best they can in a country where health, social  care and job opportunities for the many are very much wanting despite an outward appearance to the outside world of increasing prosperity. 

 Because we are all volunteers administration costs are kept to a minimum and these are paid for out of our gift aid scheme administered by our treasurer Geoff.  All money donated for specific purposes goes direct to the families and other donations and what is left each year from the Gift Aid Scheme is spent at our discretion.

Details of our work can be read in our newsletters and our secretary, Moira, will be keeping in touch with  sponsors supporting families as and when she receives news and photographs.  We continue to send at least one trustee a year from England  to monitor the situation of our families and we receive regular reports from my counterpart in Bucharest Dana  and accounts from our treasurer Toma, both helped on the committee by Victor and  as much as possible by the families themselves.

So what have we achieved this year?  Moira, our secretary will later read the report from Dana, our Trustee and Chairman in Bucharest, though at the time of writing this report Dana and her family have been affected by a fire in the flat above them in Bucharest in which a grandfather died, despite their efforts to save him. The fire brigade took an hour to arrive.  Dana’s flat was seriously damaged by the water used and their computer has been out of action until electricity is restored.  This year we have experienced a new set of problems that, with God’s help, have been overcome against great odds.  There is a special kind of energy that drives us on and we feel it is a great honour to be working amongst these families and helping them to help themselves and other families while waiting for an improvement in the support they can receive from the State, a support that with the serious medical problems they face would be much more forthcoming in many other countries.

News of our families’ problems and the help we have been able to provide appears on a separate sheet, in case Dana’s report does not arrive in time.  Full details can be seen in our newsletters and on the website: www.networkgloria.org.uk

Apart from various fund-raising activities already mentioned, we managed to help our families by buying space on board a truck sent to Romania by Biggin Hill Romania Relief November 2003.  Amongst other goods we were able to send a large quantity of incontinence goods and a brand new invalid buggy donated by John and Pat Hughes from Worthing.  Our thanks go to everyone who helped in the packing and loading and in particular to Eileen and Graham Whitebread of Noake Street Farm, Wainscott, Rochester, for helping with the storage and to David Philp for helping with the forklift truck.

Last February during half term Jan Francis undertook a trip to Romania on her own and managed to visit most of our families.  She described her journey in her diary which appears in our Summer/ Autumn 2004 Newsletter.  Her account is a moving one and serves as an example of the dedication and commitment shown by ordinary people driven to help families whose plight many could never imagine: a member of Network Gloria with all four limbs amputated because of arthritis;  another member  with his leg amputated below the knee because of diabetes and who would have had to pay for his own false leg; a lack of appropriate wheelchairs for brain damaged or paralyzed members; no money for incontinence pads… The problems are all serious and seem insurmountable.  Yet we have been able to bring some

 relief and hope thanks to sponsorship and fundraising.

And what of the future?  Through our trustee in Italy, Simonetta Fanelli, we are hoping to form a network of friends in Italy.  Simonetta has already been to Romania three times to visit families and to speak at conferences and at our training sessions, and with our other Italian friends we hope to increase our support for our families and to try out new ideas for fundraising. A little money goes a long way in Romania.

Though Robin and I moved to Cheshire at the end of October 2003 the Kent members and the main committee have continued in their commitment and with the help of present and future supporters can go on from strength to strength.  In Cheshire we are about to hold our first quiz night and I publicize our work by giving talks. 

New friends are always welcome, whether offering financial help or fund raising and administrative help or, most importantly, their prayers.

Our special thanks go to our son-in-law Tim Wilding for his support as  our new webmaster.  This year we hope to include pages in Romanian and Italian.

Thank you to all those who give help and encouragement of any kind.  We hope you will tell others about our work and that you will continue to keep in touch with us.   A particular thank you to all members of the Committee for  their efforts.  Without the help of all our friends we could not continue to do our work.

Gloria Ackerley

Founder and Chairman