Children Walking Tall
Oct 21st 2011, 7:57 am
#16
BE Enthusiast
Joined: Jun 2005
Location: Irvine, North Ayrshire Scotland
Posts: 725
Re: Children Walking Tall
Thanks for your enquiry. As you mention there have been difficulties which it wouldnt be appropriate for us to discuss - the trustees made their decision in the best interests of the charity and its progress. As you can imagine that's very difficult to do when those interests are different to the best interests of a founder
You mention you have visited Mango House in the past so I imagine you will have met Savita Rao who has been appointed Managing Trustee. We have worked closely with her for 4 and a half years and we have every confidence in her to run Mango House to the standards we expect. Its also clear that the children love her which is important during this time of change.
r. We made our decision carefully and look forward to seeing the charity progress in the future as a result.
We do hope you will remain a Children Walking Tall supporter and will follow our progress in the coming months. Our newsletter is due out as normal at the end of the month and I have added you to our mailing list and hopefully you will feel confident that work on the ground continues as normal.
Received this reply for a letter i sent to the trustees
You mention you have visited Mango House in the past so I imagine you will have met Savita Rao who has been appointed Managing Trustee. We have worked closely with her for 4 and a half years and we have every confidence in her to run Mango House to the standards we expect. Its also clear that the children love her which is important during this time of change.
r. We made our decision carefully and look forward to seeing the charity progress in the future as a result.
We do hope you will remain a Children Walking Tall supporter and will follow our progress in the coming months. Our newsletter is due out as normal at the end of the month and I have added you to our mailing list and hopefully you will feel confident that work on the ground continues as normal.
Received this reply for a letter i sent to the trustees
Oct 21st 2011, 8:21 pm
#17
Joined: Sep 2009
Posts: 4,680
Re: Children Walking Tall
Who are the trustees of CWT? Does anyone know?
Dread - x
Dread - x
Oct 22nd 2011, 1:36 pm
#18
Thread Starter
Joined: May 2007
Location: Noni the Indian Goan Beach Mulberry
Posts: 8,227
Re: Children Walking Tall
For anybody who's interested details of CWT's accounts and annual Trustees reports can be downloaded from here:
http://www.charity-commission.gov.uk/Sh ... ryNumber=0
You can also follow the links to find not just an email address but also a postal address for the main contact person out of the three trustess should anybody here want to contact them about any concerns they have.
CWT's income has never dropped below £30,590 (in 2007/8) or been greater that £52,640 (in 2008/9) and their expenditure seems to have fluctuated in line with this - they have tended to spend approx half of their income each year and the reserves have accumulated over the years since their first accounts where submitted in 2006. There isn't necessarily anything sinister in this - given the fluctuations in their income the Charity Commissioners are going to have regarded it as acceptable that they build up some reserves so that should income drop they can draw down from their reserves to keep the charity going and not have to cut back on their activities during an economic downturn.
I am a trustee of a charity and we keep the equivalent of at least 6 months but preferably 12 months running costs in our reserves as a contingency fund - it means that should we have to close the charity down at some point, that it's activities can be wound up in an orderly fashion with time taken to ensure that core work is transferred to other charities that can continue to offer the service to our users and that staff salaries can be covered whilst they serve out their notice period (3 months in our case) plus redundancy payments etc. CWT's reserves are very much in excess of this financial 'buffer' but it is also considered acceptable to build up reserves on deposit so that they become a source of income in themselves via a suitable investment strategy.
The Charity Commissioners will also allow a charity to build up reserves if there is planned capital expenditure that needs to be 'saved up' for. In the case of the charity I'm a trustee of (in Scotland where admittedly the law is a little different) this means that in addition to our contingency fund, we are also busily raising and investing money with a view to funding the purchase (or at a push the long term lease) of a bigger building as soon as we can because we have outgrown our current premises and any expansion of our activities cannot take place until we have obtained more suitable premises. I hasten to add that this is not an HQ/Admin office - we are an active social and educational charity that provides direct services to women and children and we need more space to house our programmes for them because the demand has increased year-on-year by so much.
So there could be legitimate reasons why CWT is bulding up their reserves but anybody who wants to ask them why they are doing this, but especially any past donors to CWT, can contact the trustees via:
MRS PAT LYON
5 LYNCOMBE COURT
RETFORD
DN22 7FY
Tel: 01777 701113
Email: [email protected]
Website: http://www.childrenwalkingtall.com
(Note to Mods - the above information is already in the public domain and taken from the Charity Commissioners website so as far as I know there are no privacy issues involved in disclosing the details here
http://www.charity-commission.gov.uk/Sh ... ryNumber=0
You can also follow the links to find not just an email address but also a postal address for the main contact person out of the three trustess should anybody here want to contact them about any concerns they have.
CWT's income has never dropped below £30,590 (in 2007/8) or been greater that £52,640 (in 2008/9) and their expenditure seems to have fluctuated in line with this - they have tended to spend approx half of their income each year and the reserves have accumulated over the years since their first accounts where submitted in 2006. There isn't necessarily anything sinister in this - given the fluctuations in their income the Charity Commissioners are going to have regarded it as acceptable that they build up some reserves so that should income drop they can draw down from their reserves to keep the charity going and not have to cut back on their activities during an economic downturn.
I am a trustee of a charity and we keep the equivalent of at least 6 months but preferably 12 months running costs in our reserves as a contingency fund - it means that should we have to close the charity down at some point, that it's activities can be wound up in an orderly fashion with time taken to ensure that core work is transferred to other charities that can continue to offer the service to our users and that staff salaries can be covered whilst they serve out their notice period (3 months in our case) plus redundancy payments etc. CWT's reserves are very much in excess of this financial 'buffer' but it is also considered acceptable to build up reserves on deposit so that they become a source of income in themselves via a suitable investment strategy.
The Charity Commissioners will also allow a charity to build up reserves if there is planned capital expenditure that needs to be 'saved up' for. In the case of the charity I'm a trustee of (in Scotland where admittedly the law is a little different) this means that in addition to our contingency fund, we are also busily raising and investing money with a view to funding the purchase (or at a push the long term lease) of a bigger building as soon as we can because we have outgrown our current premises and any expansion of our activities cannot take place until we have obtained more suitable premises. I hasten to add that this is not an HQ/Admin office - we are an active social and educational charity that provides direct services to women and children and we need more space to house our programmes for them because the demand has increased year-on-year by so much.
So there could be legitimate reasons why CWT is bulding up their reserves but anybody who wants to ask them why they are doing this, but especially any past donors to CWT, can contact the trustees via:
MRS PAT LYON
5 LYNCOMBE COURT
RETFORD
DN22 7FY
Tel: 01777 701113
Email: [email protected]
Website: http://www.childrenwalkingtall.com
(Note to Mods - the above information is already in the public domain and taken from the Charity Commissioners website so as far as I know there are no privacy issues involved in disclosing the details here
Oct 22nd 2011, 1:51 pm
#19
BE Enthusiast
Joined: Jun 2005
Location: Irvine, North Ayrshire Scotland
Posts: 725
Re: Children Walking Tall
I hope the work of many people that has been achieved at mango house continues and the help that the children have been given over the years will be seen.
The new rules re the volunteers needing a different visa may cause problems, i just hope and pray the trustees will be on hand to watch over the place very carefully as i feel it will be needed to make sure things are right.
The new rules re the volunteers needing a different visa may cause problems, i just hope and pray the trustees will be on hand to watch over the place very carefully as i feel it will be needed to make sure things are right.
