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Chairman Report 2007/2008
I am pleased to report 2007/8 has been another year of growth and development, although not without some painful moments reflective of the changing culture of society in general. Statistically this has been our most successful year to date, more passengers taking more trips and another new minibus taking the fleet to five. We have spacious new office accommodation and the promise of a storeroom, our grateful thanks go out to all our Funders and Partners. Some old friends have been most generous.
We were delighted that once again Norwich Consolidated Charities and The Passenger Transport Group at Norfolk County Council were able to fund between them half of the £34,500 net needed for the new mini bus that was delivered in January 2008. NHS Norfolk at the Community Hospital have continued to include us benevolently in their plans in acknowledgement of the transport to health appointments that we provide to their sector, the more severely disabled people in this community. When the Hospital team moved to refurbished offices on the Bowthorpe Road site in December, we moved with them and we were so fortunate to have benefitted with much appreciated spacious accommodation and well equipped facilities.
The demand for our services continues to challenge our resources and we are seeking more exceptional people to join us as volunteers. Statistically in the past year we have increased the passenger trips taken by 20% and met our own target of 18,500 journeys. The Norwich Door to Door team who “deliver our services” has grown to thirty five. The volunteer contingency has increased to twenty seven trained men and women who between them drive buses, assist our passengers and work in the office. They work seamlessly alongside the six part time paid drivers and Jill our Project Director and Zandra our Transport Co-ordinator. All of the team have proven themselves time and time again as exceptionally gifted and caring and we are proud of their dedication and charity to the organisation and its members.
Events and Fundraising didn’t go quite to plan, the health challenges of three of our Trustees was compromised and they needed time out for a while to recover. So we changed our programme and had some surprises that were rather special.
In June Dennis Hicks a friend of Norwich Door to Door and a very keen cyclist entered the 100 mile charity cycle ride around Norfolk and he chose us to benefit from any sponsorship. In support of his efforts we followed him with a mini bus and supporters for part of the trip. The picture shows Dennis with Margaret, Roger, Jill and Graham at the half way marker in the grounds at Felbrigg Hall. Dennis cycled for ten and a half hours before we cheered him the last few yards as he rode tired & elated into Norwich Cathedral Close. Sponsorship achieved a splendid £730 enough to pay for 3,600 bus miles! What a guy, he has now promised Margaret his wife to hang up his competitive cycle clips in consideration of the time it took to recover this time, not bad for a septuagenarian!
A Disco and barbecue at Pinebanks the Norwich Union Sports Cub’s excellent accessible premises in July fund raised £611 net: During the evening our guests were generously entertained by both the duo Destiny 2 and Peter and The Wooden Showcase Disco who gifted their services at special rates. Part of our planning for the 2007/8 year was to equip all of our driving team with special safety shoes and this funding paid very satisfyingly for our needs. Sadly we heard later that Pinebanks and all its facilities is to close August 2008. Training of the staff is an essential part of our service, we compare what we do every day with the non emergency ambulance services and the Social Services transport provision and skills must be learnt. We access our driver training through “ Driver Skills” trainers approved by The Community Transport Association and for the last three years we have included our Passenger Assistants in a similar course. In 2007 a new and updated course rolled out and this will be ongoing as each driver becomes due for reassessment over the next 12 months. Our reputation for delivering this training has enabled us to offer the service at actual cost to other charitable groups where mini bus driving is required and this has helped us offset some of our own training costs for the year most effectively. In addition we have Emergency First aid and Disability Awareness and this year Dee, from The Passenger Transport Group offered the former for the first time. Team members whose renewal had been due particularly appreciated a course designed with their needs in mind.
In September we staged an entirely different event, a chance meeting was the catalyst. Jill has been a member of Norwich Business Women’s Network for five years and attends many of their lunch time, specialist guest lectures. In April the speaker was Simon Middleton who had just been awarded the Chartered Institute of Marketing’s Marketer of the Year Award. Following on from a conversation at this presentation Simon offered us the opportunity for a more in depth e-mail dialogue culminating in an offer for a “staged” fundraising event. Two hundred guests including UEA students attended a “ Think different, do different, be different” event in lecture Theatre 1 on September 25. The evening was most successful with a diverse audience from across all the sectors and we all enjoyed learning new techniques with which to communicate, whist being delightfully entertained. Net profit after late donations was £2,200 and a much appreciated contribution toward the vehicle maintenance budget. It is hoped that we will have the opportunity for other different & innovative events like this in the future. It was “a winner” and our thanks go out to all our partners Simon, Julie and her team at the University of East Anglia, The Chelsea Building Society who sponsored our publicity leaflet and Norfolk and Norwich Voluntary Services and their team.
September also saw the introduction of a £1 single journey passenger fare to be paid by the passengers and members of our service. For the last two years our passengers have had the fare contribution that they would have paid us, met by Norwich City Council through the National Government Scheme for Public Transport Bus Pass Concessions. As all our passengers qualify but are unable to use public transport the City Council agreed that our group were discriminated against, so they paid us a set amount for all passengers who registered for a bus pass. As that amount was fixed on 2006 statistics and we have increased service levels by forty five per cent, it has been necessary for our continued service level and steady growth to reintroduce a fare. We are monitoring the situation carefully as the escalating price of fuel and other services we buy relative to the service are also increasing above expectation.
Our planning projections expect the demand for our service to continue to rise. Our passengers are staying in their homes with care support packages for longer than hitherto and they desire social access for those daily living needs. The value of the money they have to spend is being eroded ever more, so they need a low cost service and we intend to be here to meet a community need. Transport access to the health care services, day care clubs or for shopping for food and provisions remain our most regular request/ reasons for travel although access to adult education (where a change of direction is needed because of a health crisis) is steady with 18% of all booking requests.
As I mentioned earlier our team and out puts have increased. Rosemarie already a volunteer is now a member of staff as well, driving two days each week and working as office relief. Rodney already a volunteer Passenger Assistant, additionally offered his time as a driver and we welcomed David a friend of Brian, as a trainee volunteer driver in January. However, we know that we cannot be complacent as our team is mostly “young at heart” so we are planning a concerted volunteer recruitment campaign for late Spring in 2008 and are hopeful of a positive response. Financially for 2008/9 in addition to our revenue needs we plan to update our aged Doss based computerised passenger booking system to a Windows base as its Quirks are challenging even John our Volunteer I.T. expert and to replace our oldest Mini bus as it is approaching its 100,000 mile. To Richard and his team at Holden for the special rates we enjoy on all our motor maintenance and 10 week safety checks thank you, it does make such a difference and is another example of the goodwill partnerships that are here in our community and helping us in practical ways to meet our objectives.
In summing up, it is a pleasure to know that our efforts continue to make a positive contribution to the quality of life of our neighbours. We will no doubt be tried and tested in the years ahead and have to investigate new ways to meet all our targets. I expect we shall embrace change along the way and suceed together as the strong and motivated organisation we are. Thank you to all of our team including fellow trustees, the individuals and the companies we work with for their efforts in supporting our project over the past year.
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