Minutes:
MINUTES OF MEETING OF
TRUSTEES ON THURSDAY 6 AUGUST 2020
Present on ZOOM: Norma Empringham, Lissa Campbell, Guy
Cowley, Tom Marshall-Andrews, Gill Marshall-Andrews , Douglas Pinto.
In attendance: Stephen Kameti
Apologies: Johnnie Morris, Ben Taylor, Will
Jones, Luke Morris,
1. Minutes
of the meeting on 7 May 2020 were agreed.
2. Karui Limited
Douglas presented a paper on the tax situation. He is now confident that the auditor is
willing to present
accounts which show that the company incurs no taxable
profit. This will mean that we can start
again to send funds to Karui Ltd to be managed by the local secretaries. Guy and Douglas are in agreement with this
arrangement and feel that it is a good, cost effective system. It was agreed that a letter will be placed on
record instructing Karui to return to TAS in UK any funds which are not spent
on the specific projects they were intended for. Douglas and GMA to liaise about this and about
arranging to transfer small funds between the several Karui accounts in order
to keep them active.
3. Schools update:
Stephen Kameti’s report was presented which gives detail
of the general situation in Kenya and the current school situation.
Briefly, the schools closed down on 16 March and will be
closed until January at the earliest.
Some teachers and headteachers are visiting their schools to ensure that
the buildings and compound are safe but no teaching or learning is taking
place. In some primary schools children are
playing in the compound – sometimes supervised and sometimes not.
SK has been in touch with the Ministry of Education to
see what sort of project TAS could develop which would bring some students in
on a daily basis to plant trees and gardens and generally to ‘beautify’ the
school. Also to set up sports
activities.
GMA has been in touch with the Waterloo Foundation who
have indicated that there may be funding for a COVID mitigation project in
schools. This is being progressed by SK and GMA who will keep trustees posted.
4. Funding
Guy presented the accounts to date and an analysis of ring
fenced funds for Mitamysi, Loldia and
Eburru Primary.
We have received the £10k from St James Place for Eburru
Primary School classroom refurbishment.
There is around £3k in the Eburru Primary School Trust account
already. This sum was transferred when
the Secondary School Trust account was closed in 2016. So as the total cost of the refurbishment is
around £14.5k the top up from TAS is around £1500.
We don’t yet know if we will receive any funds this year
from the Property Race Day.
We will put in a proposal to The Waterloo Foundation for
a COVID mitigation project when details are agreed.
The George Adamson Wildlife Preservation Trust has paid
TAS £1600 for gates for the 2 schools where fences have been built and £2500
for field expenses for SK.
5. Proposals for funding
No new projects were presented although it is expected
that a COVID mitigation project will be circulated soon and submitted to TWF.
It was agreed that the two bandas at Mitamysi will be
started so they are ready for January.
They will be very helpful if/when social distancing requirements come into play. These are funded by PRD.
Other agreed projects will await the return of schools
hopefully in January.
6. Meetings and thanks
Thank you to Lissa for hosting the zoom meeting.
Next meeting will be on Thursday 15 October 2020 via Zoom.
