Minutes:
MINUTES
OF MEETING OF TRUSTEES ON 12 MAY2021 VIA LISSA CAMPBELL’S ZOOM
Present:
Norma Empringham, Sangdeep Bakhshi, Lissa
Campbell, Guy Cowley,
Tom Marshall-Andrews, Gill
Marshall-Andrews, Johnnie Morris, Ben
Taylor.
Apologies: Will
Jones, Luke Morris, Douglas Pinto
In
attendance:
Stephen Kameti – with problematic connection.
1.Minutes
of the meeting on 2 March were agreed.
2. School and country update
GMA and Stephen Kameti presented his
report which gave an update on Kenya and the schools.
3.
Finance
We have had confirmation of a further
donation of £10k from The Waterloo Foundation towards Stephen’s KWS (Kenya
Wildlife Service) salary costs. This is
the last year they will be funding this as they usually fund for 3 years and
they have been supporting TAS for 10 years!
There will also be an additional sum of £5k for ‘transitional costs’ so
that should give us till December 2022 to look for future solutions with
Stephen. We will apply to GAWPT (George Adamson Wildlife Preservation Trust)
for an additional £3k towards Stephen’s salary for this year as he continues to
be very useful to them on the ground and his work for them complements his work
for TAS.
We understand that the Property Race Day
might or might not go ahead in July. If
it does we can expect some funding which may enable us to continue with the
Mitamysi projects.
Guy presented his report on current
finances showing a balance of £24k of which around £9k is ring fenced for
Mitamysi, and £15k is unrestricted. There are still 2 years of Gift Aid to
claim which should yield around £3k of which approx £1500 will be restricted
for Loldia.
A report on Karui balances prepared by
Douglas and Gill was sent shortly before the meeting but not discussed in
detail. Funds in the Karui accounts are,
for the most part, held for projects currently underway or postponed because
schools have been closed for the past 2 months.
4. Treasurer update
Sangdeep has been working with Guy on
the documents for today’s meeting and the plan is for him to prepare reports
for the next meeting with Guy’s support.
The next meeting will be Guy’s last as he plans to migrate to New
Zealand early in 2022.
5. Bank mandate change
Guy has received signed forms from
Norma, Will, Lissa, Gill, Luke, Tom and himself. Still to come are Douglas, Ben and
Johnnie. These will have to wait till
Douglas’ return but there is no rush.
When the remaining forms are in place we will hope the bank will accept
all 10 signatories and allow us to change the bank mandate to reduce the number
of signatories to 5 ie Guy, Sangdeep, Douglas, Luke and GMA.
6. Exam results
All KCPE results are in now except for
Loldia Primary School. They show broadly
that Kaseluni, Jarajara, Boka and Eburru Primaries and Kora Secondary showed
marked improvement. El Rar had no
candidates and Asako Primary score dropped. Mitamysi Secondary mean score and
number of candidates both dropped which is disappointing.
7.
Proposals for funding
GMA has consulted SK over the priorities
for funding given that we have funds for one major project now. His thoughts
are that the El Rar fence is the highest priority. We have an old quote of £11k for this which
involves concrete posts so GMA has contacted Instarect who put up excellent
metal fences at Mitamysi and Kora last year.
They will liaise with SK and hope to work to a similar quote.
Also to be funded are 40 concrete fence
posts for Boka. Funds for this will be
sent when it is clear that the other partners to this project have delivered
their quota of posts.
Arrangements for the continuation of
SK’s contract will be discussed with KWS and GAWPT in coming weeks when TWF
funds are in place.
8. Next meeting
The next meeting was arranged for Wednesday
1 September, hopefully in person at E&Y.
Thanks to Sangdeep for investigating
this, and to Lissa for today’s zoom.
