AGM celebrates successes and shares future plans

We’d like to say a big thank you to everyone who attended our AGM last Friday. It was a great turn out and lovely to chat to members over lunch.

John welcomes members to this years AGM

Our Chairman John Williams opened the event by firstly paying tribute to all the serving officers, in all those cities, who have risen to the challenge and given their all following the recent tragedies in Manchester and London.

John went on to explain the recent changes to our management committee, with Steve Newbury and Greg Bates retiring and Simon Archer and Julie Mason moving away from Federation duties.

They will all be missed and we wish them all the very best for the future. Julie Mason was also a director and worked tirelessly on making our new holiday home, Peel’s Retreat the superb home that it is.

John presents Julie with gift of thanks on behalf of the Benevolent Fund

We have seen a steady increase in membership over the last year, our members are roughly split 50/50 between serving and retired officers.

Here’s a brief summary of how the Fund has supported its members over the last 12 months

• Just under £38,000 in grants to help serving and retired members through difficult times. This is a decrease of over £10,000 on the previous year – it’s not because we are getting meaner, it’s because grant applications have gone down. We obviously have more work to do to raise our profile and promote our benefits to the wider Force.
• Nearly £19,000 was donated to widows and children of deceased officers
• Over £5,500 has helped members with convalescence
• Over £7,000 in shopping vouchers to members off sick through injury or ill health
• £3,500 in grants when unfortunately one of our members died
• And finally, £16,500 on interest free loans to members who weren’t able to borrow money from any other source.

Since our last AGM we have continued to develop in a wide range of areas, including;

• Increased staff and opening hours
• Our benefits – Peel’s Retreat, our new holiday home in Weymouth is a significant new benefit and our members have given it the “thumbs up”.
• Convalescence – St Michael’s Lodge, the convalescence facility owned by North West Benevolent Fund is undergoing a £2.5 million extension and upgrade. The lodge is being transformed into a state-of-the-art health and well-being centre.

Our plans for the future

We hope to increase the level of benefits for all our members. This must be both affordable and sustainable and meets the needs of all our members, from teenagers to people in their 90s.

We welcome any ideas and will endeavour to keep our membership informed of any major spend.