A Marathon week

A significant week...
Jenny Griffiths OBE stands down on Friday as the Independent Chair of The Youth Consortium for which she has worked tirelessly, and with great skill in often very difficult circumstances. Jenny is retiring to Hampshire where I think she will be painting and walking, but keeping in touch with her many Surrey friends.

We have spent a great deal of time on the County Council's invitation to take over and operate Woking Youth Arts Centre. The short version (embodied in a 9 page report) is that we could not make the financials work within the parameters set by SCC. The episode reveals the differences between sectors; we needed to run it as a (charitable) business, balancing income from lettings against expenditure, whilst for SCC Property this is just one of hundreds of properties for which there is a limited "cake" of resources and , frankly, this is not a priority building. We have suggested an alternative way forward, and there is definitely a community need and business potential...a community trust?

Grateful thanks to my Chairman and Trustees for being so supportive throughout this episode...we really would have liked to go forward but he financials, the accountancy and legal advice were all against so doing.

SO we have moved quickly on to putting in our Pqasso Level 2 bid, which will be made next week , after a final team discussion on Tuesday. There is still a bit of work to do, and the compiling of the documentation is a huge task..but very worthwhile. I will then be moving on to my bit of pure enjoyment, namely writing the next Young Surrey : Strategic Review for the Board on 29 April, plus an Interim Business Plan.

Yto Y charity marathon walk on Sunday (Guildford to Redhill) which is why the weather is going off; if you wanted to sponsor me for however small an amount it would be appreciated..all the money will go to RedhillYMCA and especially for its work with disabled children. here is the link..and thank you! Mike
http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/MikeAbbott