General Meeting – Chairman’s Report

^{By: Dulia Prado, Incumbent FWA-UK Chairman}

Dear Members

Welcome to this year’s General Meeting.

I am pleased to present to you the midterm report. Our financial statement for the year 2021 up to May 2022 will be presented by the Treasurer.

I wish to highlight the following key issues:

Membership Growth

During the last two pandemic years, we have experienced almost no social contact, and this made it impractical for the Association to interact and recruit new members to join the FWA-UK.

The last few months when restrictions were lifted, I am proud to report that the Membership committee has managed to recruit new members. A 10% (ten percent) increase in the numbers of members is a good achievement.

Financial Growth

The financial health of the Association is good. September 2021, we have accepted 13 new scholars and we are committed to a six-year secondary education. Due to the pandemic, we missed two years of our main fundraising event, and despite the setbacks we have maintained a healthy bank balance.

We have been awarded Nine Thousand Nine Hundred Fifty pounds (£9,950.00) by the Awards for All National Lottery Commission for our Help the Elderly project in Newham, London.

I look forward to our June 18^th Dinner and Dance Fund Raising event when hopefully we will earn monies to be able to add to our resources and continue to maintain a robust financial position.

Technology and Us

We have embraced the internet without hesitation, and we passed with flying colours. The Publicity committee has presented programs during the pandemic months, all of this hard work has been in the social media, in our newsletter the Halo-Halo, and in the Filipino Community newspapers.

With clock seemed to be ticking faster than we can flick our eyelids, one of our main challenges today Ladies is to engage new members. New members who hopefully are full of enthusiasm, fresh ideas and creativities committed to contribute towards our goals. We need bright sparks to support the FWA’s mission. Let us work on this.

We have said goodbye last November to our much-loved Founder Mrs Angeles Nene Quimson, we are grateful for the legacy she left behind, but we are honoured to have the chance of changing peoples’ lives.

We have also celebrated a successful Christmas party last year. Well done ladies!

To my fellow members of FWA-UK, thank you for playing your part.

To the Advisers and my fellow board members and trustees, I thank you for your contribution, dedication, support as we together propel this great organisation to higher heights.

I wish you a successful and a very productive get together.