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Mr & Mrs Fundraising
Parting
is sweet sorrow ….. but saying farewell can be an excuse for a
party! David and Elizabeth Cuthbert, known by many as Mr & Mrs
Fundraising South Africa have decided to join family members in
Canada. The Gauteng branch plotted a surprise event on behalf of the
nation and under the guise of an Annual General Meeting inviting
David to be the guest speaker. After completing a vibrant and
energetic presentation on the “Future of Fundraising..”, Ann
Bown, SAIF President, told David to take a seat, sit back and listen
to a ‘This is Your Life rendition‘! The audience was amassed,
although not surprised, to learn about how one person can really
make a difference in so many lives. Ann covered aspects of David’s
early career in Advertising and how he gave-up a lucrative and
fast-paced life to enter the world of the non-profit sector –
“David just wanted to help people and put his God given talents to
worthwhile use” she said.
In
recognition of David’s outstanding contribution towards
fundraising education and training and for his single dedication to
the aims of SAIF, National Council created a new award for
exceptional individuals and has aptly named this The Power of One
Award. David was one of five founders of the Institute and
served as President from 1986-90 and again held office in 1995. He
was chairman of the University of South Africa/SAIF education
committee and was the lead educator in the development of the first
formal fundraising training course in Africa, the “Certificate
Programme in Fundraising Management”.
Elizabeth
Cuthbert was presented with Honorary Membership status and both
David and Elizabeth now have matching certificates to hang on the
wall in their new Toronto office. The Cuthberts leave South Africa
in September. See " Future
trends in Fundraising in South Africa"
Top
PRESIDENTS REPORT - NOVEMBER 2000 TO SEPTEMBER
2001
This has been a great year – so much has been
achieved and targets met as per the Strategic Plan of January 2000.
Things may not have happened in the order of which we
anticipated but we are on track with meeting our vision.
However, we still need to do a lot more work in encouraging
our black members to assume volunteer leadership roles whether it be
at branch or national level.
The volunteer leadership in SAIF has set-off such a
buzz around the country that the public is wondering what has hit
SAIF – the answer is simple, dedicated committee members who
believe in the mission of the organisation and wish to share their
knowledge – may we keep buzzing…..
HIGHLIGHTS
Education and Training:
A total of 195 individuals have attended SAIF E&T workshops
since January this year.
It
was unfortunate that Jenni McLeod had to resign as Chairman of this
three man/women team, the remaining two David and myself assigned
the leadership role to the President to keep the programme on track.
SAIF E&T has generated income that has sustained the
organisation this year as you will glean from the financial report.
Registration with SAQA is underway and membership of the service providers
SETA.
Training Outreach:
Lindiwe Myesa and I presented a 2-day workshop for 30 community
leaders residing in in-formal settlements outside Eldorado Park.
Basic cost and the venue were covered by UNISA Institute for
Social and Health Sciences and Centre for Peace Action.
Professional Development/Certification:
4 x Resource Mobilisation and
Fundraising Development courses were run with over 48 delegates
currently participating in the certification of assignments.
3 were held at the Sandton office and 1 in Cape Town.
2 x Introduction to
Fundraising and Resource Mobilisation Workshops with over 45
delegates attending – 15 of these delegates then signed onto do
the RMFD for certification. ( Ann Bown and David Cuthbert
facilitated both of the above courses.)
Other
modules
included One-day and half-day workshops:
1x Ethics and Board
members Roles – David Cuthbert – 8
1 x Proposal Writing –
David Cuthbert = 9
2 x Working with the Media
- Christina Stucky = 8 &14
1 x Fundraising for Schools
- Toni Hamilton = 24
1 x Finding New Donors -
Toni Hamilton = 12
1 x How to Develop
Relationships with Corporate Sector/Donor Marketing – Sian
Bakewell-Pillay = 16
1 x Special Events –
Jill Ritchie = 8
Other
subjects/topics have been proposed for the future such as
presentation skills, internet fundraising, public relations,
community relations and so on.
INTEC – Diploma in Fundraising
Administration:
The first candidate to complete the diploma was Mr Daniel Kasuso of the Salvation Army in Zimbabwe.
We are unsure to the number of candidates working
their way through this course at the moment but do know that most of
them only get to the fundraising section in the third year. We expect at least 3 candidates to complete the diploma by
year-end.
Train the Trainer:
An intensive Train the Trainer session to finalise the design of the
Resource Mobilisation/Fundraising Certificate programme was coached
and mentored by David Cuthbert to expand the expertise of course
facilitators at national and regional levels. We now have 6
accredited SAIF trainers –
each Trainer contributed towards the development of the programme
out of their own pockets and we need to recognise their courage
and commitment towards the education needs in the sector.
SAIF Accredited facilitators are: Alta le Roux, Marcelle Bosch, Eve
Murley, Sharon Reis (who is also driving the registration process
with SAQA on behalf of E&T), Jill Ritchie and Ann Bown.
The next intake of other trainers will be in Namibia during
November.
Website/e-mail addresses:
One of the big highlights of the year has been the revamped and
sophisticated new website and Internet system.
Sincere thanks to SABizhost
for sponsorship and to Maggie
Verster the techno boff who has not only added some super new
aspects to the website but introduced some new thinking to how we
promote ourselves. Each branch and council member can now have his
or her own SAIF e-mail address.
USA
- People to People Delegation and seminars:
Both
Western Cape and Gauteng
branches did us proud with the management of the People to
People Seminars of which over 240
people attended. Although
we would dearly love to do this on a regular basis many are unaware
of the pre-planning and dedicated hours that went into ensuring the
success. In January 2000 negotiations started with the P to P co-ordinator
in South Africa – fleshing out how it would work and how many
delegates from the USA would attend.
It was estimated that about 12 fundraisers would visit SA.
In October 2000 AB met up with the USA co-ordinator and they
started to get a feel for how the “seminar” idea could work.
By March we were informed that over 30
professional fundraisers members of AFP had registered to visit
to SA – the best turnout ever from a People-to-People delegation.
It was a great pity that the visitors could not meet our KZN and EC
branch members on their home turf but many traveled to Johannesburg
and Cape Town for the events.
Many friendships have been made and a new
Scholarship Fund has been created to assist with payment of
membership fees and training courses for individuals from
disadvantaged communities. This
is known as the AFP/SAIF Scholarship Fund. Passing
around a hat on the tour bus raised an initial R1100 in typical Boy
Scout fashion Ron with a further donation of $500 from the Virginia
Chapter of AFP. The
President of AFP and I will talk further about how to mobilise other
USA chapters.
Special thanks to Frances Lake of Gauteng and to Anne Wright of Cape
Town for the programme design and again to Frances for putting
together a special report on
the People-to-People Seminars, which is available on our
website. Further thanks goes to Robbie
Cameron and Associates in Johannesburg and to Jenny Handley &
Associates in Cape Town for their professional handling of
registration and management of the seminars.
And of course sincere appreciation to all those individuals and
organisations who willingly hosted the delegates during site visits in Sharpeville, Soweto and Cape Town.
SAIF Newsletter/Journal:
Wendy Adams
a
new member and based in Namibia, offered to co-ordinate the
newsletter with information input from all the branches.
The last edition was her first attempt and we have received
many compliments about the layout.
It is actually the fattest newsletter every published by SAIF.
Four editions have
been produced this year but we may reduce to two bumper issues in
future.
It is customary for the Journal to follow-on from a Convention –
as our conventions are hosted bi-annually a journal is not due until
after the 2002 Convention. However,
the issuing of “free” journals may no longer be possible at the
present membership fee.
National Office:
The relocation and move of
the National Office from Cape Town to Johannesburg was effected
in November 2000. Sadly this meant saying goodbye to Madeleine Swart
who had been in the job for 4 years but it was time for SAIF to
return home to Johannesburg.
Robbie Cameron and Associates were appointed as managers of the
National Co-ordination after the position had been advertised on
PRODDER.
The
new offices, wherein we sit today are sponsored by Investment
Solutions until the end March 2002.
This opportunity has given SAIF members and non-members alike
a home base. Visitors
from UK, USA, Botswana, Namibia, Zambia, Uganda, Kenya, Swaziland
and other neighbouring states have been able to attend training
sessions, meet SAIF staff, purchase books and look through the
resource materials.
Office furniture and equipment has been acquired and the education
and training division has purchased chairs, tables, flip charts from
generous donations from supportive members and some of the income
generated through training courses.
Gauteng branch assisted national office with the purchase of
a high-powered computer to assist us with efficient tracking of
membership. Thank You Gauteng for all your support and may we repay
you rapidly.
Unfortunately after five months Robbie resigned due to her closing
her business but we remain deeply grateful to Robbie and the team
for getting the new structure in place.
Liz Gray who was part of the “Robbie team” and a
University student assists us on an ad-hoc basis to actively market
training courses and arrange bookings and management of workshops.
Noeleen Mullett
agreed to help us out as national co-ordinator in a temporary
capacity – both she and Liz have done a great job and learned the
ropes very quickly.
All international/transnational and local enquiries regarding
membership and fundraising know-how are managed by National Office,
who will communicate with the branches, thus relieving volunteer
branch committee members of the day-to-day enquiries.
Currently the SAIF office handles an average of 30 telephone
calls, 45 e-mails and at least 25 faxes daily.
Many may not appreciate the volume of work that is churned out by
the national office – national councils’ estimate of a 5 hour
day is an underestimate.
I would urge the new leadership to review the role of the
national co-ordinator.
Membership:
Paid Up Membership stands at 325
of which 20% comprise new members mainly recruited through the
marketing of training programmes and branch events.
Last years paid-up
membership stood at 182 although we had a listing of 311!
Giving and Sharing Partnership 2001:
Originally initiated by SAIF as a national philanthropy day at the
Durban Convention in 1999 it is now headed up by an Advisory Panel comprising of various organisations that can add
value to this annual event. This
project will be driven by SAIF in consultation with the Advisory
Panel. Two
donors have indicated a keen interest and would like to see a deeper
understanding and recognition towards indigenous
philanthropy. The
project needs to be scaled down and more focussed. The Panel became overly
ambitious with grandiose ideas. Moekethi Moeshoeshoe remains the
Chairman and I am acting-co-ordinator until funding is secured to
appoint a fulltime support team – the
budget is R600 000 for the first year and R350 000 for subsequent
years.
Media:
Some good coverage was obtained due to the marketing of the
training courses and branch events.
PE in particular had great pictures and article.
Sadly, Gauteng and Western Cape didn’t plan a media
strategy to capitalise on the People-to-People seminars!
KZN also had a good plug for their CSI Meeting and One-Day
seminar.
Convention:
Western Cape branch and National office worked on plans for a
national conference scheduled for 28-31 August putting in an
enormous amount of time and effort.
Venue, top international speakers and programme outline had
already been identified, before these plans were cancelled,
due to various reasons but the main one being a clash of dates
with the International Racism Conference of which we needed to show support.
Kelvin Glen, Vice-President is co-ordinating the next Convention
and is currently recruiting a team of workers.
It is likely that the programme designed for CT, which had
four top international speakers ready and willing to travel to SA,
will be adapted and implemented.
Roadshow and Regional Mini-conferences:
A new aspect has been proposed and agreed to by National Council for
a SAIF Roadshow which will introduce replicated
seminars around the country.
Scheduling of this is envisaged for mid-2002 or even 2003.
It may mean that the Convention be included in the Roadshow.
Lottery Watchdog:
Although this was a bit slow to flow we are pleased to report that
things have really started to move at long last and that the
distribution agencies are doing a good job.
We have a very good
relationship with Shershan Naidoo and Alice Price of the NLDF.
Brian Bailey our national treasurer spends time actively monitoring
the income generated by Lotto sales and keeps us all informed.
Our watchdog role will have to be extended to the NDA, which appears
to be doing a lousy job.
International /Local AffiliationsInternational
/Local Affiliations: nternational
/Local Affiliations:
SAIF has affiliations with 15+ organisations both locally and
internationally and these were listed in the latest newsletter.
Dept of Social Development - NPO Act:
Our relationship with the NPO secretariat remains strong and we have
agreed to support them in assisting so called “de-faulting”
organisations to get their financial record keeping in order.
We have asked the
Institute of Chartered Accounts to become a partner in helping
CBO’s and hope that next year we would have plotted out a
partnership.
SARS Endorsement for Tax dispensation for
NPO’s in SA:
Again Brian Bailey has been very active in assisting the Non-Profit
Partnership to succeed in their negotiations with the Minister of
Finance to amend and broaden Section 18a. This battle has been in
progress for over seven years and I am proud to state that many of
the early negotiations were instigated by Fiona Cameron an activist
for SAIF. We
congratulate NPP on their highly successful Tax Conference.
SAIF Employment Service:
We launched this earlier this year and have received many enquiries,
an average of 4-5 per week wherein a number of NPO’s and
Fundraisers have been introduced, however, no-one bothers to come to
back SAIF and let us know how successful the introduction has been.
Book List Service:
A list was compiled of books, which were available for sale.
D Cuthbert for income generation purposes offered a series of
books to SAIF.
Awards:
The Power of One Award to
David and Honorary
Membership afforded to Elizabeth
Cuthbert who recently relocated to Canada. A great loss to the
fundraising profession. We
thank the Gauteng branch for hosting the award event. More awards
will be announced at the end of Yvonne’s presentation.
CEO
and sustainability of SAIF – need a rethink on this:
A
job description has been designed for this position but it is very
difficult to obtain sufficient seed funding for the start-up period
of say 2 years for this post whilst SAIF becomes self-sustainable.
Potential donors would like to see the membership of SAIF
increased by 50% in order to be convinced of the growth and a
focussed business plan that will secure income. It may be that SAIF
E&T becomes independent of the Institute when it can justify the
appointment of a fulltime training and marketing manager whilst the
Institute continues to be managed by a half-day admin officer which
will negate the need of a CEO.
Closure
of Eastern Cape Branch and Opening Up of New branch in Namibia:
Sadly
the 24 members based in the Eastern Cape have voted in favour of
closure of the branch but this does not mean that they will not be
active and supportive of each other. They will remain members of
SAIF and have informal meetings from time to time. The
administration of a branch and the cost involved with organising
branch events was demanding too much from a small group.
The
good news is that Namibia hosted its first workshop last Friday on
the topic of Media Relations. This
will be a satellite of SAIF for one-year allowing the membership
time to decide if they want to be a branch of SAIF or open up their
own Association of Fundraisers.
The two champions behind this initiative are Theresa van
Niekerk and Wendy Adams who have acquired funding from the British
High Commission to get SAIF up and running.
Other
Snippets:
Last year
9 South Africans attended the
International Fundraising Congress in Amsterdam and enjoyed
every moment of this world-class event.
This year I have been asked to return as a participant in a
debate on the Death of Direct Marketing and I am pleased to share
with you that 16 delegates will be attending from SA.
Last
month I was a guest speaker
at the 6th
Domestic Resource Mobilisation Workshop hosted in Namibia on the
topic of Education and
Training and Professional Development of Fundraisers in Africa
and facilitated two sessions in Non-Financial Resources.
SAIF has had a dynamic year and we thank Investment
Solutions for their generosity in helping us to reach our goals
through the sponsorship of prestige premises that gave us a chance
for a new direction and a professional image.
My thanks go to many members on the national council,
in particular June and Brian for their professional support and to
all the branch chairpersons and their committee members for their
on-going volunteer leadership and dedication to reaching the aims
and objectives of SAIF.
Sadly we said goodbye to Liz Frost, Rosemary Arthur
now Gilbert, Toni Hamilton and David and Elizabeth who have taken up
residence overseas – we wish them well and hope that they will
keep in touch. David
and Toni have offered to write articles for SAIF News possibly to be
known as Toni Talks from Torquay and Cuthbert’s
Cantering from Canada.
I
wish the incoming council members all the very best for 2002 and
2003 – they will assume their new positions from April and the
outgoing members will remain on-board until the end of March
ensuring a smooth hand-over.
May
we continue to keep the new vibrant SAIF active.
Ann
Bown
National President – September 12 2001
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YVONNE
MHINGA’S (CHAKA CHAKA) ADDRESS TO THE DELEGATES AT SOUTHERN AFRICA
INSTITUTE OF FUNDRAISING 2001 AGM.
Sandton,
12 September 2001
Honoured
Guest, Chair, Dignitaries.
Good
Morning,
It
is a great honour for me to address such an illustrious audience.
My
humble address to you is on the importance of patrons and the
professionalism in fundraising.
The paper I have prepared will firstly deal with the
importance of patrons of organisations dealing with humane and
worthy causes. Afterwards,
I will address the issue of professionalism in fundraising.
Not
all patrons are celebrities, however, most celebrities desire to be
patrons. I am not a
celebrity. I have never
looked upon myself as a celebrity.
Nevertheless, I have been asked a question a while ago on the
issue of patrons and why I availed myself to be a patron of an
organisation.
Firstly,
allow me to clarify the term patronage and patron.
Patronage is referred to the guardianship of saints and a
patron is such a person whose duties are likewise.
As
a patron of an organisation by the name of Molteno Project, I cannot
acclaim to be a saint. However,
I am inspired by one of the greatest saints of all time, Mary the
mother of Jesus. It is
through the turbulent life and times of Mother Mary that the highest
forms of devotion and protection have been demonstrated.
The other inspiration is our own living saint, the revered
Nelson Mandela. Madiba, a humble man, epitomises what a modern patron should
be. The humbleness and
caring for humanity in the character of Madiba is the guiding light
of the ultimate living patron.
The success of the fundraising for his children’s project
is a glowing example of his guiding light.
Thus,
it can be said, that the character of the patron will determine the
level of success of any project.
The patron must embody the entire project through his or her
character. The patron
must believe in the project and give his or her heart to the
project. The commitment
of the patron should never be open to question.
It is only through the above type of patronage that
benevolent financial contributions are attained.
There is no short cut. It
all boils down to the character of the patron.
Let
me part with you some of my thoughts on an equally important aspect
of fundraising, that is, professionalism of those involved in the
project.
Professionalism
in fundraising is perhaps as important as the character of the
patron. However, they
are not mutually exclusive which seems to be the case when you
analyse the failures. The
one supplements the other and vice versa.
They are twins. You
cannot have the one and not the other in any successful project.
I
would like to touch on three aspects of professionalism in
fundraising.
Firstly,
in fundraising, the character of the functionaries in the
operational frontline must embody the image of the project.
You do not arrive at a fundraising event with an expensive
car. The Ferraris’,
Rolls’ and Mercedes Benzs’ are the domain of the patrons – I
believe they reap no financial benefits from their association.
I stand to be corrected.
On
a more serious note, frontline people should at all times have an
air of professionalism. Professionals
do not confuse people. Benefactors
will only take a project seriously when they understand the why, how
and when. This only occurs when functionaries present their case
through simplicity in presentation.
In simplicity lies the sophistication.
Benefactors are people that have worked hard and have been
successful in creating wealth and thus, have disposable funds, which
they make available for worthy causes.
They are in most cases professionals and would only part with
their money if they see the professionalism of a worthy cause.
They have little time for mediocrity.
The
functionaries should also in the day-to-day operations function in
an environment of professionalism.
There should be clear and pragmatic guidelines within which
the functionaries operate. Without clear guidelines, fiefdoms and
little empires develop. These are unacceptable scenarios, which inevitably creates
unnecessary tensions resulting in failure.
The
fruit of professionalism is not in feeding for one day but in
teaching how to fish and thus being able to feed in perpetuity.
Finally,
it is only through professionalism that the recipients of the
fundraising reap the maximum benefit of the exercise.
Mediocrity has no place in fundraising for a worth cause.
Mediocrity is the biggest injustice.
I
thank you.
Yvonne
Chaka Chaka
Top
The
year started off with the ever-popular “Introduction to
Fundraising and Resource Mobilisation” – this one-day training
has been designed to give delegates an
overview of fundraising and resource mobilisation – it’s to get
you going! Emphasis is placed on the importance of planning and
doing the ground work before embarking on the “ask”. An
organisational strategic plan needs to be in place before a
fundraiser can commence the fundraising strategy to ensure
sustainability and it was alarming to learn that so many
organisations do not have any plans in place.
The
development of a Case Statement is probably one of the most
neglected documents. Delegates claim that the pressure is so great
to meet targets that they do not have time to compile and collect
the necessary data yet the Case Statement is the most important
resource for every person responsible for fundraising. It is a
wonderful source of background detail for preparing proposals and
letters of appeal. The
Case
Statement
is an internal document whilst the Case
for Support
is an external document that tells the story about a project or a
capital campaign. They are often confused.
Maggie
Versters’
“Fundraising and the Internet” is probably one of the best of
its kind in the country. Maggie is a highly proficient webmaster and
a teacher of mathematics. Her hi-tech prowess and keen fundraising
skills makes this a session that has been termed “mind-blowing”.
This brain stretching exercise confirms that cyberspace
marketing and fundraising is on the increase and when it is applied
properly can be a highly successful tool to promote and raise
support.
A
new half-day workshop was hosted on Presentation Skills and Public
Speaking. Mary-Ann Treibiger, a well-known trainer in the
crafting of words ensured that the participants overcame their fears
and learnt the techniques of coping with nerves and voice
projection. All fundraisers should be confident communicators and be
able to speak with passion about their work off the cuff.
Congratulations to Sian Bakewell Pillay on the birth of her
little girl. Sian will be running two workshops in May; “Finding
New Donors” and “Developing Corporate Partnerships“. Sian has
a solid background in fundraising and worked for the ANC in London
securing support. She was also involved for a number years with the
International Fundraising Group now known as Resource Alliance and
co-ordinated the well know International Fundraising Congress in
Amsterdam.
Well-known journalist and former editor of Reconstruct, Christina
Stucky, will once again offer the insightful half-day workshop
“Dealing with the Media“. Christina encourages the participants
to submit their previously written press releases for comment and
critique which makes this session into a very practical exercise.
The do’s and don’ts when dealing with the media is very insightful.
Alta le Roux has designed a new SAIF E&T programme namely
“Branding and Marketing Your Non-Profit Organisation” which will
be offered later in the year. The next three-day “Resource
Mobilisation and Fundraising Development” course will be held from
6 to 8 May (inclusive). We are pleased to report that Portfolios of
Assignments, a prerequisite to meet the requirements for
Certification, are pouring in for assessment. By the end of May we
anticipate that a least ten would have completed their submissions.
Over 180 people participated in this unique programme last year.
The SAIF/Intec Diploma in Fundraising Administration still has a
number of students working towards the completion of the course.
Although this Diploma is no longer offered by Intec we do intend to
re-negotiate, as there is a great need for a correspondence course
such as this.
The
registration of SAIF E&Training as a Section 21 company is
underway and by the time you read this column all should be in
place.
We have also
completed the necessary paper work as a Service Provider
SETA.
Top
GAUTENG
AGM 2001
27th June 2001 held at the National Resource Centre
The AGM was a little earlier this year than last because Branches
are now aligning their year-ends with the National Council to
facilitate reporting procedures.
The
new committee was voted in and new executive officers will bear the
title ‘Elect’ until the existing Executive hands over at the end
of the next financial year 31st March 2002. This will
allow greater accountability and transference of expertise. There is
a need for the new committee to be more involved in event planning
and for commitment to duties of Office Bearers. The Branch currently
does not have a Secretary.
The
Chairman congratulated the committee on being elected and thanked
them for their willingness to serve. There is however, a need to
have a committee more representative of the community served and
efforts will be made to find people from other sectors to be
seconded.
The
following were elected to the branch committee: Joan Migdin, Sian
Bakewell-Pillay, Dorothy Holscher, Ann Scott, Wyka Smit and Ruelle
Marais
Standing for another term: Celeste Boeyens, Lynette Brady, Toni
Hamilton, Frances Lake, Rakgadi Masetlha, Sandra Miller, Ramon
Moeketsi, Elaine Montague, Eve Murley, and Lindi Myeza
Sadly
Ann Bown has stepped down to concentrate on the Presidency and
developing the Education & Training Division of SAIF. We give
her our support and thank her for her years of service to the
committee. Captain Len Millar has been recalled to Canada by the
Salvation Army and he was given a certificate of appreciation for
his dedication to the committee as Vice Chairman. Additionally,
Christine Fortuin who only joined us last year and shared the events
portfolio, feels that her workload does not allow her to continue on
the committee, but is willing to help where she can. Thank you
Christine.
Guest
Speaker – There is no one more qualified or more experienced to
speak on “Future
Trends – where is Fundraising going?” than David Cuthbert.
David has his finger on the pulse of fundraising in South Africa and
spoke passionately about his subject as our guest speaker at the AGM.
(Copies of his notes are available from the National Office.)
After
the presentation Ann Bown, National President of SAIF presented an
Honorary Membership Award to Elizabeth Cuthbert and the first-ever
“Power of One” Award to David Cuthbert in recognition of his
outstanding service to SAIF and training outreach programmes to over
8500 individuals over the past 16 years. The Cuthbert family will be
leaving South Africa in September to settle in Toronto, Canada, but
they will remain members of SAIF. We will miss them terribly but
wish them much happiness in their new life.
-
Frances Lake – Chairman
Top
GAUTENG
BRANCH REPORT 2001
by outgoing Chairman - 2001
The end of March saw the end of my term of office as Chairman of
Gauteng Branch. It feels a little odd as I have been on the
Johannesburg committee since 1995 when Joan Blackburn of Boys’
Town was in the Chair. We later amalgamated with the Pretoria Branch
and took the name Gauteng in line with the change in Provinces.
Looking back at those early Minutes, I see that we were talking
about arranging the first meeting of the Johannesburg Convention
Committee. That Convention was eventually run in February 1997 in
Midrand and Rosemary Arthur was the Convention Chairman. We were Raising
the Spirit of Africa and I remember that Graça Machel was our
opening speaker and she really raised our spirits. What a dedicated
lady she is. Now in 2002 we are getting ready to run our Sixth
African Resource Mobilisation and Development Convention. Although
we are still raising funds for diverse causes, we are coming
together to share new ideas and learn new techniques - e-commerce is
just one example.
I have every confidence that Peter Laubscher will make an excellent
Chairman of the Gauteng Branch and I have no hesitation in handing
over to him. His committee is dedicated to providing a stimulating
and rewarding Branch programme for the coming year. In closing I
would like to say a very big “thank you” to the members who have
served with me on the committee and become my friends. I hope they
will give Peter all the support they gave me.
-
Frances Lake (Past Chairman)
Top
ANNUAL
REPORT - 2001
The
Branch has been much occupied with the SAIF National Convention
2001.
COMMITTEE
The
WC 2001 committee persevered in finding its feet, gaining confidence
as time passed. Two members left the committee owing to work
commitments or family pressures, including the Treasurer, Erika van
Dyk, who had served 6 years on the WC committee. Thank you Erika for
your long years of commitment as National and Western Cape
Treasurer! We will continue our campaign to strengthen our branch
committee, and have already been fortunate to recruit Leigh
Goldschmidt.
NATIONAL
CONVENTION
A
proposal to National Council that the form of the 2001 National
Convention is changed to that of Mini-Conventions around the country
has been approved. A National Convention will be held in Cape Town
in 2002.
SEMINAR
On
27 February, Dr Stuart Saunders, Vice-Chancellor of UCT and as such
UCT’s main fundraiser, addressed a Branch Seminar. Dr Saunders is
currently writing a book on “Philanthropy in South Africa”. He
now sits on several Trusts and Foundations and was able to give
valuable insight into the view from both sides of the
fundraiser/donor divide.
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THE
VALUE OF VOLUNTEERS SEMINAR - 27 JUNE 2001
As
2001 is the UN International Year of the Volunteer we organised a
morning seminar on The Value of Volunteers. Our first speaker was
Joan Daries, Director of the Volunteer Centre in Cape Town and
chairperson of the National IYV 2001 Committee. Joan opened the
topic by Defining Volunteerism and stressed 3 main criteria i) that
these are people ii) who offer their time and expertise of their own
free will & iii) for no financial gain. We then explored the
Value of Volunteers and Pat Gelderbloem of St Luke’s Hospice, who
has managed volunteers for over 20 years focused on the value of
using volunteers in the fundraising programme.
After
tea Joan took us through the Six Steps to Effective Volunteer
Management covering Volunteer Policy, recruitment, selection,
training and tips on how to maintain a strong and committed force of
volunteers. The following messages are from a Volunteer Centre
video; “Volunteers provide extra hands, feet and minds.
They
enhance the Organisation with the extra joy and compassion they
bring with them. Volunteers are ordinary people who make a
difference. The bigger picture is that they help build a nation who
cares. As a Volunteer you feel good as you are not only doing
something for another person but also for yourself. Without
Volunteers we could not operate (Red Cross). No amount of money can
describe the feeling you get when you know you have saved a persons
life (NSRI).
Thanks
to those who were there for the hard work in making the seminar such
a success. Thanks to the two Melanies and to Sue for the admin
arrangements. Also to Anne for co-ordinating Joan and Pat.
-
Rob McKay -
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