Annual General Meeting of Friends of Sangam Foundation

Council Report, 2004:

The year 2004, the first full year of Friends of Sangam Foundation (FOSF), has been a year marked by UK supporters’ visits to the school, by the production of related publications and by fundraising and increased financial support for the school.

Visits to Sangam School included Stephen Petter’s in January 2004, during which he attended a meeting of the Board of Sangam Foundation. Sarah Thorley, an experienced teacher and author from London, visited in April and recorded her visit in photographs and a written account. In December 2004 Kusumika Chatterjee, a teacher with many years of experience of primary education and the performing arts in Coventry, spent a week sharing her expertise with the teachers and pupils.

Articles in the FOSF newsletter, Sangam News, resulted from Stephen Petter’s and Sarah Thorley’s visits. Indeed, FOSF’s income was boosted by the publication of an edited version of Sarah Thorley’s detailed report of her visit in the Quaker weekly magazine, The Friend, (30 July 2004) and of a longer version in the FOSF newsletter, Sangam News (no 4). The work of Claire Lockwood and William Waddilove made these two publications possible.

William Waddilove produced and distributed two excellent issues of Sangam News during the year. We regard it as important that all our contributors are kept fully informed of developments in the school and in FOSF.

FOSF donated two and a half times as much to Sangam School in 2004 as in 2003. Regular monthly and quarterly donations reached nearly £200 per month. Single payment donations also more than doubled. These included several anonymous donations, one of £1,000 in memory of the donor’s son who was a teacher in India. Two frequent donors sent us the royalties from books they wrote.

Approximately £500 per month was remitted to Sangam, so providing the major part of the school’s running expenses. FOSF received its first Gift Aid cheque from the Inland Revenue. Our thanks go to Stephen Petter for serving so conscientiously as Acting Treasurer as well as carrying out other offices so painstakingly throughout the year.

In March we held our first AGM. At this time the decision was made to devote all funds sent to Sangam to meet essential running costs. It was hoped this would be temporary, so that we could revert to spending funds on expansion and improvements as originally intended. The year saw sustained discussion by members of the Council of FOSF concerning the best way to help Sangam School in its continuing financial crisis. The main question was whether FOSF should carry on subsidising the school’s routine expenditure (teachers’ salaries, maintenance of the bus etc) at the present level or whether this should be reduced, perhaps by half. At the same time the question of how a higher level of support could be generated from within India was explored.

Eleanor Nesbitt, March 2005