The 2025 Annual General Meeting of Cherry Lodge Cancer Care was held at Howard House, 23 Union Street, Barnet on Tuesday 13th May. Despite being advertised on the CL website and centre noticeboard, attendance at the AGM was was lower than previously. Attendees included trustees, staff members (including all the shop staff) and volunteers. Special guests included our Founder, Dr Margaret Clark, and CL supporter Mike Waller.
The meeting was chaired by Sarah Armitage, Co-chair of Cherry Lodge since 1st January 2024 (along with Dr Katherine Edwards). Sarah began by welcoming and thanking everyone for attending, including CL auditor, Andrew Geary, who would present the 2024 financial report. Copies of the 2024 Annual Report, the 2024 Financial Summary and the minutes of last year’s AGM were provided.
Sarah began her coverage of this year’s Annual Report by drawing attention to our Mission Statement, which underpins everything we do. Our objective is to provide information and support to people affected by cancer, including family members. Our many services complement the treatment and care provided by the NHS and other services. We are here to help people through difficult times. A diagnosis of cancer can be devastating and often causes a loss of confidence. There can also be major challenges further along the cancer journey. The Annual Report provides an outline (with statistics) of the many services we offer, including nurse appointments, psychological support, support groups, our outreach service, home visits by befrienders, and leisure and physical activities. Attention was also drawn to our new leaflet, recently published to increase awareness of what we do, and to our website.
Cherry Lodge could not survive without our supporters. Sarah expressed gratitude to our many volunteers, who give up their time to help in many different ways, delivering services and raising money to help pay for them. To cover our running costs, Cherry Lodge is totally dependent on fundraising, including income from donations, legacies, fundraising events, sponsorship, the Cherry Lodge Shop and Gift Aid. Despite the best efforts of everyone concerned, 2024 was a very challenging year for major events like Summer Soulstice and for the shop, which was closed for several weeks due to a major leak.
Turning to the future, Sarah read out the trustees’ pledge always to be guided by our mission statement. She also gave a big thank you to everyone who supports Cherry Lodge – staff, volunteers, donors and fundraisers.
It was now time for Andrew Geary, the CL auditor, to go through the 2024 Financial Summary. This showed a loss of £88,523 for the year (before the revaluation of our investments and property) compared to a surplus of £15,883 for the previous year. Andrew explained that our income had declined by almost £84,000 largely due to receiving a lower level of legacies, reduced income from the shop due to its closure for part of the year to remedy flood damage, and less fundraising income as prolonged poor weather and cost of living worries had a detrimental impact on major events.
Our running costs had increased during the year and totalled £470,112. This was largely attributable to higher staff costs with an operations manager being brought in to facilitate the smooth running of the charity, to increasing the level of services to our members, and to inflation.
Andrew pointed out that we continue to hold investments that would cover our running costs for a considerable time should there ever be a significant decline in our various revenue streams. Although there is no cause to worry about CL’s longer term viability, the financial position for the year showed the importance of legacies and donations to our financial health, given that we receive no central grants or funding to maintain our operations.
As is customary, there was then an opportunity for attendees to ask any questions – but none was forthcoming. Co-chair Katherine Edwards conveyed her thanks to trustee and website editor Ruth Midgley for writing this year’s Annual Report.
Cherry Lodge Cancer Care Annual Report 2024
Click here to access our 2024 Annual Report.
Financial Summary 2024
Click here to access a copy of the CL Summary Statement of Financial Activities for the Year Ended 31st December 2024. More detailed information for 2024 and 2025 is available on request.
