Cambridgeshire Foundation for the Arts and Mental Health
‘Arts and Minds’
Inaugural Report, 9th June 2005 to 30th June 2006
Chairman’s Foreword
I am delighted to introduce this, our first annual report. Setting up a new organisation from scratch offers many challenges. Finding committed patrons and trustees, establishing our governance framework, achieving charitable status and registration, and developing basic policies to govern our operations. We have also been working hard to raise funds both to support our modest core requirements and to sustain some of our projects. So far our success has been limited, not least because of the very serious financial pressures being experienced by many of our potential supporters. I am extremely grateful for the unstinting commitment, effort and imagination of all our Trustees, and especially Tim Wheatley, our Honorary Secretary and Treasurer, and Christina Rowland-Jones, our ‘application writer’ extraordinaire. All are volunteers, as are Susanna Longley and Christopher Gravett, both of whom have provided invaluable advice and practical support during the year. I am also most grateful for the help and support the Foundation has received from Matthew Taylor, both as a Trustee and as Director of Escape Artists, for the care and nurture that has been offered.
We remain impatient. We want to make a difference. We are sustained by our passion for the arts, and our conviction that they provide unparalleled opportunities to promote well-being, expression, healing and personal fulfilment for all, and especially for vulnerable people with mental health issues, and learning disabilities.
Richard Taylor
Chairman
Report
The inaugural meeting of the organisation was held on 17th May 2004, when the constitution was adopted. It was registered as a charity on 9th June 2005.
The charity has the following roles:
- To act as a focus for promoting and facilitating access to the arts for all users of mental illness and learning disability services within the area generally covered by the Cambridgeshire & Peterborough Mental Health Partnership NHS Trust, both in the hospitals and the related community
- To support and promote the development of current activities
- To stimulate provision where access to participation in the arts is weak
- To provide a forum for the discussion of arts and mental health issues, particularly those affecting the relationship between the statutory and voluntary sectors
- To commission providers to offer arts and mental health activities for service users
- To help raise funds for arts and mental health activites from statutory and charitable sources, commercial sponsorship and the sale of works of art produced by participants
- To train artists participating in activities sponsored by the Foundation
- To disseminate information about the arts and mental health to potential participants
A good deal of work has been done in clarifying how these objectives could be attained, and seeking possible sources of funding. In carrying out this task the Trustees have been much helped by the advice of two people experienced in the field: Christopher Gravett and Susanna Longley.
As the period ended the Trustees were in an advanced stage of considering and approving a business plan, and had made progress in identifying sources of funding. It was recognised that, since the organisation was small, and entirely dependent on voluntary help at this stage, progress had not been as rapid as was originally hoped.
The Charity acknowledges the help of the Friends of Fulbourn Hospital and the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Mental Health Partnership NHS Trust in providing launch funding, and South Cambridgeshire District Council in providing a grant to assist with holding an Arts and Mental Health seminar.
The Trustees have met regularly, most recently every other month. The following people have served as Trustees, and their assistance and support is acknowledged:
Bankers
HSBC plc, 62 Hills Road, Cambridge CB2 1LA
Independent Examiner
Anthony Rowland-Jones, 11 Highfield Gate, Fulbourn, Cambridge CB1 5HA
29th September 2006