Campus held its AGM this year in London on 12th October. The AGM is open to all Campus’s members, volunteers past and present. We meet to vote in the new committee and make mandates for the coming year.
Looking back over the year, in 2023/4 we successfully ran our full range of projects, and added one extra project week compared to the previous year. We kicked things off with Winter Project, a fun day of games and swimming for each of 94 kids. Over Easter weekend, we ran our most successful Young Helper Project in years, training up 9 budding young helpers. Many of our new young helpers went on to volunteer over summer, in 3 weeks of Residential Project and 3 weeks of Hippocampus, on which we took around 120 children on much needed summer holidays.
CAMPUS has some exciting Christmas plans to share!
Unfortunately, we’ve had to make the decision that Winter Project will not run as usual this year due to Covid restrictions. However, we’re not going to let this stop us from organising some fun christmas activities for our Campus children!
We are planning to arrange zoom calls with small groups of our Campus kids over the few days when WP would usually take place. These will be short 30 min calls to catch up with the kids and do some fun activities. To make this happen we need you! There will be a morning and an afternoon session each day from 28th-31st Dec, with 2 calls taking place in each session. All activities will be pre-planned and there will be 2 helpers on every call, and a day coordinator will be available all day to set up the calls and answer any questions.
The sessions will run as follows: 9:45-10:00 – helpers meet with day coordinator on zoom for a quick briefing on the kids and safeguarding training 10:00 – 10:30 – first group of kids join the zoom 10:30 – 10:50 – break 10:50 – 11:00 – another quick briefing 11:00 – 11:30 – second group of kids join the meeting
Another session will run from 1:45 until 3:30.
If you are able to commit to helping for a session please fill in the google form below with your availability and how many sessions you would like to do by Sunday 13th Dec!
2020 has been a tough year with hits to income for many individuals, businesses and charities across the world. We want to thank all our donors for continuing to support us during this time. Regular donations have provided Campus with some stability during this difficult time for small charities.
We wanted to provide some clarity and reassurance to all donors and volunteers that Campus’ financial position is stable at this time. As an entirely volunteer run charity, with 30,000 hours of time volunteered each year and no premises, Campus’ overheads are much lower than many other small charities. Furthermore our spending this year has been low given the cancellation of physical projects and we are grateful for the small number of trusts and grants bodies who have awarded us funding his year, and have been flexible in allowing us to redirect funds into the activity box project or to future projects.
Looking back at the impact of the 2008 financial crisis on Campus’ income, we are preparing for the possibility that our fundraising income will be significantly impacted over the next few years as historically low interest rates and the looming recession take their toll. With this in mind the EC are actively updating our financial planning, investment and fundraising strategy to ensure that Campus can continue offering our support and respite holidays to the children and families of Merseyside in future years.
Unfortunately summer 2020 has not turned out as everyone hoped it would be. Campus has been running for over 50 years, providing a holiday to hundreds of children. It was with great sadness the Executive Committee had to cancel any form of projects this summer. Please know the decision was not taken lightly, but the safety and wellbeing of the children and families we support, as well as our fantastic volunteers was our priority.
We have had many discussions as to how Campus can adapt to the ever changing situation and also plan for the future. We are acutely aware of the respite many of our families desperately need, and so I was extremely proud that as a group we were able to put together and distribute activity boxes for each child – a mammoth effort from our volunteers! See below for more information and photos! We are also hoping to run some form of Winter Project later this year, but again will listen carefully to the advice and research from the government and SAGE.
Many charities and businesses across the country have seen the effect of the pandemic, and we have provided an update in this newsletter on Campus’ current financial position. We are continually reviewing and updating our fundraising plan, including our overall financial strategy to attempt to reduce the long term impacts.
Thank you from everyone at campus for your ongoing support and generosity, we know it’s been a difficult time for everyone.
A week of campus is a very important part of the year for so many of the children. Our volunteers were aware that children would be very disappointed about Campus being cancelled and we wanted to make sure they knew that Campus still cares about them, even if we can’t see them this summer.
Delivering our Summer Activity Packs!
The EC therefore decided we should put together activity packs for each of the children. These included craft equipment, books, simple recipes, toys and other age appropriate activities. This included a donation of over 200 brand new books from author Joanna Skipwith and the EC would like to say a huge thank you to Joanna, our regular donors and volunteers who made these possible! We are also supporting these with YouTube videos made by our volunteers showing how to do the crafts or follow the recipe. We hope that these activity packs, as well as giving the children something to do over the summer, will help them still feel connected to Campus and our volunteers.
It is with great sadness that we have to inform you of the death of our friend, and fellow volunteer Owain Bristow, who lost his life on 21st August 2020, while climbing at Bullers of Buchan.
Owain was a much loved, passionate, and hardworking volunteer who will be sadly missed. Owain joined campus in 2004 and has volunteered ever since, holding several roles, from group leading, to most recently domesticating. It is safe to say Campus was a huge part of his life, this summer becoming our longest serving volunteer.
Many of you may remember Owain from your time with Campus, we are collecting memories and photographs to share with his family and fellow volunteers. If you would like to share any memories, please contact helen.petty@campusholidays.org.uk or chair@campusholidays.org.uk. We acknowledge this will be a difficult time for his family, close friends, and many of you who knew him.
In honour of Owain’s memory and his service as a volunteer we’ve included an excerpt below from our 2019 November Newsletter in which Owain reflected on his time volunteering with Campus.
CAMPUS~ What advice would you give to anyone thinking of volunteering?
Owain~ Get plenty of sleep before going and enjoy yourself- if you’re having a good time, the kids will have a good time.
CAMPUS~ Of all the things you have on or for Campus, what are you proudest of?
Owain~ Of my first tent night: getting a campfire started with limited kindling, dissuading the older boys from putting it out and then hearing them say later (mid marshmallow toasting) how glad they were that we had one- it was a great night under the stars.
CAMPUS~ What keeps you coming back each summer?
Owain~ The desire to do something that helps to make people happy for 1/52th of their year, the excellent camaraderie between helpers: old, young, new and experienced, and the challenge of fine tuning the efficiency of domestic operations, and, obviously, the change to catch up with all the summer’s best pop music…
CAMPUS~ How did you get involved with Campus?
Owain~ I was looking for an activity to help out during my first long vacation that would give me more experience working with children (I planned to become a teach following my degree)
CAMPUS~ Why do you think people should support Campus?
Owain~ You’re contributing to something that improves the wellbeing of children and their families – it’s one of many pieces in the jigsaw of making the world a better place.
