Chair’s Report September 2020

The Chair reports the following activities from March to September 2020:

Due to COvid-19 restrictions, a decision was taken in March to ensure the safety of Trustees and associate members:

1. To cancel the Study day and Charity meeting April 2020 and Autumn lunch October 2020
   1. Pat Edmunds has notified the Grafton hotel and our bookings have been transferred to 2021. A note was posted on the website and a message on the office phone. Trustees informed as many associate members as they could by phone.
2. To hold the April trustee meeting and Benevolent Fund meetings remotely. Chair Helen Allan was unable to attend as she was sick with Covid-19 and has subsequently had 6 months off. Her thanks to the trustees especially Shirley Warwick, Wendy Nowell, Theresa Wiseman and Wendy Knibb for ensuring the business of the Charity was conducted. Thanks also to our new administrator Kate Warwick who has supported the work of the trustees during this difficult time.
3. Ongoing business:
   1. Website continues to attract users: https://www.uchlondonnursescharity.co.uk/
   2. There has been a problem with the link to new members’ and renewal of membership which is being sorted out by the website developer and manager.
   3. Secretarial supported by an administrative assistant which is working well.
   4. Kate will attend Trustee meetings to take action notes to replace Minutes Secretary.
   5. Database – Kate has begun to update the 2018 database and move to using online database which is stored in UCH LNC OneDrive. Each function has a folder on the OneDrive.
   6. Merchandise is to be managed by Kate as well. Judith Jackson will organise a handover. Volunteers will handle voicemail messages for merchandise and send out merchandise from the office. This role has yet to begin and for now, sales have been stopped as volunteers are not going into the office until it is safe to do so. We hope to move to online purchases asap.
   7. Fellowship with UCHLNC to fund 6 month secondment of a band 7 UCLH nurse to conduct focus groups with nurses and midwives at UCLH to develop a membership model for the future. This work has been on hold due to Covid-19 and Helen’s sick leave. However, Helen will start to follow this up.
   8. Archive work has been on hold due to Covid-19.
   9. Helen and Wendy Nowell were working with Walter Burog at UCLH to contribute to the Florence Nightingale celebrations in the Year of the Nurse 2020. Helen has submitted an abstract to Nursing Now 2020 on our work with the trust. All this work is on hold due to Covid-19. It will be cancelled as Nursing Now 2020 will no longer run due to Covid-19.
   10. Preceptees awards – another award event was attended by Hilary Baker and Helen Allan in October 2019. This was postponed due to Covid-19.

Helen Allan
September 2020