AGM 2021 Update

We were delighted to welcome everyone to our AGM on Wednesday night. As well as Members, Staff and Trustees we were joined by funders, service users, professionals and friends.

The meeting was opened by Thomas Lynch, co-founder and Service Manager who handed over to David Gray, who has been our Chair of Trustees since October 2018.

David thanked everyone for attending and proceeded with the formal AGM business:

• Approval for previous AGM minutes

• Charity trustee election for Jo Price, Laura Malone and Mark Weir - all three were co-opted to the Board in March 2021 following an extensive recruitment process, including skills audit, open advertisement of vacancies and interviews. More information about the Board can be found here: Trustees

David handed over to Gavin Wilson, our Treasurer to provide a summary of the Dads Rock accounts for the year ended 31 March 2021

• As of the 1st April 2021, Dads Rock had a cash position of £42,588 in the bank. The income gained over the financial year was £115,676 with £128,081 of costs. Resulting in a deficit of -£12,406.

• Based on the current projections the operating costs are likely to come in around £140-150k for the 2021/22 financial year. Our projections show a cash position of approximately £35k for April 2022. The Dads Rock team are working hard to mitigate the impact of any further deficit.

The official business over, David then went on to give a brief update from the Board:

The main focus of our discussions at our Board meetings continues to be the service delivery, and Thomas updates us at each meeting on the services provided and what impacts these had for many of you attending.

We also focus on funding and finance, making sure that we have a sustainable income stream and that we closely monitor our costs.  We want to make sure that we can not only survive a very challenging time, but thrive and continue to grow the services that we can offer, wherever we can do that. 

Obvious scope to expand the good work we do across Scotland, but, since the Covid pandemic, thanks to digital delivery like this, we’ve seen Dads Rock’s reach extending globally, with people all over the world accessing workshops, which is amazing.   

 We also need to ensure that Dads Rock is able to adapt to grow sustainably and adapt to becoming a bigger organisation. As part of this, the Board established a Corporate Governance Sub-Committee in the last year, with a remit to focus on activities such as Board recruitment, succession planning, managing risk and compliance, and all staffing matters. 

In terms of our current Board of Trustees, I have a couple of updates to confirm. Firstly, Gillian Anderson, who joined the Board in 2018 has decided to retire from her position as Trustee at this AGM. Gillian has served on the Board for over 3 years now, 2 of them as Vice Chair, supporting me and more importantly Dads Rock with vital Charity and Board Governance advice and guidance. I would like to put on record my sincere thanks to Gillian on behalf of everyone on the Board and the staff team at Dads Rock. We all wish her all of the very best for the future and indeed in her new working role.

Secondly, Liann Weir has advised that she wishes to step down from her role as Vice Chair but remain on the Board as a Trustee. Liann has served as Vice Chair for over 3 years and again, I wish to place on record my sincere thanks to Liann for all the support, advice and guidance she has provided to me, Thomas and to Dads Rock since this time. We’re delighted though that Liann is staying on as a Trustee and look forward to continuing our work with her in this capacity.   

This, of course, means that we have some Elected Officer roles to confirm to fill the vacant Vice Chair roles and another Trustee to recruit to replace Gillian and bring us back to a full Board complement. This process will commence between now and the next meeting of the Board of Trustees, where we will confirm the recruitment arrangements.

Of course, we are always keen to encourage Dads Rock members and service users to consider applying for a Trustee role, so if any of you are interested in this, feel free to reach out to Thomas or myself for a chat about it. Happy to tell you more about what it involves. 

Thanks also to my other fellow trustees who remain on the Board with me to serve Dads Rock; Gavin, Mark, Roslyn, Kevin, Mark, Jo, Mark, Laura and Susan. It’s a pleasure to work alongside such a dedicated and passionate group of trustees who share my commitment to growing the organisation to expand our reach and impact to many more communities, families, Dads and Children.  

And last, but by absolutely no means least, huge thanks to all the staff:

Greg & Amy, our Project Workers, who do really incredible work, primarily working with Young Dads and of course, helping with the delivery of in-person and online workshops, amongst many other things

The Lisas, Holder and Morrison, our Fundraising Team, who continue to exceed expectations in terms of bringing vital funding and financial support into the charity in a very challenging time. Lisa Morrison joined us in March this year to increase our fundraising resource and capability and enable us to keep doing the good work we do, but also to expand on what we do and where we do it.

Conal and the team at Dads Rock Academy; Callum, Eammon and Shuna, who are highly respected musicians and tutors who the DRA students love to learn from. It’s great to have you all inspiring and teaching music to children, Dads and families, as a core part of what we do at Dads Rock. Welcome also to Eammon who only recently joined the DRA team in September this year.

A big thanks also to some staff members who have moved on from Dads Rock in the last year:

Dawn McPherson moved on in Feb 2021 having served as Dads Rock Academy Manager for 3 years

Daniel Middleton - DRA tutor left in June 2021 after being with us for 1.5 yrs.

Ryan Cairney - DRA tutor left in Sept 2021 after being with us for 8 yrs. 

A very warm welcome also to Kira Foster and Angela Baccari, our 2 new social work students from the University of Edinburgh, who joined us on Monday and will be with us until Easter, supporting our Young Dads work, alongside Amy and Greg.

Thanks also to our social work students, Emile Beattie, Kim Richards and Maddie Welsh and our Marketing Student, Kelsey Garton, who were all with us on placements in the last year and have now moved on. Thanks to them for their contributions to the Dads Rock story – we wish them all the very best for the future.  

And of course, a very special thanks to Mr Dads Rock himself, Thomas, our Service Manager and one of the co-founders of Dads Rock, who does so much for the organisation, the staff, the trustees and the Dads and families who we work with.

So, once again, a huge thank you to Thomas and all of the staff team for your hard work, dedication and commitment, particularly this year, in the face of some really challenging times, both at work and at home.

Thanks also to all of you – our Dads, members and families, who have all contributed massively to Dads Rock and our charitable objectives and continue to do so.

To everyone I’ve mentioned here, you should all be extremely proud of all that you’ve achieved and the difference you’ve made to so many people’s lives. Well done.

Finally, we shared our impact video which can be seen below: