Our Chairman, Jon Wright, announced at our 190th Annual General Meeting on 13 June at St Bride Foundation, London, that we helped 1,646 people in 2016, an increase of 44 per cent from 2015.
The figure included 496 people helped through welfare grants; 98 residents in our two sheltered homes for retired people; 537 young people through our education work; 439 people with CV and job search training; and 76 through charity partnerships.
Jon Wright said: “The charity meets a very real need and we are committed to extending our reach through our welfare and education work, as well as building stronger industry links. Being accessible underpins all our initiatives to increase the number of people we help in a meaningful way year-on-year.”
At the AGM Jon Wright and Steve Sibbald were elected as our Chairman and Deputy Chairman respectively for a fifth term, Pauline Blake, Internal Audit Director at FT Limited, was elected as our Honorary Treasurer, and the appointments of Brett Lawrence and Peter Coley as trustees were confirmed.
Guest speaker at the event, Georgia Irving, who is currently in the first year of a paper making apprenticeship at Iggesund Paperboard Ltd, shared insights into her apprenticeship with guests, who included the Rt Hon the Baroness Dean of Thornton-le-Fylde, our President, and people from the printing, publishing and packaging industries.
Three MA students at the London College of Communication, Linlin Pan, Szuyun Chang and Yinyu Chen, designed our 190th Annual Report. The project was part of our education work giving young people joining the industry practical experience of a real design brief.