Ladies and Gentlemen, Guests ,Parents, Siblings, Guardians, Visitors, Volunteers, and Friends of Sunfield Home; welcome to our 2024 AGM, the 28th for the Home and the first official one for me, having commenced my first full year’s tenure as your General Manager – Business two days after last year’s AGM.
It’s lovely to see such a positive turnout again this year, your support of the Home, the Board and to me personally, and my team, is greatly appreciated. What a steep learning curve we’ve been on together over this last year!
I’ve greatly valued the input from each individual member of the Board this year. To have had your wisdom and guidance supporting me has made my transition from being a cobbler to a carer of your loved ones very rewarding.
I would like to thank Sue Grant who steps down from the Board for her unwavering support and wisdom. Her insights have been a constant reassurance to me and having her at the end of the phone line. With her willingness to share her institutional knowledge has been a source of comfort. I am grateful, however, that she’ll still be involved informally in life at the Home.
Our staffing team here at Sunfield have been remarkable to work alongside. With any new leader comes change and, for the most part, our staff have embraced this. We have adapted and introduced, to the best of our ability, best practice processes in all areas. We have already seen the benefit of many of these changes in the growth and happiness of Residents and we continue to seek ways to raise the bar on the levels of service and care we provide. I’d like to thank each member of my management team, and their staff, for their dedication and loyalty to the Home and its Residents. A lot has been achieved over the last twelve months, thanks to their efforts.
One of the areas where we have spent considerable time is on tightening up on the administrative systems within the Home. Thank you to all of you who have supported me through this process; it has been painful at times, but necessary and we’re now seeing the benefits in our cashflow and management accounts.
With our numbers down to 93 when I arrived, the focus for the first 3 months was to follow any leads that could potentially result in admissions. Our DSD grant was in jeopardy of being reduced by six, which would have put a huge strain on our cashflow and ultimately on you, the fee-paying parents, siblings and guardians.
January started to bear the fruit of our recruitment drive and by the end of January we’d brought our numbers back up to 101, which saw DSD satisfied and our grant secured for another year.
One of the major achievements this year has been the fundraising under the guidance of our Board Chair, David Worrall. You have truly led an A-Team. You have achieved 53% of your R15m target and I take my hat off to you. We all knew it was a very ambitious target and you’ve cracked the back of it. Well done! (let’s give them a round of applause!)
The marketing and strategic committee is continually looking for ways to build residual income for the Home and one of these ideas is to create a Padstal on some of our vacant land. We’ve received provisional go-ahead from the Council and the feasibility and ROI is currently being assessed. The success of the FOSH Shop has indicated the potential, and we’ll keep you posted as progress is made in this regard.
I’d like to encourage you all to get a Woolworth’s MySchool card and put Sunfield Home, Howick as the beneficiary. We have staff available today to assist you in getting this set up. We receive good residual income from this initiative every month, so please encourage all your family and friends to do likewise.
Our website undergoes constant review and updating.
You may have noticed the new look and feel; as well as the inclusion of new Blogs; the Schafer Fundraising brochure etc. Some stats worth noting regarding our progress since last year’s AGM:
Enquiries off the site are up 429%
Page Views are up 141%
Blog Visits/ Reads are up 174%; and
The Average Time spent on our website is 88% up year on year.
In addition, our Social Media has gained over 3,000 Followers on Facebook; with over 30,900 visits (60% increase year on year). On Instagram we have gained 635 Followers; with over 811 Profile Visits (70% increase) year on year.
I’d like to thank our marketing committee who bring so much experience and wisdom to the Home’s marketing efforts: Caitlyn Kobus-Botha (MyMedia13); Cathleen Kleb (Call Cath); Les Thurtell (FoSH); Laurie Kohrs; and Sarah Paterson. Your willingness to share your skills to advance our goals and vision is greatly valued.
You will have seen that a lot has been accomplished on the Estate over this last year. Charles Robinson started before I got here and set a great base to carry on from. I’m pleased to say that maintenance is now up-to-date, albeit an ongoing daily activity.
Now that Spring is here I’m sure you’ll enjoy the beautiful grounds and gardens during your visits. My thanks to Sheila Worrall for all the time and energy she puts into our surroundings. Our lovely facility is now a warm and welcoming environment for prospective parents, and we enjoy showing new families around.
