President’s Message
From Derek Fry, Foundation President:
At the Annual General Meeting of the Foundation on 21st September, I took over the reins as President from David Southwell. Let me first thank David for his tireless leadership of the Board. He is certainly a tough act to follow, though, lucky for me, David is staying on the Board as Past President.
2011/2012 Fiscal Year that finished on 31st March was a tough year for the Foundation. We contributed over $250,000 to equipment purchases and projects at the hospital but donations were down and we had to dip into interest and dividends earned on invested assets to make ends meet. As David commented in the Annual Report, happily the Endowment Fund still stands at over $3.6MM due to a solid investment performance.
Our fundraising activities did well last year with the Phantom Ball raising $60,000 and the Golf Tournament raising just short of $30,000. As we look to the year ahead, community support for these annual events will be vital to our being able to continue our high level of financial commitment to meeting the equipment needs of the hospital. As we are all aware, government funding for health services is coming under increased scrutiny and ensuring that our wonderful local hospital gets the improvements and equipment upgrades needed is a key focus of the Foundation.
In the year ahead, the Foundation will make contributions to capital equipment at the hospital and continue discussions with VIHA on their plans for redevelopment of the Lady Minto site to bring much needed improvements, particularly to the Emergency Room.
The Foundation will also focus attention on the installation of Automated External Defibrillators (AED’s) at key locations around the island. Fast access to an AED is critical in saving the life of a cardiac arrest victim. We will continue to make CPR/AED training courses available on island.
The community’s continued generous donations are vital to the Foundation’s ability to pursue all these objectives.
