Ivy House At Risk Of Closure?... St Denys Retreat, which is near the Minster/Warminster School, is reported on the front page of the Warminster Journal this week as possibly being at risk of closure, much to the predictable upset of the Friends Of Ivy House, who support it, as well as, presumably, staff, sisters, and users of the Christian retreat. The retreat is, for certain, a welcoming escape from the frenetic pace of modern day life, though personally I have only had experience of their well tended gardens, and superb homemade biscuits, on open days. Looking at the accounts since reading the Journal article, I can see that the concerns that the centre may close are realistic. However I dont understand the surprise, given that for some years St Denys has been costing around £240,000 to keep open, but only bringing in around £110,000. Over the last 5 years that accounts are available the charity The Community of St Denys has lost a total of nearly £600,000. The Trustees are legally responsible for the stewardship of the charity and its finances, it isnt sufficient, as one person comments in the article, to just say that it was never intended to make a profit, whether an organisation is a business or a charity it has to make a profit to maintain its existence. All that is the bad news. The good news is that the charity is investment rich, and it is that, not debt, that has kept things going, but the value of those investments, and the return, had declined (hopefully the latest accounts, which are not yet published, will show an improvement given the improved state of the stock market). Last year the Trustees stated in their report to the Charity Commission Whilst there is a current strategy in place to expand and develop the Retreat Centre the income generated is not sufficient to cover the running costs of the property. This means that the Community is reliant on the income generated from its investments and reserves of income rolled-up from earlier years to achieve the charitys objectives. What will hopefully happen is that this scare will galvanize support for this worthy institution, for with the best will in the world no charity can continue to haemorrhage money ad infinitum. The Trustees are due to meet on 10 December and an announcement made shortly afterwards.
Posted on: Thu, 28 Nov 2013 14:36:25 +0000
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