8^th November 2023

Dear Colleagues,

Kidderminster PGMC Trustees Report for 2022/23

Accounts for the year ending 4^th April 2023 confirm a balance of £98,727 in the Society’s reserves, down from £120,856 in 2021/22. At the same time the Trust’s income from our COIF Fixed Interest Investment has declined again to £2,895 and the capital sum invested has depreciated by a little over £17,500 to £93,495. As a result of this rather modest investment income, and the expenditure of another £17,085 on nine more bursary awards, the excess of expenditure over income is up to £22,129. This compares with a lower negative balance of only £12,011 in the previous financial year.

For the 2021/22 academic year, Birmingham Medical School had put forward as the choice for their bursary allocation, Emma Porter, from Selly Oak, and her end of year report has been posted on the Society’s website together with those of the other recipient for that year, Bahishta Sidiqi.

For the 2022/23 academic year, Birmingham Medical School had nominated Megan Larkin, from Halesowen, who was having to work part-time to fund her studies, and our trustees met in the Education Centre towards the end of last year to consider applications for the second bursary. Contact had again been made with all 30 medical schools in the UK and these prompted an exceptional number of eight applicants with clear cut connections to the Wyre Forest area. These included Ellie Ravenscroft, Grace Doyle, Emma Peters Abigail Warren, Caitlin Thornton, Toby King and Joshua Clarke, all of whom had local addresses and/or had attended local schools. The eighth applicant, Tabeer Alam from Stourbridge, had completed 3 years of a 4 year medicine course in Ukraine before being forced to discontinue his studies due to the conflict. He had then been offered the opportunity to continue his degree course back in the UK but had been required to start the entire course again and self-fund. All eight applicants were considered worthy of our bursary but because of the exceptional number, it was decided to reduce the value from £3,000 to £2,000.

For all of the above account details we are again extremely grateful for the service generously provided by Gordon Cox. Please let me know if these accounts, or any other matters in this report, need further clarification.

                                        Best wishes,

                                  Martin Lewis, Chairman of the Trustees.

6^th June 2022

Dear Colleagues,

               Kidderminster PGMC Trustees Report for 2021/22

Accounts (See below) for the year ending 4^th April 2022 confirm a balance of £120,856 in the Society’s reserves, down from £132,867 in 2020/21. At the same time the Trust’s income from our COIF Fixed Interest Investment has declined again to £3,382 and the capital sum invested has depreciated by a little over £10,000 to £117,071. As a result of this rather modest investment income, and the expenditure of another £6,085 on two more bursary awards, the excess of expenditure over income is up to £12,011. This compares with a lower negative balance of only £7,553 in the previous financial year.

For the 2020/21 academic year, Birmingham Medical School had put forward as the choice for their bursary allocation, Harriet Mintz, from Warwick, and her end of year report has been posted on the Society’s website together with those of the other two recipients for that year, Beth Stinchcombe and Helen Field.

For the 2021/22 academic year, Birmingham Medical School nominated Emma Porter, from Selly Oak who had previously been awarded an Msci Biology 1^st Class Degree by Sussex University, and our trustees met electronically towards the end of last year to consider applications for the second bursary. Contact had again been made with all 30 medical schools in the UK and, of the applications received, none had any direct residential links to Wyre Forest. However, one, Bahishta Sidiqi, had worked as a pharmacist at Worcestershire Royal Hospital. Her application was supported by an impressive CV and excellent references and your trustees agreed unanimously that she was fully deserving of the second KMS bursary.

For all of the above account details we are again extremely grateful for the service generously provided by Gordon Cox. Please let me know if these accounts, or any other matters in this report, need further clarification.

                                        Best wishes,

                                        Martin Lewis, Chairman of the Trustees.

10th May 2021

Dear Colleagues,

     Kidderminster PGMC Trustees Reports for 2020 / 2021

Accounts for the year ending 4^th April 2021 confirm a balance of £132,867 in the Society’s reserves, down from £140,420 in 2019/20. At the same time the Trust’s income from our COIF Fixed Interest Investment has declined again marginally to £4,183 and the capital sum invested has depreciated by just £1,931 to £127,542. As a result of this rather modest investment income, and the expenditure of another £9,085 on three more bursary awards, the excess of expenditure over income is up to £7,553. This compares with a lower negative balance of only £871 in the previous financial year.

For the 2019/20 academic year, Birmingham Medical School put forward as the choice for their bursary allocation, Jamie Richardson, a young man from Alvechurch, and his end of year report has been posted on the Society’s website together with those of the other two recipients for that year, Bryony Garfield and Will Hodgeson.

For the 2020/21 academic year, Birmingham Medical School nominated Harriet Mintz, a young lady from Warwick who had previously been awarded a PhD from Warwick Medical School, and our trustees met electronically towards the end of last year to consider applications for the second bursary. Contact had again been made with all 30 medical schools in the UK and, of the applications received, none had any direct residential links to Wyre Forest. However, one was born in Droitwich and the other had been employed by Worcestershire County Council Mental Health and Suicide Prevention programme in the Wyre Forest area. Both had impressive CV’s and excellent references and we decided that each was deserving of the KMS bursary.

For all of the above account details we are again extremely grateful for the service generously provided by Gordon Cox, and the trustees also wish to express our sincere thanks to John Tudor, who has now stepped down from the committee after more than 15 years of loyal service.  We would certainly like to wish him well in his retirement. Happily, Parveen Mann has kindly agreed to replace John as a trustee of the Society and her Deed of Appointment has generously been prepared without charge by Jonathan Price. Please let me know if these, or any other matters in this report, need further clarification.

                                        Best wishes,

18^th April 2020

Dear Colleagues,

     Kidderminster PGMC Trustees Reports for 2018/19 and 2019/20

Accounts for the year ending 4^th April 2019 confirmed a balance of £141,291 in the Society’s reserves, down from £147,724 in 2017/18. At the same time the Trust’s income from our COIF Fixed Interest Investment had remained stable at £4,502 and the capital sum invested had depreciated by just £679. As a result of this rather modest investment income, and the expenditure of £10,065 on four more bursary awards, the excess of expenditure over income was up to £6,433. This compares with a slightly lower negative balance of £5,808 in the previous financial year.

Moving on to the accounts for the year ending 4^th April 2020. These confirm a residual balance of £140,420 with the Trust’s income down marginally to £4,422. During this period it has been necessary to cash in £10,000 of our COIF Fund holding to cover further bursary awards, and the residual investment has appreciated in value by £1,996. Three more bursary awards have been made since April 2019 which have totaled £7,085 and have resulted in an excess expenditure of £871.

We have continued to use the Society’s funds to offer two £3,000 bursaries each year and, for 2018/19, the one allocated to Birmingham University Medical School was awarded to Alastair Watson, and his end of year report has been posted on the website.

As usual, the second £3,000 bursary for 2018/19 was advertised on the Society’s website and by poster in the Education Centre. In addition, I was again in contact with all of the other 30 medical schools in the UK which offer four or five year graduate-entry medicine courses and last year these various approaches attracted five applicants, but only two of these had local connections. One of the successful applicants was Jeremy Rison, whose father had worked at Sealine in Kidderminster for 9 years and whose end of year report is again on the website. The other was awarded to a young lady with a nursing degree who had been working in the Accident Department at Worcester. Unfortunately, she was taken ill after her first term at medical school and had to withdraw from her course. Under the circumstances, the trustees agreed that she could retain £1,000 of her award and the other £2,000 was repaid to help fund the bursary awards in the following year. Exceptionally, another £980 was awarded to Alice Campion, a junior doctor with strong local connections, to fund a global surgery course in Oxford which the Trustees agreed would provide her with a deeper level of knowledge of the huge inequalities in surgical service provision throughout the world.

For the 2019/20 academic year, Birmingham Medical School put forward as the choice for their bursary allocation, Jamie Richardson, a young man from Alvechurch, and our trustees met towards the end of last year to consider applications for the second bursary. Contact had again been made with all 30 medical schools in the UK and, of the applications received, two candidates had strong links to Wyre Forest. Thus, one of these has lived all her life in Kidderminster and the other hails from Tenbury Wells. Both had impressive CV’s and excellent references and we decided that each was deserving of the KMS bursary.

For all of the above account details we are again extremely grateful for the service generously provided by Gordon Cox, and the trustees also wish to express our sincere thanks to Wendy Kingston, who has now stepped down from the committee after more than 15 years of loyal service.  We would certainly like to wish her well in her retirement. Happily, Tim Campion has kindly agreed to replace Wendy as a trustee of the Society and his Deed of Appointment is currently being drafted by local solicitors. Please let me know if these, or any other matters in this report, need further clarification.

                                        Best wishes,

23rd April 2018

Dear Colleagues,

               Kidderminster PGMC Trustees Report for 2016/17

Accounts for the year ending 4^th April 2017 confirmed a balance of £155,430, up marginally from £154,555 in 2015/16. At that time the Trust’s income from our COIF Fixed Interest Investment had been well maintained at £5,898 with a capital appreciation up by £4,489. As a result of this satisfactory investment income, despite the expenditure of another £12,085 on four more bursary awards, the excess of expenditure over income was only £1,897. This compares with a positive balance of £876 in the previous financial year.

We have continued to use the Society’s funds to offer two £3,000 bursaries each year and, for 2016/17, the one allocated to Birmingham University Medical School was awarded to Catherine Odendaal, a young lady from Stourport. Her end of year report has now been posted on the website.

As usual, the second £3,000 bursary for 2016/17 was advertised on the Society’s website and by poster in the Education Centre. Also, I was again in contact with all the other 30 medical schools in the UK which offer four or five year graduate-entry medicine courses and last year these various approaches attracted three applicants with strong local connections. These included Ben Ryland, a student from Bewdley who had graduated from Leicester University with a degree in Biochemistry, George Williams, a Cleobury resident who had graduated from Cardiff University with a Biology degree, and Stuart Evans, a student from Haybridge High School, who had graduated from University of Worcester with a BSc in Applied Health Sciences. All three of these applications were supported by excellent references and as usual, we found it very difficult to choose between them. We, therefore, decided to take the fairer option of awarding bursaries to all three and you can find each of their end of year reports on the website.

For the current academic year, Birmingham Medical School have put forward as the choice for their bursary allocation, a young lady from Selly Oak, and our trustees met towards the end of last year  to consider applications for the second bursary. Contact had again been made with all 30 medical schools in the UK and, unusually, we have had no applications from any student with direct links to Wyre Forest. However, we did decide to consider one applicant from Stourbridge with some Wyre Forest connections, evidence of need and excellent references, and we decided to give the second bursary award to him.

December 2017’s interim financial statement had confirmed that the total balance on our investments was still well maintained at a level of £153, 533 despite the fact that, as anticipated, the dividend from the COIF investment was down by the equivalent of £1,200 per year. However, since then there has been some capital depreciation and the year-end account on 4^th April 2018 reveals an excess of expenditure over income of £5,808 with the current balance down to £147,724. Please let me know if this, or any other matters in this report, need further clarification.

                                        Best wishes,

                                        Martin Lewis, Chairman of the Trustees.

12^th December 2015
Kidderminster PGMC Trustees Report for 2014/15

Accounts for the year ending 4^th April 2015 confirmed a balance of £154,555 down from £157,580 in 20012/13. However, I am pleased to report that the Trust’s income, from our new COIF Fixed Interest Investment, had improved to £5,998 with a capital appreciation of £3,531. As a result of this improved investment income, despite the expenditure of another £12,085 on four bursary awards, the excess of expenditure over income was down from £6,694 in 2013/14 to £3,025.

We have continued to use the Society’s funds to offer two £3,000 bursaries each year and, for 2014/15, the one allocated to Birmingham University Medical School was awarded to Claire Wallace, a young lady from Edgebaston. Her end of year report and expressions of thanks to the Society for granting her some financial security in the first year of her graduate-entry course, has been posted on the website.  

The second £3,000 bursary for 2014/15 was advertised on the Society’s website and by poster in the Education Centre. I was also in contact with all the other 30 medical schools in the UK which offer four or five year graduate-entry medicine courses and last year these various approaches attracted four applicants, three of whom had strong local connections. These included Laura Cowell, who although living out at Bridgnorth, had undertaken some work experience at Church Street and whose mother was a nurse practitioner in that practice. The other two local candidates were Sam Owen-Smith, a Kidderminster resident for 15 years, and Lucy Studd, whose father worked as an anaesthetist in Kidderminster from 2002 until his retirement in 2012. As was the position last year, each of these applications was supported by excellent references and we found it very difficult to choose between them. We, therefore, decided to take the fairer option of awarding bursaries to all three and you can again find each of their end of year reports on the website.

For the current academic year, Birmingham Medical School have put forward as the choice for their bursary allocation, a young lady from Handsworthwood, and our trustees met earlier this month to consider applications for the second bursary. Contact had again been made with all 30 medical schools in the UK and of the resulting six applicants we had to consider, two had strong links to Wyre Forest. As with last year, both of these candidates were supported by excellent references and we have again decided that it would be invidious to choose between them. Fortunately, we still have more than £10,000 in the HSBC current account and can therefore make £3,000 awards to each of them without dipping into the COIF Investment Fund. We hope that you will approve of this decision.

Martin Lewis, Chairman of the Trustees.

Dec 13 2014
Kidderminster PGMC Trustees Report for 2013/14

In the past 12 months your trustees have noted the sad passing of Geoff Campion who contributed so much to the Society during his many years as a trustee and then as chairman of our group. On a brighter note, we have been very pleased to welcome Jan Cox to our proceedings in place of John Murray.

We have met twice since the last Medical Society AGM and at the first of these meetings we decided to transfer the bulk of the Society’s funds, some £140,000, into Income Units of the COIF Charities Fixed Interest Fund. COIF handles the investments for about 45,000 charities, including the Church of England, and also a number of local authorities. COIF funds have generally returned earnings of more than 4% per annum. However, it must be appreciated that this is a stock market investment fund, the value of which could fluctuate. Thus, it should be considered a long term investment and will have the advantage that investment in a new bond will no longer need to be considered every 2 or 3 years.

Accounts for the year ending 4^th April 2014 confirm a balance of £157,584 down from £164,274 in 20012/13. You will note from the accounts that the Trust’s income was down to £5,591 during that period because of the relatively poor rate of return on the Britannia Bond. As a result of this modest investment income, while increasing our expenditure to £12,085 on four bursary awards, we have to record an excess of expenditure over income of just under £6,700. However, since April the interim financial statement for 1^st December reveals that the new COIF investment has produced an improved return of £3,000 for the half year with the £140,000 capital sum appreciating at the same time by more than £3,500.

We have continued to use the Society’s funds to offer two £3,000 bursaries each year and, for 2013/14, the one allocated to Birmingham University Medical School was awarded to Alice Jones, a young lady based in Selly Park. Her end of year report and expressions of thanks to the Society for granting her some financial security in the first year of her graduate-entry course, have been posted on our website.  

The second £3,000 bursary for 2013/14 was advertised on the Society’s website and by poster in the Education Centre. I was also again in contact with all the other 14 universities in the UK which offer a graduate-entry medicine course and last year these various approaches attracted ten applications. These included Stephanie Bareford, a Cookley resident, with Lawrence Hopkins from Bewdley  and Shannon Lennock , whose home address was in Hagley. Each of these applications was supported by excellent references and we found it very difficult to choose between them. We were, therefore, prompted to take the fairer option of awarding bursaries to all three and you can again find each of their end of year reports on the website.

For the current academic year, Birmingham Medical School have put forward as the choice for their bursary allocation, a young lady from Edgbaston with an excellent CV, and our trustees met earlier this month to consider four more applications for the second bursary. Unlike previous years, we have decided to widen the bursary eligibility to also include graduates on the full five year medical school programme. This is because we were informed that graduate-entry students on a 4 year course can get a tuition loan for the first year and are subsequently supported by NHS bursaries. On the other hand, graduates on a five year programme have to support themselves entirely in the first 4 years of their course and cannot get a loan from Student Finance at all. Contact was therefore made with all 31 medical schools in the UK and of the resulting four applicants we had to consider, three had strong links to Wyre Forest. As with last year, each of these three was supported by excellent references and we have again decided that it would be invidious to choose between them. Fortunately, we still have more than £17,000 in the HSBC current account and can therefore make £3,000 awards to each of them without dipping into the COIF investment. We hope that you will approve of this decision.

Martin Lewis,
Chairman of the Trustees.

18^th June 2014.
Re: KMS Postgraduate Bursary Awards for 2014/15.

Your Trustees are once again in the process of seeking applications for the bursary awards for the next academic year and have drafted a further advertisement to be posted on this website and in the Education Centre.

As usual, one £3,000 bursary is allocated to Birmingham Medical School and in the last few years this has generally been awarded to a student undertaking the graduate-entry accelerated course in medicine. However, you may note that this year we have decided to modify the offer slightly to include graduate students on full five year courses and we will be sending the same flier with regard to our second £3,000 bursary to all the other 30 medical schools in the UK. This is because it has been brought to our notice that this latter group of students generally suffer greater financial hardship than graduates on four year courses. Details of all the applications received will be given at the Society’s AGM in the autumn.

December 2013             
Kidderminster PGMC Trustees Report for 2012/13

Can I start by recording the resignation of John Murray as a Medical Society Trustee. You may be aware that John has now moved to Norfolk and I am sure that we would all wish to record our thanks to John for his great contribution as a trustee over many years. As for a replacement, I am delighted to report that Jan Meggy has agreed to fill the vacancy.  Wendy Kingston, John Tudor and I are very grateful that she is willing to take on this role and we trust that this choice will be acceptable to the other members of the Society.

Accounts for the year ending 4^th April 2013 confirmed a balance of £164,274, down from £165,582 in 20011/12. The Trust’s income was down to £4,891 during that period because of the relatively poor rate of return on the Britannia Bond. In fact, it is striking to note that over the last two years our investment income from  the Britannia has fallen from £6,761 and, for obvious reasons, is likely to be lower again next year. As a result of this lower investment income, while maintaining our expenditure of £6,000 on two bursary awards, we have to record an excess of expenditure over income of just over £1,300.

The Britannia 2 year bond paying 3.5% per annum matured earlier this month and my initial enquires had suggested that if we had rolled over this investment into another two year bond the interest we would have received was likely to have fallen again to around 2.1%. Perhaps I should also remind you that enquiries around the town a couple of years ago confirmed that no banks were able to accept money from trustee accounts and that no other building societies were offering a more favourable rate than the Britannia. Under these circumstances your trustees decided not to purchase another Britannia bond but to consider placing the Society’s funds in the COIF Charities Investment Fund as an alternative. This Fund is operated by CCLA Investment Management Limited and is owned entirely by its customers in the faith, charity and local authority sectors

We have continued to use the Society’s funds to offer two £3,000 bursaries each year and, for 2012/13, the one allocated to Birmingham University Medical School was awarded to Heather Bailie, a young lady from a low income family living in Whythall, Worcestershire. Her comprehensive and colorfully illustrated end of year report and heartfelt expressions of thanks to the Society have been posted on our website.  

The second £3,000 bursary for 2012/13 was advertised on the Society’s website and by poster in the Education Centre. I was also in contact with all the other 14 universities in the UK which offer a graduate-entry medicine course and last year these various approaches attracted twelve applications. These included Carly Lewis, a Kidderminster resident, and Samera Dean, who was not resident in our area but had been working as a domiciliary optometrist around the Wyre Forest district. As I explained in my report last year we had, in fact, an extra £3,000 available because the Brmingham School had failed to use their allocation a year or two ago. As a result, we were able to award bursaries to both of these applicants. Carly’s end of year report has also been posted on our website and Samera has promised hers in the very near future.  

For the current academic year, Birmingham Medical School has chosen Alice Jones, a Birmingham resident with a First Class Degree in Biological Sciences. She was apparently the needier of two possible candidates selected for consideration and your trustees met again recently   to consider ten more applicants for the second bursary. Three of these ten were from the Wyre Forest area and included Stephanie Bareford from Cookley, Laurence Hopkins from Bewdley and Shannon Lennock from Hagley. All three had excellent references, and we found it very difficult to choose between them. In fact, in the six years that this second bursary award has been available, we have generally had either one or no local applicants and, therefore, we decided to offer bursaries to all three candidates on this occasion. We hope that members will approve of this decision even though it will dip into the capital of the trust fund to a modest degree.

In closing, may I remind you that most of our bursary recipients to date  have been on graduate-entry four year medicine courses but it has recently been brought to our attention that graduates on five year programmes tend to be much worse off financially. This fact will certainly need to be taken into consideration in future years.
 

December 2012
Kidderminster PGMC Trustees Report for 2011/12

Accounts for the year ending 4^th April 2012 confirmed a balance of £165,582.90, up from £164,789 in 20010/11 and it appeared from the figures that the Trust’s income had apparently improved from £13,761 in 2011 to £23,079. However, this total included £6,000 transferred from the HSBC deposit account and another £1,273 transferred from the Education Centre accounts. This meant that the net income from our investment in the Britannia Building Society had actually fallen from £6,761 in 2011 to £5,805 and that we were left with an excess of income over expenditure of only £793.

The previous Britannia 2 year bond paying 4% per annum matured last December and at that time we were offered a reinvestment bond at 3.5% gross interest. Investigations around the town confirmed that no banks were able to accept money from trustee accounts and that no other building societies were offering a more favourable rate than the Britannia. We therefore decided to remain with the Britannia and to increase our bond holding by an additional £10,000. This new money was largely made up of funds previously transferred from the Education Centre Private Account and also ensured that our deposit account with HSBC, earning almost no interest, was reduced to an acceptable minimum.

We have continued to use the Society’s funds to offer two £3,000 bursaries each year and, for 2011/12, the one allocated to Birmingham University Medical School was awarded to Lara Reilly, a graduate-entry student who was educated in Worcester. Her end of year report and expressions of thanks to the Society were received in July and subsequently posted on our website.  

The second £3,000 bursary for 2011/12 was advertised on the Society’s website and by poster in the Education Centre. I was also in contact with all the other 14 universities in the UK which offer a graduate-entry medicine course and last year these various approaches only attracted two new formal applications. Robyn Hill, the 2010/11 bursary recipient who lives in Bewdley, had also submitted another application with details of her financial commitments over the following 12 months. Neither of the new applicants had any strong local connections and, therefore, it was agreed by your trustees to award the bursary to Robyn Hill for a second and final year. Robyn has now completed her second year of study and details of her successful academic progress and of some of her extra-curricular activities, nicely illustrated, have again been posted on our website with her expressions of grateful thanks for all our support.

For the current academic year, Birmingham Medical School have chosen Heather Bailie, a young lady from a low income family from Wythall in Worcestershire, currently needing to work at weekends to pay for her living costs, as their bursary candidate, and our trustees met again recently to consider applications from twelve more graduates for the second bursary. One of these was a young lady, Carly Lewis (no relation!), born and educated in Kidderminster, who had excellent references, and who met with our approval. Perhaps I could also remind you that, due to an administrative oversight, Birmingham failed to award their bursary a couple of years ago. As a result we had an extra £3,000 available on deposit at HSBC and therefore decided to make a second award this year. Our choice for this second award was Samera Dean, who first applied last year and just missed out. She was a domiciliary optometrist to Kidderminster and surrounding areas and was invited to apply again this year. She, too, had excellent references and the trustees were very happy to support her bursary application as well.

Further information can be obtained from:

Dr M L Lewis
Chairman of Trustees
Kidderminster Medical Society
117 St John’s Avenue Kidderminster
Worcestershire DY11 6AX

Email: martinlewis283@gmail.com

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