Chairpersons Report from the latest Annual report
This past year has been quite significant in the life of PCM as a year of careful introspection, refinement and streamlining at both the strategic and operational levels. Looking back I see several threads coming together at the right times, creating a stronger, more effective and more resilient organisation.
The threads were:
- As a new trustee Alan has brought a fresh vision, passion, insights and experience to PCM at the governance level, which has been helpful and encouraging to us all.
- The organisational consulting Scott has done for PCM (as a volunteer), working closely with trustees and staff, to understand and articulate what’s at the heart of PCM, who we are, what we do, why we do it and how we can do so much with so little. In one of the documents he’s written, he described PCM as a “Values-based Therapeutic Community” which was quite insightful and helpful for us to better understand ourselves and others understand PCM. He’s worked closely with our staff to clarify, refine and improve documents, processes and procedures, simplify and streamline how we work with our men and other service providers, and provide better outcomes for all our stakeholders.
- The ongoing transition from the founders (Geoff and Jill) to Sev and the other staff is going from strength to strength and it’s encouraging to observe the organisational maturing and capacity-building process that is taking place.
- The increased amount of counselling services we’ve been able to provide our men.
- Some of the houses we rent were sold during the year (which isn’t particularly unusual), but we delayed replacing them and operated at a maximum capacity of 16 beds for a while, to give the staff a bit more capacity to deal with the burdens brought about by COVID19 and headspace to work with Scott in the organisational consulting.
We’d been working towards taking on another full-time staff member and it was looking positive until we encountered more complications and delays, such that this was not possible during the financial year we’re reporting on. However, subsequently (June 2022), Tony was able to join PCM as a full-time staff member. This was cause for great celebration for several reasons. This has increased the level of pastoral care and assistance we can provide our men and relieved Sev of some responsibilities, which is a huge relief and timely help.
On a slightly sad note, Paddy Colley resigned as a trustee in Feb 2022 – we’ll miss her.
Respectfully submitted
Alex Shepherd
The Prison Care Ministries Annual Reports for each year we have been operating can be downloaded from the links below. The audited accounts are available on the Charities Commission website
