AGM 2008
FIRST STEPS WOMEN'S CENTRE
Annual General Meeting on Wednesday 26th November 2008 @ 7 pm
In the Bank House Hotel, Irish Street Dungannon
Guest Speaker for the evening was Dr. Myrtle Hill BA PhD, From Queens University Belfast.
Michael McGoldrick (manager), Angella O Conner (Out-going Chairperson),
Mary O'Neill (Vice-Chair) AGM 2008
Managers Report 1st August 2007 - 31st March 2008
Between October 2007 and June 2008 FSWC have moved premises to William Street Dungannon. The new premises are much larger and facilitate the growing number of members much better. At the time of the move we were known as First Steps Group. However in November 2007 this was changed to First Steps Women's Centre. The new Centre was also registered as a Company Limited by Guarantee.
The intervening months between August 2007 and March 2008 were a settling in period for the staff. This included finding suitable premises for our Crèche. Once this was identified the new location had to be registered with social services. All in all this put the opening of the crèche back till after Halloween. As a result of this delay the Centre had to call upon other child care services to meet the demand. However when it did open the crèche was very busy Monday-Thursdays.
There are up to 44 young children using the crèche during these 4 days.
The staff, volunteers and Centre users all seemed to cope well with the upheaval. There is more space and even an additional IT suite. This IT suite was donated by the DDA and special thanks and recognition should be given to them for their kindness and generosity.
End of Projects - Most of the funded projects, Department for Employment and Learning (DEL), Proteus, TWN (Training for Women Network) were approaching the end of their life cycle in March
2008. The details of courses and numbers are in other parts of the annual report. The end of these funded projects also meant that FSWC needed to have other funding in place in order to
maintain and survive.
New Funding from Department for Employment and Learning - An application was made to DEL in November 2007 for £1.2 million over 3 years. First Steps was successful in getting this funding. It meant that women would be able to continue learning and studying at the centre for the foreseeable future. the funding also strengthened the hand of first Steps through the development of an outreach centre in Fivemiletown. It anticipated that the outreach centre would become operational by September 2008.
First Steps also produced a DVD and a new website during this period. The DVD provides a series of vox pops of women talking about their time at the centre and what it meant to them personally. The video is available on-line for viewing just follow this link . The website site address changes to www.southtyronewomenscentre.org and has been set up to make it more accessible to staff and volunteers to upload relevant pieces of information.
I would like to thank most sincerely all the women, volunteers, staff, management committee and funder's (including Department for Social Development,DSD) for making First Steps into the successful organisation that it is. In particular DSD should be acknowledged for their support and efforts assisting FSWC with funding. With out this support and generosity of spirit I believe that FSWC may have had to close its doors during 2008 for good.
Michael McGoldrick
Centre Manager
Chairpersons Report August 2007 - March 2008
First Steps Women's Centre has had yet another successful year. In total 268 women registered and completed courses during 2007 - 2008. These included Interior Design, ECDL, Colour- me-beautiful, moving-on, NVQ level 3 Children Learning and Development, Web Design, First Aid, Child Protection, Voice Coaching and o course in Drama. This is a remarkable achievement. It paints a very positive picture for FSWC and shows that there is a need for the centre and also that there is scope for providing more courses both in Dungannon and further afield. During the Autumn and Winter of 2007 FSWC embarked on a strategy to develop an outreach centre in the Clogher Valley area. This included making an application to the Department for Employment and Learning under the ESF (European Social Fund) grant. By spring 2008 First Steps Centre has received confirmation that it had been successful in the application to DEL. This would mean that First Steps would be able to start an outreach centre by September 2008
The centre provides crèche facilities for all women attending the centre. On occasions the crèche has been booked to capacity and First Steps has had to call upon other providers to assist with child care. Child care is an ever important element within First Steps. Without the provision of child care many women would not have been able to attend the centre. First Steps is grateful to the Department for Social Development for providing the crèche funding. This was through the Children and Young People's Fund. A professional team of staff are on hand to support the women who attend our centre and also to ensure that the centre adheres to the many administrative demandsManaging the demands and expectations of five different funders can be extremely time-consuming. Special thanks goes to all the staff at First Steps for all their hard work and dedication. I would also like to pay a special tribute to the Management Committee of First Steps Women's centre who volunteer their time to attend the meetings, they all work in total co-operation for the benefit of all women who use the Centre. I have been Chairperson of First Steps for two years and it is now with regret that I must stand down from this position. I have thoroughly enjoyed my time and I wish First Steps all the very best for the future, it is my wish that they grow from strength to strength and continue to provide a valuable service to all the women of the Dungannon and South Tyrone area.
Angella OConner
Chairperson
STEPS & STORIES. Guest Speaker for the evening, Dr. Myrtle Hill BA PhD, From Queens University Belfast.
Education = Empowerment
Today: Females are more likely than males to participate in education beyond age 16 and to achieve at a higher level, particularly in literacy.
Employment issues for Women
of private sector employers do not provide assistance.
- Almost 90,000 women in Northern Ireland choose not to enter the labour market because of
family/home commitments. - Women are under-represented in 13 out of 17 government training and employment programmes
- Women are more likely than men to be employed in the service sector and in lower paid jobs
(only 31% of all managers and senior officials are women). - Men in full-time employment earn 27% more on average than women in full-time employment.
Conservative estimates suggest there are than 1,000 groups working for or by women in
Northern Ireland – that’s about one for every 750 women in the region …’ (Kate Fearon)
"I do not wish women to have power over men, but over themselves" Mary Wollstoncraft.
Why women’s centres are so important:
Women are more likely to experience poverty than men (almost two-thirds of all income support
claimants are women) Over 7,100 women were victims of recorded violence against the person and sexual offences in Northern Ireland in 1998/99. Women are more likely than men to report feeling stressed and to show signs of depression (24% of women showed signs of depression compared with 17% of men).
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