Annual General Meeting 2026

The Annual General Meeting of the Friends of the Rosie was held on Monday March 2nd 2026 at 1.00pm in the Green Room in the Rosie Birth Centre, Cambridge

Present: Mary Ferguson (chair), Chris Cooper (treasurer), Mary Cooper (secretary), Jo Hall, Erica Crouch, Ann Laskey , Sally Tucker, Jemma Gibbons-Riddell (PEM), Charlotte Reed (Project Manager) Claire Garrett (Head of Midwifery), Ilene Machwa (Director of Midwifery), Annie West (Senior Midwife)

Apologies: Sally Munday, Emily Veal/Harrison, Susan Howlett, Maureen Haigh, Mary and David Sanders, Avril Williams (Rosie in Stitches), Tora Clark-Ward (Matron Delivery unit), Gillian Pett (Midwife)

Jemma Gibbons-Riddell from P.E.M, an Accountancy firm in Cambridge, presented a cheque for £500. Thanks were sent to PEM.

MINUTES: The minutes of the 2025 AGM were agreed.

MATTERS ARISING: None

CHAIR’S REPORT – Mary Ferguson:
Thank you all for coming and continuing to support the Friends of the Rosie.
In 2025 we have not had any requests to buy equipment for the Rosie. The resus dolls that were requested were cancelled; the Hope boxes and the Scanner are now being used. The lights for delivery unit will hopefully be placed in rooms soon.
We would like to thank Avril for all her hard work with Rosie in Stitches and doing stalls around the community. The committee try to support her with these.
We have just had kind donations of £500 from PEM and £210 from a Crib Drive which took place at the British Legion Histon. The winner chose a charity and this lady recently had a granddaughter born here.
We are not actively fund raising but the treasurer will give details of our accounts. These amounts will appear in the 2026 accounts.

TREASURER’S REPORT
Chris reported that the total expenditure in 2025 was £23,906.46 and total income was £5484.74.
At the year end on 31.12.25 the bank balance was £7812.09 made up from Community Account £1198.48,
Business Savings account £6608.61 and Petty Cash £5.
In 2025 a scanner was purchased costing £26,400.
Full accounts attached at the end of this document.

ROSIE IN STITCHES REPORT by Avril Williams
Rosie in Stitches has lots of crafters making items for the wards at the Rosie Hospital as well as selling items at village markets and online. We sold to 54 new online customers and we had 10 repeat customers in 2025. We had stalls at 10 community markets with sales of £359.
Avril attended free webinars to learn how we can comply with the new General Product Safety Regulations that came into force on 13th December 2024. We have updated our Declaration of Conformity document, our Toy Technical documentation, our risk assessment document, and our Due Diligence Defence document. We now have new product identity codes and labels.
Our cupboard in Clinic 21 was emptied and distributed to other available storage spaces in the hospital. We have been slowly retrieving it and storing it in the old tea bar space.
We’ve just received our 15th anniversary badge with eBay. Other eBay members are selling items to benefit the charity. Sue Howlett has listed a couple of donations as auction items on her account. A customer for silver snuff tools was very pleased with his purchase. We have nearly 2,000 secondhand items for sale on our Ebay store rosieinstitches2010. We have items of clothing and toys for sale on our website www.rosieinstitches.org.uk.
We have put more articles in the blog section of our website. If you have an article to include there please get in touch.

We were approached on behalf of students who would like to help by knitting, crocheting and sewing for their Duke of Edinburgh Award challenge.
The stalls in 2025 were at Bar Hill Fete in July, the Bar Hill Community market in December. We attended the inaugural market in Northstowe. Longstanton village market in September and October, a Retirement home in Ely, the South Cambs market in December and Waterbeach community market in October and December. Lots of customers chatted with us about themselves or their babies being born in the Rosie and some gave donations.
One of our customers at Waterbeach last year was disappointed not to be able to buy items of clothing on her antenatal visits. We have got together three times now for her to view a selection of clothes and she has also commissioned some items.
Another customer bought cardigans to embroider designs onto them.
One of our customers who commissioned some items in 2024, commissioned more in 2025. Other commissions in 2025 were a baby blanket, three pairs of trousers and another dog coat. Special thanks to Anna and Tara for raising £130 and Sue, Pat and Avril for completing the several commissions.
We entered our Foot Loose and Fancy Tree at the Landbeach festival again in November and the Stapleford festival in December.
We have raised £1,270.79 gross in 2025, making £820.81 after expenses for insurance, online fees, postage, mobile phone contract, Sumup machine fees.
We are benefiting from having an online presence, where donations at the checkout via PayPal brought in £12 and via Benevity where we received donations of nearly £95.

Avril is our main fund raiser now and in her absence, very warm thanks were sent to her for her fantastic enthusiasm for the Rosie.

ELECTION OF COMMITTEE: The following past members of the committee were all happy to serve for another year and were duly re-elected: Avril Williams, Mary and Chris Cooper, Sally Munday, Jo Hall, Annie West.

REQUESTS FOR PURCHASES
1) The community nurses would like us to purchase 8 I-Pads which would enable them to write notes as they are talking to their patients rather than having to hand write notes to be typed up later in the day. Writing the notes while with the patient would both save time and improve accuracy and aligns with the digital responsibilities of the Trust. Charlotte Reed offered to get quotes. Total estimated cost will be up to £8000.
2) A lot of work to Bereavement services is being carried out now eg decorating rooms, building ensuites etc. They may come back to us later for items like tea and coffee facilities.
3) Improvement works going forward: Transitional care which would create a half way house between birth and neo-natal care: Trial of induction in the Birth Centre for mums who are post birth date and low risk.
4) More leaflets to be bought. Keep same QR code which takes people direct to our Just Giving site. The link to the usual web site is also on the leaflet for those interested. Instead of putting the leaflets in the Bounty bags, add them to the Discharge papers as people may want to show their thanks to the Rosie at that stage.
AOB:
Charlotte Reed said any knitted Easter chicks would be welcome to be given to new mums at Easter with one of our leaflets. Knitted hats wanted –red, green, yellow but they must be good newborn baby size not too small and easy to pull on.
Both the above could be left with Christina now on reception or Tara now receptionist in the Birth Centre.

DATE OF NEXT MEETING:
Monday March 8th 2027, 1.00 pm

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Friends of the Rosie Maternity Hospital Account Report 2025

1st January to 31st December 2025

 

Expenditure	2025	2024
	£	£
CVS Membership	25.00	30.00
THD UK Ltd Scanner purchase	26400.00
Dolls (Breast feeding demos)	170.91
Recliner chairs for patient use		2796.00
Ambient light floor units x 11		10848.00
Ambient light Sky Panels		3116.40
HOPE Boxes – Training aids		1386.00
Goods for fundraising stall		89.95
Card banking fees		6.16
Stationery and flyers		119.09
	________	________
Total expenditure	26595.91	18391.60

 

Income	2025	2024
Interest on Bank Savings Account	132.34	556.92
Cash from collection boxes		2.50
Regular Mandated Donations		35.00
Donations – Just Giving	27.11	632.82
Other Donations	1530.00	125.00
Transfers from Rosie in Stitches Trading	1000.00	3000.00
Other –Goods Stalls, (gratuity from Barclays for loss of service)		364.50
Insurers Dinner donation		768.00
	________	________
Total income	2689.45	5484.74

 

Bank balance at 31st December 2025:
Community Account (Main)	1198.48
Business Savings Account	6608.61
Petty Cash / Uncleared funds	5.00
TOTAL FUNDS YEAR END	7812.09
Bank balance at 1st January 2025:
Community Account (Main)	837.28
Business Savings Account	30876.27
Petty Cash / Uncleared funds	5.00	_________
TOTAL FUNDS YEAR BEGINNING		31718.55
Net Expenditure over year (difference)		23906.46