Annual General Meeting 2025

The Annual General Meeting of the Friends of the Rosie was held on Monday March 10th 2025 at
1.00pm in the Green Room in the Rosie Birth Centre, Cambridge.

CHAIR’S REPORT:
Mary presented a report of all that the Friends had purchased in 2024.
1. Two Recliner chairs – £2,796 for the bereavement rooms 1 and 2 on delivery unit, arrived in May and were used
immediately.
2. Free standing lights for rooms on the delivery unit – 11 mood tube lights and 5 crystal lights £10,848. The
mood tube lights were initially not fit for purpose as unable to clean then effectively. After negotiations with
the company by the Delivery unit manager they have fitted a rubber seal around the base which can be
wiped clean, they have also removed the bright neon colours and only soft pastel changing shades now
glow. This has been done, and they are now back in the trust being PAT tested.
3. Hope boxes for the safeguarding team – 15 pairs of boxes £1,386. These were ordered through Lancashire
University.
4. Flyers and posters to raise the profile of The Friends and hopefully get donations – £63.76
5. Sky panels – £3116,40, 4 panels in each of the bereavement rooms, installed and in use. The hospital paid for
the installation.
6. Scanner – £26,400 specialised scanner for use in the OASI (Obstetric anal sphincter injury) clinic. Arrived in
January 2025.
7. Soft bodied dolls for teaching antenatal breast-feeding workshops – £89.95. Brought in November and in use
with the Infant Feeding team

TREASURER’S REPORT
Chris reported that the total expenditure in 2024 was £18,391.60 and total income was £5484.74.
At the year end on 31.12.24 the bank balance was £31,718.55 made up from Community Account £837.28,
Business Savings account £30,876.27 and Petty Cash £5.
In 2025 a scanner has been purchased costing £26,400 and total funds at 10 March 2025 now stands at £6320.92.

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 76 new online customers in 2024 and we had 10 repeat customers.
One of our repeat customers buys vintage magazines to use for reminiscing sessions in a retirement home.
We had stalls at eleven community markets with sales of £360.
We have raised £3,711.36 gross in 2024, making £3,139.42 after expenses for insurance, online fees,
postage, mobile phone and contract, Sum-up machine and fees.
Special thanks to Anna and Tara for raising £626 and Avril for completing several commissions at the end
of the year – 5 dog coats, 2 toilet roll covers and 2 pairs of gloves.
We are still benefiting from having an online presence, where donations at the checkout via PayPal brought
in £1,386.83 and via Benevity where we received donations of £223.20.

We have nearly 2,000 second-hand items for sale on our eBay store rosieinstitches2010. We have items of
clothing and toys for sale on our website
We have just created a blog area on our website where we are sharing news about our recent purchases for
The Rosie and some of the voluntary work we have been doing.

In discussion: One customer has commented that she was disappointed not to have anything available to buy
on her antenatal visits.
A midwife responded that it is a health and hygiene issue that there are no sales tables allowed.
Could we have a sales table outside?

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.
AOB: Requests for future purchases: clocks for Clinic 21 assessment rooms; more Resus dolls as parents of
babies with nasal gastric tubes are going to be trained to use them, 2 for Lady Mary and 8 for the
community midwives.

DATE OF NEXT MEETING:
Monday March 9th 2026, 12.00 pm

The meeting closed at 1.45pm and we then visited the delivery unit to see the Sky panels and bed chairs which we had bought.