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Annual Report and Accounts 2008
Message from the Chief Executive
November 2007 was a particularly significant
month for Samaritans bringing with it both sadness but also a sense
of renewal. The death of our Founder gave us the opportunity to
remember his remarkable achievements and celebrate his life. I feel
very privileged to have met Chad in the summer of 2007. He
was quite simply an extraordinary man. His vision – of a society in
which people were able to explore their feelings without fear or
prejudice – has touched millions of people. His legacy is
that of a strong charity which seeks to reduce the numbers of
people dying by suicide and to make expressing feelings part of
everyday conversation.
November also saw the Board of Trustees agree
to the extension of our award winning SMS text message service
throughout the organisation. By March 2009 we expect to double the
number of branches to 60 branches providing emotional support
though the medium of texting. Between April 2007 and March 2008 we
received around 132,000 texts despite the fact that the service was
not being actively advertised. We are seeing around 100 new service
users a month coming to us through word of mouth, which is a good
measure of the need for this service. My thanks to all the staff
and volunteers, who have worked so hard to ensure the success of
this project. Chad would surely approve of this innovation.
This year has seen Samaritans take two major
steps towards ensuring that we deliver a high quality
service. A new quality assurance system based on self
assessment was introduced which is already having a positive impact
in helping branches to gauge the quality of the service they
provide and to assist them in future planning. We also started a
two-year independent evaluation of Samaritans emotional support
service, which is designed to measure the efficacy and impact of
what we do. These two measures demonstrate how seriously we
take our commitment to offering a relevant and high quality service
to those that call us.
Our fundraising team exceeded our income
targets for the year. The charity’s finances have been further
strengthened through cost controls and as a result we have seen an
improvement in our reserves position. This healthier picture gave
us the confidence to make further investment in fundraising aimed
at increasing levels of longer term, more predictable income for
the future. This more stable financial base puts us in a better
position to meet the challenges of the current economic climate
whilst allowing us to start investing in initiatives to expand our
work with those in emotional distress and despair who may be at
risk of suicide.
Volunteers are central to the work of
Samaritans both in terms of service delivery and determining the
future direction of the organisation. Although we saw a small
fall in the number of volunteers in 2007 from the previous year, we
saw both an increase in the number of enquiries from potential
volunteers and an increase in the number of new volunteers who
trained during the year. On a personal level, I felt very
privileged, if not a little relieved, at passing the selection and
training as a volunteer at the Horsham and Crawley branch. I am
deeply grateful for the way that the branch welcomed and supported
me through the ten months that I spent with them on the roster,
delivering the service. It gave me a very good insight into what it
means to be a Samaritans volunteer and in understanding the unique
service that we offer to those that contact us.
Samaritans moves into our next financial year
in a confident and optimistic mood and I very much look forward to
the opportunities and challenges that we face. Drawing on the
enthusiasm and hard work of both volunteers and staff I am
confident that we will achieve what we have set out to do.
Dominic Rudd
Chief Executive, Samaritans
Read the
letter from the Chair of Samaritans