Over the last year we have continued receive core funding from Reading Borough Council and Slough Primary Care NHS Trust, as well as funding from the following sources:

A donation of £254.51 from The Wynford Arms and its customers through a series of fund raising events.

£155.49 received from collection tins at The Dove.

We also received regular donations from our supporters totalling £200.

At the end of last year we saw a significant rise in our rental costs which along with a reduction in our income has wiped out our limited reserves. beYOU will struggle to meet its projected costs for the rest of this grant year.

Whilst we have increased our grant applications with some success, this money has been granted for specific projects such as our IT project and therefore cannot be used for core funding.

These problems have caused us to re-evaluate our annual budget. We have used this opportunity to add costs such as volunteer travel expenses and other running costs which have until now be paid for out of volunteers own pockets.

As a result have a much more realistic idea of what beYOU costs to run per year. Our turnover used to be around £5000 per annum but a more realistic figure is around £13000. This new budget will obviously be a considerable challenge for us but one I feel we can meet.

Maria Ottway beYOU treasurer maria@beyou.org.uk