First Year (2013-2014) Full Report

Introduction

Time flies and it is now a year since we started this project.  Since then, we have had many good and bad times but we would not have been able to still sustain this project without the support of all of the donors, our partners, the cafe and most importantly the people we are helping.  So we truly thank you!

Here are the details of our journey so far:

Donors:

The project has been so blessed with a lot of supporters and one of form support without which this project cannot do without is donation:

We would like to thank our regular donors who would like to remain anonymous:
N.M.
M.S.
S.S.
S.A.

Between them, we normally have an average income of £115 per month for most months.

We also would like to thank our next batch of donors - they were the initial donors.  Without their belief in this project, it would not even have started:

Gordon McGill
Alex Chai
Isniati Ali
Shereen Baird Gacem
S.A. 1
S.A. 2
S.G.
V.C.

Other donors include:
Sadhia Sarwar
Norbert Jobst
Andrew Edwards
AQ
Jennifer Debbage
Chris Carr
And several anonymous donors

We really thank you all for your continuing support.

Partners:

We started this project, working with 3 different organisations:
1. Bethany Christian Trust
2. One Parent Family Scotland
3. Saheliya

for the benefit of their clients.  We subsequently approached Rock Trust who welcomed our initiative.  We are still working with Aroma Cafe to provide the meal to the needy at £5.  

Events:

Other than regular donations, we have had two bake sales with the support of Edinburgh Central Mosque, once in February 2014 and the other in June 2014.  We are grateful also to the support of those who volunteered by (1) baking the lovely cakes and/or (2) manning the stalls.  For our two bake sales, we spent out of our own pocket £15.

We also launched our website http://mealonme.webs.com/ early this year.  

Accounts/Disbursement of vouchers:

As always, we are publishing the last quarter's accounts, starting with the donations received in cash (which is later transferred to the bank):

Cash		Pound
Date	Description	Dr	Cr
4/4/2014	NM	£50.00
4/25/2014	Chris Carr	£30.00
4/25/2014	Jennifer Debbage	£10.00
4/25/2014	Anonymous	£6.00
4/28/2014	Transfer to Bank		-£96.00
4/28/2014	Total April	£96.00	-£96.00
5/4/2014	NM	£50.00
5/28/2014	Transfer to Bank		-£50.00
5/28/2014	Total May	£50.00	-£50.00
6/4/2014	NM	£50.00
6/6/2014	Bake Sale Profits	£220.00
6/28/2014	Transfer to Bank		-£270.00
6/28/2014	Total June	£270.00	-£270.00

Then there is the donations received through online banking or paypal:

Bank Statement		Pound
Date	Description	Dr	Cr
4/3/2014			-£300.00
4/8/2014	MS	£10.00
4/20/2014	SS	£5.00
4/24/2014	SA	£50.00
4/28/2014	Transferred from cash	£96.00
4/28/2014	Total April	£806.17	-£300.00
4/28/2014	Balance C/F	£506.17
5/3/2014	Paid to Aroma Café		-£300.00
5/8/2014	MS	£10.00
5/20/2014	SS	£5.00
5/24/2014	SA	£50.00
5/28/2014	Transferred from cash	£50.00
5/28/2014	Total May	£621.17	-£300.00
5/28/2014	Balance C/F	£321.17
6/3/2014	Paid to Aroma Café		-£300.00
6/3/2014	MS	£10.00
6/4/2014	SS	£5.00
6/24/2014	SA	£50.00
6/28/2014	Transferred from cash	£270.00
6/28/2014	Total June	£656.17	-£300.00
6/28/2014	Balance C/F	£356.17

As at end of June, we had £356.17 in the bank.  To date, we have £520.04 but the accounts for July will be published in another update.  Previous quarters' accounts can be found on our blog.

To date, we have distributed 612 vouchers, worth £3060 but only 276 vouchers were redeemed.  The following are the breakdown by the month they were issued:

Issue Date	No. of Vouchers Given to Organizations	Value per vaucher (Pound)	Pound Total		Cash Given to Cafe	No. Of Vouchers Collected	Total Value of collected vouchers (Pound)		Value of Vouchers to be collected (Pound)	No. Of Vouchers to be collected
7/31/2013	40	5	£200.00		£300.00	29	£145.00		£155.00	31
8/1/2013	20	5	£100.00		£-	17	£85.00		-£85.00	-17
9/3/2013	72	5	£360.00		£360.00	31	£155.00		£205.00	41
10/2/2013	90	5	£450.00		£450.00	38	£190.00		£260.00	52
11/2/2013	90	5	£450.00		£450.00	47	£235.00		£215.00	43
1/31/2014	60	5	£300.00		£300.00	30	£150.00		£150.00	30
2/28/2014	60	5	£300.00		£300.00	36	£180.00		£120.00	24
3/29/2014	60	5	£300.00		£300.00	26	£130.00		£170.00	34
4/29/2014	60	5	£300.00		£300.00	12	£60.00		£240.00	48
5/31/2014	60	5	£300.00		£300.00	10	£50.00		£250.00	50
Total	612	5	£3,060.00		£3,060.00	276	£1,380.00		£1,680.00	336

We will be holding a meeting with our partners on 2/8 to better understand why their clients are not using more of the vouchers.  As such we have not distributed vouchers for June.

Membership:

We started out this journey with only Sharon and myself.  But since March this year, we were joined by Miss Maria Semper who is enthusiastic about the project and has always been a firm supporter even before she joined our team.

To date, we have organised ourselves as follows:
Sharon Gray    - Chairwoman
Shidrati Ali       - Secretary
Maria Semper  - Treasurer

Please contact us at mealonme.edinburgh@gmail.com if you have any enquiries about the project.  You may also find more information about us in our website or facebook page.

Thank you.