Jai Jinendra,
Having slowly settled into the Treasurer role, I thought it would be a good to do a quick review and round-up of Oshwal Finances.
Strength in Numbers
Thanks to the very generous support by you, our Association is in a strong Financial position. Having spent approx. £5 million over the last few years we have achieved huge milestones for our Association. Purchase of Ekta Centre & Shakti Centre and the Oshwal Centre Refurbishments, being some of the biggest capital expenditure undertaken by the Association in recent years.
Project Finance
Our Association has some huge projects to undertake in the coming years, like the refurbishment of Oshwal House (in line with legal requirements under Listed Building guidelines), extension to Ekta Centre & Shakti Centre, purchase of a new property in South Area, to name a few. All these will reduce our current cash reserves significantly and we will only be able to undertaken these projects with the strong support of all our Oshwal Members.
Welfare Work Finances
Beyond the capital expenditure, our Association has many recurring costs relating to regular welfare work undertaken by Areas and the EC. Such as Youth Sports Clubs, Gujarati schools, Anand Yatra, Elderly programmes, Sports & Social club for those with Special Needs, to name a few of the various Welfare work-streams undertaken by our Association. Financial underpinning of these work-streams, is largely based on programme fees, donations both one-off donations and £120 Scheme donations.
Beyond Youth Sports & Gujarati School, our Association is developing new work-streams for Youth Culture through the re-launch of Oshwal Volunteer Group. Financial underpinning of this work-stream will be largely be based on £120 Scheme donations. It is imperative that we increase the £120 Scheme members significant to ensure long-term success of these welfare work streams.
Event Finance
Our Association has a busy schedule planned for various diverse community events over the next few years, like Fashion Show, Mela, Health Day, Enterprise Programme, Youth Treks, Medical Camp, to name a few. Again, none of these programmes would be possible without the strong and generous support of all our Oshwal Members. Please look out for more details about these programmes over the next few months and support our Association as much as you can.
Help us reduce costs!
As part of continuous review of our costs, we found that making transactions by cash and/or cheque is costing our Association significantly high bank charges, compared to that of electronic transactions, i.e. with Debit or Credit cards. To this end, we are working on rolling out card readers at Areas and urge Oshwal Members to use their Debit, Credit or Contactless cards when making payments.
Thank you,
Ashish Jayantilal Patani, OAUK Hon. Treasurer
