Southern Ethiopia - Gwent Health Link

Apologies.
Peter Dale, Peter Sampson, Jane Hervé, Cath Barwise, Rachel Giaccone, Sarah Norris.  

2. Minutes of last meeting.The minutes of the last meeting were agreed as an accurate record.  

3. Matters arising. Finance/Fund transfer. The Gwent fund is still not fully closed. It is expected that the £12,000 of gift aid money still owing to us will be settled before the end of October. There is an extra £1,000 coming from the Headley Trust, due to the extra activity we did last year compared to other links they support, and £2,500 from another trust fund. We are awaiting the £20,000 from the Mustse Charity and this will be used to purchase the 2 motorbike ambulances and 64 bicycles for the health extension workers.

• Fundraising. We need to raise about £5,000 this year. It is planned to repeat the packing at Morrison’s, and the Christmas cards and calendars which were very successful previously. A small group is needed to arrange this and Iestyn and Emma volunteered for this.
  
• Wales for Africa Health Links annual conference.  This was a very successful meeting and 6 members of our link attended. Our link stands very high in the Wales for Africa health link groups and has been ‘Health Link of the Month’ on the THET website for several months.
  
• The Royal College of Pathologists. This was a workshop on ‘Supporting pathology services in low-income countries’. A report has been produced and is available on their website. It was found that one of the major constraints regarding spending time overseas was not funding, but lack of consistent formal mechanisms for taking time off work and they are looking into getting trusts to recognise the value of this. It is also looking to appoint a programme leader to obtain major funding and are seeking to get a formal link with the Institute of Biomedical Science with regard to this issue
  
• Llangynidr Show. 5 link members helped out with the stall and we made £70 during the event, although the major reason for attending was to promote the link. 
  
• Website. Iestyn has volunteered for this task and has spoken to Vishnu so he can access the software in order to take over the running of the website. 
  
• Eye surgery. Biku reported that Dilla hospital has no eye cover at all except for 2 visits a year from Orbis.
  
• Health Systems Partnership Fund. Robyn has attended a meeting and said that discussions were promising. There was agreement on various matters, namely that it should not be exclusive to certain countries and should be open to small groups as well as big ones, although there would obviously be priority areas. The difficulty of getting time off work was also recognised as being a problem. They were also keen on the idea of volunteering.
  
• Wasps meeting. The Blood Transfusion Centre in Cardiff has donated some items which are used when taking blood. Dilla hospital wants to set up a blood bank so we could approach them again to see if they could help with this. 
  
• Annual Charity Commission Report. Dave Williams is in the process of putting together the report. This involves producing a statement of the finance and activity during the year.