This annual report is for the members of Literacy Aotearoa Wellington Incorporated. It covers the work of both the Voluntary and the Contract funded programme. The two arms of our organisation respectively offer adult literacy services

• Through volunteers to part time learners; and
• Through paid professional staff to students who are paid for by a variety of government contracts and community agencies.

During 2003 82 students were enrolled with Literacy Aotearoa Wellington for Voluntary Programme assistance, of whom 54 received tuition. The balance of learners (28), are waiting for an available tutor. There were 31 returning voluntary learners from 2002. This is an increase on numbers in 2003.

We currently have 61 tutors working with the voluntary programme with an additional 29 tutors resting. We had 3 initial tutor training sessions in 2003, with a total of 42 people attending the training. There is a good interest in tutoring from the public and we are aiming to run at least two initial tutor training sessions this year. We had a great response from erecting a literacy advertisement banner on the Aotea Quay over-bridge from 8 September to 22 September 2003, which promoted recruitment of Voluntary tutors and literacy programmes offered. We will look to do the same thing this year.

Given the dispersed nature of our volunteer tutors, one of the issues facing the organisation is how to maintain contact with our tutors, not only to ensure that their learning partnerships are going well but also to provide ongoing training and support. In this regard, I would like to acknowledge Mary Silvester and Marian Petrie for their hard work during the year in maintaining contact with tutors, supporting them and further developing on-going training for them.

The contract funded programme, Whaia te Ara Ako, has an approved increase of student numbers from 15 to 19, so we have a minimum of 19 places for full time learners 2004. There is a flexible funding policy in place to ensure continuity of funding throughout the year. Thus, the programme can have up to 23 learners. We were able to achieve and maintain our minimum last year of 15 students.

Literacy Aotearoa Wellington renewed its WINZ contract for another 6 months, providing places for a minimum of 8 learners and a maximum of 10. The programme delivers Literacy and Numeracy skills and the outcomes are very achievable for LAW and clients.

Literacy Aotearoa Wellington undertook a joint programme with Viclink Ltd, delivering Computer Literacy training to 24 people registered with the Computers in the Homes project 2003, within the Wellington region.

The project was a great success in terms of learner outcome, and content delivery was of a very high quality.

Looking ahead, LAW needs to find another project sponsor to run this programme again. Computer Literacy is becoming an integral part of any ICT (Information and Communication Technology) community project. LAW is equipped and established for the purpose of Literacy and Numeracy skills at community level.

Literacy/Budgeting is incorporated into many of our Literacy programmes, however, we have occasionally delivered a Literacy/Budgeting module on its own.

We find most community groups want more than just a budgeting module, therefore, last year, the Whanau Literacy programme had the budget module as part of their 3 day programme.

In December 2003, we trialled an Alternative Education Youth programme, and from that trial, finalized a contract between the Alternative Education consortium and LAW. The programme, has 1 client, and they have gone well, so far and we look forward to a continuation of this in 2004

I would like to congratulate the staff for a very successful NZQA audit result. It is no doubt, in large, due to the hard work of tutors and Management. The Audit report came back with all requirements being met and only three recommendations.

Those recommendations were implemented, and an action planned submitted to the NZQA auditor. The auditor confirmed, LAW will not need to be audited until June 2005.

Deborah Balmer resigned in July 2003 to pursue other interests. The Executive Board moved quickly as possible to fill the position, and appointed a manager September 2003. During the interim, both arms of the organisation were ably managed and co-ordinated by Dave Spence as interim manager. We would like to acknowledge the hard work that Dave put into managing Literacy Aotearoa Wellington during this difficult time, and extend the thanks of the Executive Board to him for his efforts. In September 2003, the Executive Board appointed Humphrey Wikeepa to the position of manager. (Humphrey’s has an extensive background in IT Software Development, spanning the last 16 years, and more recently, software development in online internet solutions. He has an interest in Classical and Ragtime guitaring, Golf as a sport, and grandchildren to tie up any spare time in the weekends wit his partner Linda.) He has come up to speed very quickly and guided the organisation through its day to day operations. The Executive Board would also like to extend our thanks to him and his efforts during the past 7 months.

As an organisation we remain completely dependent on external funding sources to provide our current level of services. While it is gratifying that more government contracts seem to be focussing on acquiring basic literacy skills, the evident trend of decreased funding generally for social policy/education initiatives was, and remains, a matter of considerable concern to us. Nevertheless, we are extremely grateful to the following contributors for grants that helped us get through 2003 :

• Literacy Aotearoa (who allocated our share of Ministry of Education Funding granted on a national basis)
• Wellington City Council (with a grant from the Community Services Fund)
• Community Organisation Grants Scheme
• Community Education Funding from the Ministry of Education (used for Tutor training, Te Reo classes and Drivers Licence classes
• T G McArthy Trust
• Lotteries Welfare Wellington
• Alexander Trust- Turnbull Library

We must also acknowledge Tertiary Education Commission (formerly Skill NZ) who monitor and administer Whaia te Ara Ako, and have done a great job of supporting this programme

Financial management is always an important aspect of not-for-profit organisation such as Literacy Aotearoa Wellington, and with the funding from traditional sources decreasing or remaining static, the Executive Committee is conscious of the need to find new funding sources in order for the organisation to grow. This has been one of the key goals in the Strategic Plan.

We have and will continue to actively apply for funding from a range of sources and also actively pursuing contracts with government agencies. We have recently been successful in obtaining a contract in conjunction with Wellington, Alternative Education Consortium, to provide literacy and numeracy up-skilling for learners 14 to 15.9 years old.

By October 2003, the Manager, Treasurer and Co-Chair were able to see the opportunity to implement Financial Reserves, and as such, we managed to put $40k in total into ($20k into 12 month and $20k into 90 day) investment plans with the National Bank, earning 5.6 and 5.1 percent interest respectively.

This achievement has been possible due to the following;

1. Reducing contract staff and their expenses.
2. Matching learners lesson plans with learner’s resources so we knew exactly what resources to provide for CFP or VFP programmes.
3. Standardising pay rates.
4. Setting a realistic Operational Budget for the WINZ (TKP) contract, which saw a profit of $15k being achieved. We had already factored the profit margin prior to TKP starting.
5. Introducing Operational policies and procedures as part of the strategic plan to improve Management and staff performance.
6. The contribution of Board members time, to carry out, undertake and implement administrative tasks, in support of the Manager and staff.

As noted at the last AGM a key area of work for the organisation was to put in place a 3-5 year Strategic Business Plan for the organisation. The Executive Committee had felt that it was necessary to develop some key goals and accompanying objectives to provide direction. The plan was formulated in 2002 in conjunction with Learners, Staff and Voluntary team, and a recent review of progress has shown that a large number of the objectives that were set have already been achieved. It is hoped to have another planning day in April or May.

I would like to extend the thanks to the Executive Committee, and Staff, Mary Silvester, Evie Temara, Atawhai Li, David Bailey, Heather Reiss, Paul and Wendy Mather, Shirley Wilson, Alison Grant, Marie Cheetham and Jane Norman, for all their hard work in maintaining the quality standard of service LAW provides to its clients and stakeholders.

Tony Johns and Elizabeth Richardson

Co-Chairs

March 2004