On Monday 20th November, Legacy WM hosted its Annual General Meeting at KPMG in the centre of Birmingham. The weather outside may have been on the chilly side, but all attendees were sure of a warm welcome when they came along to review Legacy’s achievements for the last year, and hear about our future plans. There is so much to celebrate, but we’re not resting on our laurels, and we are eager to reach out and engage with more and more people as we continue to focus on our key aims: wellbeing, the arts, heritage and families. We could write an essay about each of the projects we’ve worked on this year, but we’ll just give a flavour here of a few highlights. The ‘Family Fit’ project has worked with local schools, community centres and local residents and have seen wonderful separate projects flourish … The ‘Daily Mile’ has 600 + children running every day, ‘Chair Zumba’ has been delivered to a vulnerable group of elderly people and Memory Cafés have been facilitated in partnership with the Dementia Society. We have obtained three years funding from Heritage Lottery Fund and Historic England to focus on our heritage strand and develop the existing heritage trail. Building on our heritage strand we have obtained European funding to take our ‘Old Wives Tales’ across Europe. The project is called ‘Grandma’s Story’ and we are developing a tool kit to assist others wishing to develop similar projects. We have continued to develop our arts strand and this year we developed a dance piece for young people that was performed at the annual Nowka Bais. We also worked with THSH and invited Shapla Salique to perform in the Town Hall, and we plan to expand our arts offer over the next twelve months. Surely the highlight of the evening was when we celebrated some of the volunteers and participants involved in our projects. The commitment and passion of our volunteers lies at the heart of everything that Legacy WM does, and everyone who attended the AGM commented on how profoundly moving it was to hear the stories of a just a few of the wonderful Legacy WM volunteers, and also to hear how projects had impacted onto people’s lives. It was a key aim of our AGM to ensure that these achievements were recognised and rewarded. It was fantastic to see so many people in attendance on the night. As well as the more formal part of the AGM, the presentations and the awards, there was also a more informal part where people had the chance to get together, catch up, share stories and build networks. Thanks to everyone who came along, we are looking forward to continuing to work with you in the coming year, and would like to say thank you very much for your ongoing support!
