In April 2025, we were joined by a new Trustee. Ignacio Quintanilla is a Peruvian business executive, resident in Madrid, whose knowledge of Peru and business experience will be of enormous value to the Trust.
Following Katharine Stansfeld’s resignation from the Administrator role in late 2024, the operational work was picked up by the Trustees. There was a great deal that we had to learn about the online systems that take care of our financial accounting, donor records and Gift Aid administration. Happily, we had the good fortune to find a new Secretary/Administrator in early 2025. Kathy Pollard offered her services in response to our appeal for a volunteer to take on the role. Kathy, who recently retired from a career in university research, has very quickly and competently picked up the administrative tasks and provided the new official address of the Trust.
For the past several years, an important part of our funding has come from a private family trust that has made half-yearly donations to us. During this year, the family trustees decided to reduce their involvement in administering the trust and, to provide long term support to the Anita Goulden Home, they transferred to us a substantial part of their capital. Our intention is to keep the endowment invested, for as long as possible, to provide income for us and the Home.
We have been fortunate to receive important extra donations from some of our regular donors, and we have been advised of legacies that will soon be paid in our favour. We feel deeply honoured to be named as a beneficiary in the wills of so many of our long-standing donors. In view of this extra income. the Trust was able to give the Home additional funding to cover most of the cost of urgent maintenance of electrical systems.
We were deeply saddened to learn of the death, in November 2025, of a young resident of the Home. Seventeen-year-old Angel had lived in the Home from the age of four. His parents were absent from his life, although we are told that an aunt visited him occasionally. Suffering from cerebral palsy and scoliosis, Angel needed to be fed by abdominal tube, and had chronic bronchitis, for which he was given daily nebulisation. In the end, despite the excellent nursing care and the treatments offered by the volunteer doctors who work with the Home, Angel died peacefully from respiratory insufficiency.
David Thomas – Chairman of Trustees – January 2026