COTLANDS held its 74th annual general meeting at Glenvista Country Club on September 18.
During the meeting, the focus was on four critical issues:
Capacitate – a total of 24 non-profit organisations were capacitated and supported to deliver 211 playgrounds and 24 new toy libraries as a result of the capacity building partnership between Cotlands and the provincial Departments of Social Development in Gauteng and Mpumalanga.
Evaluate – needs assessments to determine what early childhood programmes, such as early childhood development centres, need from a toy library.
Innovate – diversify mobile health clinic services to include early learning opportunities by adding a trailer, providing a toy library service to communities with no prior access to early childhood education.
Challenges – raising sufficient funds to sustain operational costs.
Chairperson of the board Dumisani Ncala said Cotlands’ success as a non-profit organisation has its roots in the proud 82-year-old history of good governance, which has been the key responsibility of the board.
“It is a voluntary association which is governed by the constitution. Our board has seen some changes during the year under review as we welcomed eight new non-executive directors who have accepted our invitation to serve with us. They have strengthened our board with investment, organisational development and business development skills,” he said.
Cotlands CEO Dr Monica Stach said scaling access to early learning opportunities requires a huge amount of commitment and high energy levels.
“During the year we proudly served 21 132 beneficiaries through toy libraries, playgrounds and our capacity building programmes. We know if we can convince a parent of the value and importance of early childhood development, we start by changing the way a community thinks, one parent at a time. Cotlands empowered 5 777 practitioners, toy librarians and parents in our capacity building workshops,” she noted.
Mike Coward, treasurer of Cotlands, said although fund-raising for non-profit organisations has been difficult, their business development team was strengthened this year and is settling down well and has made some great contributions.
“Despite making changes in our team and approach, we again incurred a small loss for the year. The key challenge for 2019 is growing the support of our local and foreign donors. We would like again to thank all donors and investors for their efforts in the past financial year. Your contribution allowed the Cotlands team to continue making meaningful change in the lives of thousands of young disadvantaged and marginalised South Africans,” he said.
Guest speaker Alistair King, the founding creative partner of King James Group, concluded the meeting, speaking about the fourth industrial revolution and what kind of skills the future workforce will need. His talk also touched on creativity. He said creativity is a highly unexpected solution to an age-old problem.
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