Page 99 - The Wish Stream Year of 2020 Crest

The Sandhurst Trust...Mark Time!
Vaughan Kent-Payne
It hardly seems relevant to report that 2020 was a difficult year for The Sandhurst Trust. After a bumper year in 2019 when the char-
ity disbursed £107,000 and generated revenue from 234 events, our activities ground to a halt, along with most of the country, in March. Faced with greatly reduced income, the charity took advantage of the Chancellor’s generous Fur- lough Scheme and laid off the whole staff for the remainder of the year. This, together with our existing grants, our membership donations and shop sales ensured that we will rise from the ashes in 2021.
However, it wasn’t all doom and gloom as The Trust had accumulated healthy reserves during 2018 and 19 and so were able to carry out more limited disbursement during the year. In total we provided grants to the tune of £55,706 as follows:
Welfare
UK Officer Cadets International Cadets RMAS community Grants to other charities
Leadership
Leadership RMAS Leadership Members Leadership Staff Sports
Wider Leadership
£33,073
£5,629 £24,502 £520 £2,422
£22,633
£12,957 £2,320 £870 £4,780 £1,706
from their injuries. The Trust also supplies the golf buggy used to ferry injured cadets around the site ensuring they do not exacerbate lower limb injuries on the long tab from Old College to the Medical Centre. Indeed, we renegotiated the hire contract to give them an improved model for 2020.
Furthermore, on the welfare front, we are negoti- ating with the charity Walking With The Wounded to support their Head Start programme to pro- vide mental health support to retired officers with PTSD.
The Trust continues to supply the Sandhurst Medal, presented to every International cadet who has successfully completed the Regular course since September 2016. So far 376 have been presented by The Commandant and a fur- ther 421 sold by The Trust to other alumni.
Indeed, the scheme has been such a success that the Britannia Royal Naval College, Dart-
By far the largest effort for the charity was sup- porting the International cadets, many of whom are on low salaries compared with their British counterparts. To make matters worse, a combi- nation of limited finances, quarantine and flight restrictions meant that many were unable to return home for the leave periods and were, in effect, ‘marooned’ at Sandhurst for three or four weeks. I am pleased to report that these wel- fare grants at least enabled the cadets to afford a little cheer during what, for some members of CC201, was three complete leave periods.
The charity also continues to support Lucknow Platoon with grants to enable them, when possi- ble, to take part in educational and team building visits outside the Academy while they recover
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