Dear Colleagues,

Accounts for the year ending 4^th April 2011 confirmed a balance of £164,789, up from £157,317 in 2009/10 and the details revealed that the Trust’s income apparently improved from £8,620 in 2010 to £13,761. However, this total included the £7,000 transferred from the Medical Society general accounts last December. This means that the net income from our investment in the Britannia Building Society has actually fallen from £8,402 in 2010 to £6,761 and that we have been left with an excess of income over expenditure of only £472.

The Britannia 2 year bond paying 4% per annum, matured in December and it seems very likely that the return on any further bond will fall to nearer 3% per annum. Thus, our income will almost certainly decline to around £4,500 a year and this means that if we are to continue the current level of bursary awards we will have to dip into the capital sum to a modest degree. This is, in fact, our intention and we trust that this approach will meet with the approval of the Society.

To date we have continued to fund two £3,000 bursaries each year. One of these remains allocated to Birmingham University Medical School and their bursary for 2010/11 was awarded to a graduate-entry student on their 5 year programme. Unfortunately, I now have to report that, due to an oversight in the Medical School, the award process for this student was never completed. Mike Gammage, the Vice Dean, has since apologised for the confusion and has assured us that they remain most grateful for the continued interest and support of our Society.

The second £3,000 bursary for 20010/11 was again advertised on the Society’s website and by poster in the Education Centre. We were also able to contact all the other 14 universities in the UK which offer a graduate-entry medicine course and last year these various approaches attracted a total of eleven applications. Ten of these applicants were undertaking graduate-entry medicine courses, two of whom had connections to the Wyre Forest area. The eleventh was a retired local GP who was seeking help in funding a 2 year research project . We chose Robyn Hill ,one of the two applicants educated locally, who is in fact on a five year medicine course because her degree in Archaeology and Anthropology from Jesus College, Cambridge did not allow her exemption from the first year of study. Robyn has now completed the first year and has subsequently written to express her gratitude to the Society for the bursary award. The report of her first year has lately been posted on the KMS website and makes interesting reading.

For the academic year which commenced last September, Birmingham Medical School have recommended a candidate, Lara Reilly, who was educated in Worcester, and your Trustees met at the end of November to consider applications from three more graduates for the second bursary. I can now confirm that we chose to make the award to Robyn Hill for a second, and final, year. This is because she had submitted a detailed financial case and, in addition, neither of the other two candidates had any strong local connections.

In conclusion, I can report that the Trustees’ management of the Society’s investments and awards was once again approved by those present at the AGM in November. However, do still feel free to get in touch if you have any other observations with regard to these matters.