A rewarding year for the Charity Committee

Summary

Overall, £160k distributed, 90% of that to directly support young people working towards careers in our three industries and to promote STEM to school students.
We made awards to 29 young people, including 11 student bursaries and 10 apprentices.
Coachmaking – additional grants to support two people to continue the skills of collar making and harness making
Automotive – our Cranfield M.Sc project helped three students directly into Formula One teams.
Aerospace – we have two new aerospace awards funded by Lockheed Martin.
We have interacted with 1,000+ pupils during the year.
We raised £50k at the Charity Fundraising Banquet, including £10k at the silent auction, a Coachmakers’ record.
Regular fundraising now supports three student awards.

Annual report

As we near the end of the Livery Year 2024/25 it seems a good time to reflect on the work of your Charity Committee and Sub-Committees over the previous 12 months.

The Charity Committee puts into practice the Company strapline – ‘an active Livery investing in young people’, focussing on changing the lives of young people working towards, or already in, careers in our affiliated industries of coachmaking and coach harness making, automotive and aerospace.

We also promote STEM subjects to school age students to engage them with careers in engineering. This year we distributed around £160k with over 90% of that going to these key areas. We also support our affiliated military units and various City of London institutions. We have three objectives for our 350th year and are making progress in all areas.

Increasing the number of awards to 35

This year we have made 29 awards to students and young people across all three industries, covering bursaries, apprentices and skills-specific training courses. Those who attended the relevant sector dinners will have seen these outstanding young people receive their awards and had the opportunity to meet them in person.

With all our awards we aim to help young people do or achieve something they could not have done without our support. All our award winners have the right to work in the UK.

In coachmaking, harness making and carriage driving we made new awards to support young people in collar-making and harness-making, in addition to existing awards in carriage driving and to students at Capel Manor training for careers in leatherwork.

In automotive, we made awards for design students at masters and undergraduate levels, the latter funded by the Sir William Lyons Trust, with both awards judged at the RCA. In automotive engineering, we provided funds for a team of Cranfield Motorsports Masters’ students to completely rebuild a 1983 Formula Ford racing car: at least three of that group are joining Formula One teams on graduating. We funded an undergraduate summer research project at Brunel University. We also supported five apprentices at the Heritage Skills Academy, and apprentices working on restoring classic Bentleys funded by Bentley Mulliner.

In aerospace, we made four awards to aerospace students at undergraduate, masters and doctorate levels across several universities, all subject to a rigorous selection process. We also supported young aircraft mechanics achieve their Part 66 aircraft maintenance licence, funded by Aerotron, as well as supporting heritage aircraft restoration skills and heritage flying. We are grateful to Lockheed Martin for funding two new awards in engineering and aircraft maintenance.

We seek to add to our monetary awards through the strength of the Livery in our associated industries, including mentoring and career support for award winners. A number have joined the Company as under-35 members.

Promoting STEM: Connecting with 350 young people

The second objective for our 350th year is to connect directly with 350 young people to enthuse them about careers in engineering, the lifeblood of our modern industries.

We continue to fund the Saturday Engineering Club at Kingston University and the Makerspace Challenge at ICL’s White City Campus, both drawing on the less advantaged from their surrounding areas. At Brooklands Museum we ran workshop activities for students and a careers stand at the Innovation Academy, a high-profile event led by Professor Brian Cox which attracted 400 students. At the Science Museum’s Skills Fair we also ran a stand with the ‘plug game’ challenge, as well as taking part in panels with larger groups of students. We continue to support the Livery Careers Showcase, held in the Guildhall, where we engaged with further groups of young people.

All together we engaged with more than 1,000 students. There is more that we can do in this area: next year we will support further STEM days to be held at Brooklands that will be delivered by the Kingston University Outreach team.

Getting young people into employment

Our third objective for our 350th anniversary year is to get five young people into employment in one of our associated sectors. Having looked for a suitable way to meet that challenge we have now engaged with the GASP Motor Project.

Established 20 years ago, GASP works with some of Surrey’s most challenged and disadvantaged children, offering courses in motor mechanics and engineering ranging up a full academic year. Our funding, starting in the coming Livery year, will enable it to offer a second year to its programme and to be IMI accredited, so that students leave with a recognised qualification. We will also support students where the funding is not there for the full year.

Our partner organisations

We aim to form long-term relationships with universities and other partner organisations, bringing industry connections and other benefits to the organisations we work with. Currently, these include the following universities: Brunel, City, Coventry, Cranfield, Imperial College London, Kingston, Queen Mary University London, Royal College of Arts, and The University of East London.

We also work with the following institutions with whom we share aims and objectives: Brooklands Museum, Capel Manor College, Heritage Skills Academy, Livery Schools Link, and The Science Museum.

Funding

This year has been a successful year for fundraising, led by the Fundraising Committee. With the committee’s efforts we now have regular donations from members that, together with the continuing proceeds of the John Pearl 100 Club, provide direct funding for three awards. The Charity Fundraising Banquet generated proceeds of around £50k, including over £10k from a silent auction, which received high levels of engagement from those attending and others bidding remotely.

All these receipts will go to fund the increased awards and other activities up to, in, and beyond our 350th year. Thank you to all who have supported our charitable fundraising this year, your support is invaluable, and thanks also to members of the Fundraising Committee for their efforts.

Conclusion

This has been a productive and exciting year for our charitable activities. Thank you to everyone working on the Charity Committee, its Sub-committees, and those who have volunteered in various ways. There is a lot more to do as we move towards our 350th anniversary and beyond. Much of the need is for people to be active in delivering our programmes rather than joining a committee.

For those who might not have seen it, the following link is to the video put together for the annual Charity Fundraising Banquet, hearing first-hand from some of our recent award winners:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FdQtxXKmE64

It is immensely rewarding to help change young people’s lives: if that is of interest please email at: charity@coachmakers.co.uk