Dear Friends and Fellow Meditators,
ANNUAL APPEAL – PLEASE HELP US TO CONTINUE OUR MISSION
Thank you for reading this annual appeal letter and helping us to continue to share the gift of meditation. We are so grateful to our community for the donations we do receive although this year, in common with many other charities, our income has reduced. As you might expect, we are doing our best to minimise costs and endeavouring to find other ways to raise funds too.
We are conscious that not everyone knows what your donations are used for and so we wanted to use this appeal letter to clarify how your donation provides us with operating funds for our work. As you probably know, in the UK we are an almost entirely voluntary community where our resources are used
to support existing and encourage new meditators. This involves teams working together, such as the groups themselves, Area Teams supporting local groups, with the National Coordinating Team and the National Council supporting all of us. In addition, our meditation School offers Essential Teaching Workshops, Silent Retreats and Introductory Courses. Quiet Days, other events and special projects are also offered across the UK either locally or nationally. The Communications team collates articles and publishes both the print and the online version of the Newsletter and manages the website which enables enquirers to find local groups.
There are obviously financial aspects in offering all that we do to stay connected with UK meditators and the international community. This requires an administrator, renting a desk and phone line, a Zoom account, filing space, external accountant’s fees, insurance cover, website costs, postage etc. We underwrite UK events like the UK Gathering and some local events. We also subsidise the School events to make them affordable, including offering bursaries, and of course there are other costs associated with running a charity. Meditators can request help and resources such as bookmarks, the
introductory leaflet, promotional cards, posters, the booklet Christian Meditation, Your Daily Practice by Fr Laurence, and there are many online resources https://wccm.uk/resources/. Our Trustees support the whole community by ensuring that we are fulfilling our legal, financial and strategic obligations.
Many UK meditators appreciate these resources and the support they receive and without your generosity, both in time and money, we would not be able to facilitate the UK community as we do.
Returning to the annual appeal, how can you help?
In practical terms, you can donate, either once or recurring, in several ways:
- Through this website at https://wccm.uk/donate or clicking the button below.
- By bankers (standing) order – contact the UK Office for details.
- By cheque – contact the UK Office for details.
If you already contribute by standing order, thank you for continuing to do so. And if you are a UK tax payer please consider gift aiding your donation – it provides a significant additional income to the UK community.
By donating in any of these ways you will be supporting WCCM in the UK.
Going forward, we will continue to encourage meditation groups and individuals to think of ways to fundraise that are fun and rewarding for their community, such as lunches, quiet days, a ‘loose change’ collection etc. We have also set up a link with the UK’s largest charity fundraising site – Easy Fundraising. It’s a simple way to fundraise for us without any cost to you and we hope you will be able to nominate WCCM in the UK as your chosen charity when you spend online. The link to our page is
https://www.easyfundraising.org.uk/cause/wccm-in-the-uk/.
Once again, thank you for meditating and using the gifts you receive to share this with others, however you do that. And if you also volunteer practically in any way, thank you so much for that too, as being the almost entirely voluntary community in the UK that we are, where would be without you?
With very best wishes and thanks for all you do and give,
Rosalind Stockley,
Chair of the Trustees