AGM - Treasurer's Report

Treasurer's Annual Report 2019-2020 - Ben Kilby

VAPS, in 2019, reports a total loss of $2,743 for the year. This is down from profits of $2,882 in 2017 & $6,344 in 2018. VAPS is a charitable teaching association that relies on its members for support, often running events at cost to allow the greatest accessibility.

Our income has fluctuated over a three year period, but with an overall incline:

2017: $23,487
2018: $35,055 (+$10,503 for the biennial conference)
2019: $29,214

While expenses have also increased at a similar-to-greater rate than income:

2017: $20,744
2018: $32,803 (+$6,411 for the biennial conference)
2019: $31,948

Breaking down specific financial areas of the organisation, we see:

Income from membership:

2017: $8,822
2018: $10,959
2019: $7,540

Income from VAPS training:

2017: $4,498
2018: $7,406
2019: $141

Income from Events:

2017: $2,274
2018: $4,057 (+$4,092 for the biennial conference)
2019: $7,234

These financial patterns show that

Our events continue to grow in number and financial sustainability. This is due to the support of schools participating in events, as well as the volunteers who give up so much of their time to make these events work for low cost, and additionally for many of the institutions that allow VAPS access to venues for reduced or no cost. VAPS is especially thankful to The University of Melbourne, Ballarat Grammar, and Wesley College in this regard.

Our memberships and teacher training have declined over 2019.

In our teacher training courses, we have actually expanded our teacher training program and have received a higher income than in 2018 or 2017. However, our expenses for these programs have risen at an even greater rate. This is primarily due to fewer teachers participating in each course that we run, resulting in VAPS just breaking even.

Our memberships have also declined. This is most likely due to the VAPS website. The membership base of VAPS is processed through our website, and this website has gone through a series of issues. Steps are well underway for building a bigger and better website and securing our membership base going forward in 2020.

Financial declines in both memberships and teacher training show a need for VAPS enthusiasts to support the association by getting their colleagues and schools on board with memberships and participation in teacher training programs.

From 2018-2020, VAPS has been receiving a grant through the Victorian Department of Education's Strategic Partnerships Program to support regional and rural schools to access philosophy. Over three years, concluding at the end of 2020, VAPS will have received $28,542 in grant money. Currently, we have spent $3,654 to support teachers to attend our conferences in 2018 & 2020, as well as one regional school who traveled all the way from Bendigo to the Immigration Museum in Melbourne to attend our PIPS event last year. VAPS has appointed a regional officer to work specifically towards supporting teachers, schools, and students in regional Victoria with philosophical inquiry.

*NB: Even years (2018; 2020) are when VAPS hosts a biennial conference, which is a major event from a financial perspective. This can distort patterns of income and expenditure when comparing conference years to non-conference years. For this reason, Conference income and expenditure has been kept separate when comparing 2018 financial data.