A great deal is happening at the Botanic Garden: the new large vegetable garden beds, planning for a spectacular double mixed border and then medicinal plant beds in the Walled Garden. At the Arboretum work continues on Palmer’s Leys and a much-improved car park is in sight once planning permission is granted. The Garden has been very successful in its fund raising but the Friends also play a key role in supporting essential components of the Garden strategy that are less attractive to grant giving bodies and by matching grants that provide the leverage for outside funding. Our efforts to increase our income from subscriptions and events together with more robust financial forecasting mean that we can now make substantially greater commitments to exciting new projects. We will be reporting in further newsletters. Annual General Meeting 2009 As usual the AGM will be at Nuffield College and will take place on Tuesday 13th October. It will be followed by another illustrated talk by Timothy Walker on the history of the Botanic Garden: The First Hundred Years. The agenda is unusually detailed this year because of the need to reflect the requirements of the Companies Act 2006 and current Charity Commission expectations of best practice. The changes in wording are taken directly from the model documents on the Charity Commission website together with several small changes proposed for operational reasons. A summary of the Annual Accounts 2008-2009 is also posted on our website. The full Memorandum and Articles and also the Annual Report and Accounts can be inspected at the Garden Office by arrangement with our administrator. 
The Garden needs more Friends Anna Nasmyth who is leading our campaign to increase our membership writes: Can you help us recruit 500 new Friends this year? We are asking all Friends to work as “Ambassadors for the Garden” and to promote the excellent benefits of membership. There are ever more reciprocal arrangements with other botanic gardens, a new benefit of 10% discount in the Garden shop and new members paying by direct debit (or current members who convert to direct debit) now receive an initial 15 months’ membership for the price of 12 (as do current members converting to Direct Debit). In March and April we recruited over 100 new Friends, which is a good beginning; I would like to thank all those who helped with this. We need the extra income these new Friends will provide to support the Garden’s special projects, including a substantial contribution towards landscaping the Arboretum Car Park (subject to planning approval). This is in addition to the support the Friends already give towards the Garden’s running costs, schools education programme, staff development, infrastructure and plant management costs. Please help us achieve our target. If we all introduced one new Friend to the Garden we would more than double our membership. Let’s do it! If you know someone who would like to join us, please contact the Friends Administrator on 01865 286690 or secretary@fobg.org.uk or download an application form from www.botanic-garden.ox.ac.uk/friends. Thank you very much for your help. An Electronic Bulletin The last issue of the Newsletter promised the launch of an electronic bulletin in May. Technical matters and the pressures of other administration have resulted in delays. We hope soon to be able to produce informative and attractive bulletins. It would be very helpful to have assistance from a volunteer with knowledge of desk top publishing. Could anyone who might be interested please contact Richard Mayou 01844 201885 or richard.mayou@nuffield.ox.ac.uk Garden Visits Organiser Would anyone be interested in taking over organising the visits to gardens and places of interest next year? It is a very interesting and rewarding but not too arduous role, which takes you to new gardens and other places which might be suitable for visits. It could be a single person with assistance from one or two others. It could also easily and happily be run by two people, sharing the advance viewing of potential gardens and the organisation of the visits, whilst allowing flexibility for personal commitments. Others are willing to help on the day
of visits. Most of the work is between February and October, visiting new gardens and arranging the programme. There is a break in the summer and through the winter. The new person/people would be fully supported in the first year by Jane Annett, the present organizer. Very basic computer skills are necessary. Crystal Dobson, who is responsible for the very efficient booking procedure, is very helpful.Jane has enjoyed organizing the visits, having been enormously helped initially by her predecessor, Joanna Matthews. However, Jane now feels it is time for someone else with new ideas to take the visits forward into new directions. If you would like to learn more about what is required, then please do contact Jane: janeannett123@hotmail.com or leave a message with our Administrator at the Garden. How we help the Garden This report is a financial perspective on the role of the Friends in supporting the Oxford Botanic Garden and Harcourt Arboretum. As you will know, the Botanic Garden, with the encouragement of the University, has expanded its activities in recent years to provide access and education to the public. However there has been no corresponding change in the annual grant from the University and so the Garden needs to find about 50% of its total annual running costs from alternative sources. These include admission charges, donations for specific educational activities, grants from charitable trust funds and regular annual contributions from the Friends. This annual contribution to basic, or core, activities from the Friends is currently £45,000 and represents about 10% of the Garden’s funding gap. Each year the Directors of the Friends agree with the Garden management the key items in the Garden budget that the Friends money should be used to support. These may include improvements to the facilities, staff development, public education programmes or management of the plant collection. At present annual subscriptions from Friends produce an income of around £70,000, including tax recovered under the government’s gift aid scheme. After spending about £25,000 on the Newsletters and general administration, this leaves £45,000 to finance the agreed core Garden expenditure items. Independent of the Friends annual accounts, there is also continuing income for the Garden of around £15,000 per year from the Trust fund that the Friends established some years ago to support the salary of an education officer. Additionally the Friends organise special events, such as concerts, a plant sale, and visits to local gardens, which generate funds. In the last two years much of this extra income has been used to respond to the unexpected, and not to be missed, opportunity to purchase the 50 acres of Palmer’s Leys, land adjacent to the Arboretum. The Garden needed to act very quickly and the Friends made an immediate commitment to raise £125,000, the larger part of the purchase price, by the end of 2008. A combination of appeal donations and income from special events allowed this to be achieved with several months to spare. In this way the Friends were able to go well beyond their usual annual contribution to the costs of core Garden activities, and make a major contribution to the enhancement of Garden and Arboretum for the benefit of future generations. Going forward, the Trustees want to ensure that the Friends continue to play an important role in the funding of the Garden. This will be achieved in three ways: 
The first medium sized project is a commitment to raise £50,000 to help redevelop and improve the car park at the Arboretum. As a result of this initiative by the Friends, the Garden has managed to obtain financial pledges from others to cover the total redevelopment cost. Income from Friends special events will for the time being be committed to achieving this promised contribution. In the future, our ability to increase our membership and the success of special events will determine the ability of the Friends to finance further medium size projects. From time to time, the Garden is able to raise directly significant funds from other donors, which depend on matching contributions by the Friends. For example in 2008/9, an extra £19,000 was obtained by the Garden based on a donation from the Friends of £2,000. The existence of the Friends allows the Garden to take advantage of such opportunities as they arise. The Friends financial accounts do not show this leveraged benefit and therefore understate our true contribution to the Garden. Finally, in the Friends section of the Garden website there is now a page which sets out, in a reader friendly way, the latest financial accounts of the Friends. This will be updated each summer well before the Friends’ Annual General Meeting. I hope you will find it informative. Palmers Leys It is now over two years since the Friends’ Appeal enabled the Garden to purchase the 50 historic acres of Palmers Leys. Much has already been done to restore and improve the arable land to woodland and meadow: a floral survey by an undergraduate, planting 20 acres with 13,500 trees and ploughing a further 10 acres which have been sown with wild flower seed, some harvested from the existing meadow. Kim Wilkie, who is responsible for both the Garden and Arboretum landscape designs, has extended his plans. The appropriately named wild flower expert, Charles Flowers, is advising on the restoration of the meadow. Sheep and deer fencing has been erected. There have been many tours and it is expected that visitors will soon have much greater access. | 
