2022

APCO Foundation Chairperson’s Report.

Kindness is doing what we can where we can with what we have. The APCO Foundation reviewed our mission statement and our constitution over the past 12 months to give us focus on what we can do in our communities.

Our new mission statement is quite simple;

THE APCO FOUNDATION PTY LTD WILL AS A GROUP
(Involving support office staff, retail partners and their employees)
focus on kindness in our Apco communities by giving financial support to individuals families and projects.

This mission statement gives us more clarity for the direction the foundation will follow in the coming years. It is especially important that we include the community surrounding our sites and support those around us. To do this we need to do two things.

1. We need to increase our communication and awareness of the foundation and what we are doing with our support office, our retail partners, and their employees.

2. We need to raise awareness in the communities around us so that they can contact us directly for help.

This gives us a clear focus on the direction the foundation will take over the next twelve months.

Our constitution needed to be looked at and I would like to thank Alicia Carroll for the help and expertise she brought to this project. It was a lot of work and without Alicia this would have been beyond us. The existing Constitution is of a general nature commonly used for commercial/for profit companies and many of its provisions are unnecessary or do not align with the charitable nature of the Foundation. The new Constitution now defines the purposes of the Foundation, the Trustees role and how the Trustee will operate to achieve the Foundation’s purposes and the processes to be followed. The new constitution also thinks about the future of the foundation and how it will continue to operate.

Coming off a pandemic we are still down financially from where we hoped to be. We raised $159,393.14 and we donated back into the community $191,933.14. We gave away more than we earned this year but the need in our community with the pandemic continuing is ever growing. We are still in a strong financial position with events set to continue in the coming year and the generous support from APCO support office and our wonderful corporate community.

Our wine walk did not go ahead again this year. The venues were under so much pressure from Covid and lack of staff that it was too much of a risk for everyone to go ahead. We are so looking forward to 2023! Race for a Reason did manage to go ahead to everyone’s relief. We had Ian Cover, Tom King, and Brian Taylor. It was a wonderful day, and everyone was just excited to see other people all in the same room and up close and personal! We raised $60,497 dollars. The support we received from our corporate community for race day was amazing and we cannot thank you enough if you were one of our major sponsors donated a fabulous auction item or just came along and supported us. Thank you everyone for a highly successful day.

Our income streams for the next financial year are:

• We have added a golf day. Eric Hancock from Asahi has been the ideas man behind this day, and we could not be organizing it without him. Golfing for Good will go ahead on Friday October 28th. A massive thank you to Eric for all the work he has been doing.

• Wine walk 11th February 2023

• Race day Friday 12 May 23

• We have Pure Wax back on board and that will be fantastic!

• Chill water and APCO Oil donating 10c

• 22c Tuesdays (22 cents from every coffee at every site sold on Tuesdays goes to the foundation.)

• We are working on a Friends of APCO project that we will give you more information on as it progresses.

• Site donation tins and Quest donation tap points.

• We have a Kindness Champ every month from APCO’s corporate partners. They donate an amount of money to The APCO Foundation from the sale one or several of their products in every APCO cafe24-7 store.

The boards main donations were to

• COTTAGE BY THE SEA

• COPS n KIDS

• BCYF

• READ THE PLAY

• FEED ME BELLARINE

I have included the complete list and amounts in an attachment at the end of this report.

The Foundation has employed Jade Augustine from Joyful Marketing as Development Co Ordinator. Jade is contracted to work one day a week for the foundation. Jade has helped us achieve many of our goals from last year.

• Our social media presence and website is fantastic with Jess from Support office posting for us on face book and Instagram 3 times a week. The new Go Boards are fantastic. They are at the entrance of the North Geelong, Newcomb, South Geelong, Waurn Ponds and Grovedale sites. They are really creating awareness for the foundation in our community. There is also a monthly snapshot of the foundation that goes out to the retail operators support office and our corporate community. We are trying to create a transparency and improve the communication of what we are doing to our APCO communities.

• We are continuing to build our income streams. We have added a golf day thanks again to Eric Hancock from Asahi. I am sure this day will be successful with both Eric and Jade developing the event. Our Quest donation tap points are trialing at 2 stores. They are not performing to what we hoped yet but we need to give them the time so we can decide. Our kindness champs have been a big winner for us and each month we have a new kindness champ supporting us. Our friends of APCO Project is beginning which means we are going to tap into the corporate communities around each site. We will keep you updated as this progresses.

We could not run the foundation without the kindness and generosity of Support Office. I would like to mention Kellie Struth who has gone beyond and above for the foundation and has been crucial to the growth of the foundation.

We are extremely excited to welcome two new board members this year. Yolande Marshall and Michelle Stocks. Yolande was involved with the foundation in its early days and with her marketing experience will be a great asset to the board. Yolande with her husband Brent are the retail partners at Skipton Street Ballarat. Having current retail partners on the board is extremely important to the board as they give us direct feedback into how what we are doing will impact the retail partner.

Michelle Stocks come to us with a great deal of experience. Michelle was the Grant making Board Member of Hesse Rural Health Service for 9 years and has volunteered each year to work at the Wine Walk with her sister Sue Berg. Michelle has a good understanding of what we are doing and will be an invaluable member of our board.

Your APCO foundation board is full of dedicated, passionate, and kind people who all bring a unique perspective to the board.  I would like to thank them for their support, and their generosity in volunteering their time and skills.  There is no way I can overestimate the importance of what I learn from these wonderful people. I and the APCO community befit from their experience wisdom and knowledge.

I am optimistic for the year ahead. We have given away over a million dollars and our goal is to do that again in half the time!

Let’s make kindness the norm!

Sharon Gleeson
APCO Foundation Chair

The Year’s Highlights

Kindness Champs

Generous support from fantastic companies. Partnerships with amazing companies.

We have a Kindness Champ every month from APCO’s corporate partners. They donate an amount of money to The APCO Foundation from the sale one or several of their products in every APCO cafe24-7 store.

2022 APCO Foundation Race for a Reason

Digital Advertising

GoBoards: On the forecourts of 6 sites spreading the awareness of the APCO Foundation. Thank you to APCO for giving us space on these fantastic digital advertising spaces.

Our Income Streams from Support Office

Previous Chairperson’s Reports

• Chairperson’s Report - 2021

• Chairperson’s Report - 2020

• Chairperson’s Report - 2019

• Chairperson’s Report - 2018