On Saturday 13th January 2018 we held our 2016/17 AGM in Pump Room Annex, Leamington Spa. The meeting was attended by 24 members, 6 friends and 4 distinguished guests. The distinguished guests were the Mayor of Leamington Cllr Caroline Evetts and Mr John Evetts and the Chair person of the District Cllr Alan Boad and Cllr Mrs Sarah Boad.

During the short formal part of the meeting Chris King presented the accounts for the year ending March 2017. He explained that during that financial year our bank balance had remained high due to the lag in getting activities restarted after the Ebola outbreak. This year (2017/18) we had already spent some £20,000 on various projects and the bank balance was now £10,000 less.

John Archer, in his Chairman’s review reminded us all of our aims and objectives and briefly outlined all the projects undertaken this year to meet those objectives. He reported that there had been considerable activity both here in the UK and in Bo thanks to the hard work of the main committee and the teachers group. He explained that the details of these activities were to be covered in the presentation that would follow. He thanked both the town council and the district council for their continued support.

Liz Garrett and Sunita Evans from the schools subcommittee presented photographs and a video as part of their review of the group’s activity over the last 12 months. This included a visit by a group of teachers from Warwick to Bo during which all link schools were visited and training workshops held. In June the group organised the very successful Day of the African Child celebration at Lillington primary school which was attended by 500 children who were representatives of all the schools in Warwick who have a link with a school in Bo. Later in June 4 teachers from Bo visited Warwick for 2 weeks. Recently topic work books have been exchanged by all link schools between Warwick and Bo. The group are now planning their next visit to Bo which will take place in February.

In the second presentation Paul Atkins, Mair Evans, Jane Knight and Phil Clarke reviewed their recent visit to Bo which took place at the end of November. They had a very successful visit which included preparation work for the teachers visit in February, a review of all the upgrade work undertaken at the OWL centre, a review of the ongoing waste project and the support given to the Bo children’s hospital following the District Chair person charity appeal last year. They also managed to meet with the Warwick hospital maternity nurses who were in Bo to help with training and to scope future requirements as part of their charity work. Phil Clarke was in Bo to help with the organising and the running of the Urban City Planning workshop run by the Princes Trust who is developing a tool kit for urban city development.

John closed the meeting by thanking everyone for coming and their ongoing support.