WATCH: Cotlands hosts 76th Annual General Meeting
Cotlands bids farewell to longstanding board members, Chairperson Dumisani Ncala and board member Michal Bolanowski.
The virtual AGM of Cotlands took place on September 8.
Dr Monica Stach, the CEO of Cotlands, welcomed all stakeholders and Cotlanders (their employees) to the AGM. Monica then called on Cotlands chairperson Dumisani Ncala to officially open the 76th AGM and adopt the minutes from last year’s meeting.
In the financial year under review, Cotlands has played an instrumental role in impacting the lives of vulnerable children that can be quantified as follows:
• Cotlanders have empowered, engaged and supported 10 942 children to play through their direct service delivery (toy libraries and early learning playgroups) as well as through their partnered projects and capacity-building programmes.
• Cotlands provided 372 017 meals through the early learning playgroup programme.
• Annually Cotlands assesses children’s growth in their school readiness by administering baseline and summative assessments. This year they saw an improvement of 23 per cent in these scores.
The increase is as a result of focusing on the regular attendance of the children, continuous professional development of practitioners and regular on-site support and mentoring. At the meeting the chairperson, CEO and treasurer provided an overview of their leadership reports for the fiscal period under review.
Some of the key highlights presented from the leadership trio include:
• Cotlands made a strategic decision (Cotlands Strategy 100) during the year to launch CotlandsIGNITE™, an online training platform to give unqualified/under-qualified practitioners an accredited early childhood development (ECD) qualification.
The ultimate goal is that the online platform will make recognition of prior learning and ECD course material more accessible and affordable. There is currently a skills gap in the sector; 350 000 ECD practitioners and assistants lack an accredited qualification.
• Training revenue contribution for 2020 remained low at two per cent. In the future Cotlands expects to see a substantial increase in training revenue generated through CotlandsIGNITE™.
• Cotlands has strategically classified their business into three segments: programmes, projects and training.
• This year 60 per cent of their programme income was from donations; government service level agreements generated 28 per cent and foreign funding revenue contributed 12 per cent.
Cotlands board and leadership team remain committed to good governance, sound accounting principles and ethical conduct.
Motseki Majake, Nazir Alli, Tatiana Page, Janet Du Preez, Phumzile Booi, Niven Postma, Neil Maslen and Marcelle Arnold were re-elected to the board of directors. Cotlands bids farewell to longstanding board members chairperson Dumisani Ncala and board member Michal Bolanowski.
“We thank both Dumi and Michal for their dedication, length of service and volunteering their expertise to Cotlands over the many years,” said Stach.
Marie-Louise Samuels and Nwabisa Qwanyashe were elected as new members to the board of directors for the ensuing years. The audited 2020 annual financial statements were adopted and the meeting re-elected LSG Integrated as auditors for the next financial period until the next AGM in 2021.
WATCH: Cotlands 76th Annual General Meeting #Cotlands #AGM2020
