Chairperson’s Report 2022
A moment of gratitude
Just like last year, I would like to start off by thanking MACASA’s team of staff and volunteers for their time and effort to enable us to have another successful year. MACASA would not be able to support its clients if not for our staff and volunteers. Your dedication over the last 12 months has made our service possible and the Board sincerely appreciates your ongoing support and commitment.
New Board Members
This year we welcomed three new people to the MACASA Board: Christian Wickham, Devesh Mundhara and Jeff Burg. It’s lovely to see people interested in giving back to the community and we continue to encourage anyone else to apply to join us.
University Student Placements
MACASA participated in a university student placement program for the first time. Our participation in the placement program was an excellent way for MACASA to provide experience to four future professionals in the aged care industry. In exchange, the students provided fresh ideas and energy. Given the success of the program, MACASA will continue to apply for students in future years.
Price increases
During this reporting period we endured the second year of the COVID-19 pandemic. We also saw the cost-of-living increase across the community due to environmental and geopolitical factors. As these pressures have taken their toll on the community, MACASA and its services become even more important. Our social services are providing much-needed support to those who are worn down by the doom and gloom in the media and the social isolation that comes with reducing in-presence interactions with fellow humans. Our meal service also provided a nutritious solution to the rising costs of food and energy.
MACASA has not been immune to the impacts of rising prices. The cost of preparing our meals has risen by 36% since we last increased meal prices in 2018. We have tried our best to shield our clients from the brunt of the rising prices as everyone tries to do more with less. However, with such a sustained and material impact MACASA ended the 2022 financial year with a loss. Consequently, the Board made the difficult decision to raise the price of meals slightly for our clients who pay full price from 1 August 2022 so we can maintain the level of quality, which we believe differentiates us from similar services in the market.
We used our strategic meeting this year to consider opportunities to raise funds other than by government or client contributions. This will be an ongoing focus in the next financial year as we do not expect inflation to ease significantly and packaging costs will continue to increase as we phase out of single-use plastic.
Government Funding Changes
The Commonwealth Government provides MACASA with the majority of its funding. The Government has been preparing for changes to the funding model, which was expected to be implemented at the beginning of the 2023 financial year. Some changes were made this year and we expect more in July 2024. We will work with any clients affected once we have more detail, to ensure continuity of service.
Services
So, how did we do? In FY2022 MACASA had an 8% increase to the number of clients we supported, from 397 to 432. We sold just over 20,000 meals, which was about 1400 less than last year and an average of 1670 a month. We did not have as many social events we had originally planned, thanks to COVID-19 restrictions, but we hope that FY2023 sees a return to our pre-pandemic social calendar.
Belinda London
Chairperson.