Thank you

My name is Becky Garnett, and I am the MCR President at Worcester. I completed my Biological Sciences undergraduate degree at Worcester College in 2018, and I am now going into the final year of my PhD in Primary Health Care.

Having spent six years at our beautiful College, I have gained an insight into life as both an undergraduate and postgraduate, and have seen firsthand the incredible impact that donors can have on students’ lives.

From the postgraduate perspective, the hardship grants and scholarships are invaluable. For many students they make the difference between being able to accept their degree offer or not. And then once they are studying at Worcester, the donations give students the financial freedom to enjoy the College and University opportunities on offer.

So thank you, to everyone who has supported and continued to support students here. Your generosity makes a difference to us every single day!

In this report I set out to look at a longer period than I usually would, to give a sense of the direction of travel. I will not go as far back as the founding of the College in 1714, but many of the issues we are seeking to address have been with us for a very long time. The College’s endowment does not generate sufficient income to enable us to balance our books without raising money from elsewhere every year. We do this in two main ways: through a substantial conference and events business, and fundraising.

That is not to say that we haven’t made progress building the endowment over the last decade, thanks to the generosity of Old Members. Our endowment stands at £56 million, which in the league table of college endowments leaves us at number 28 out of 36, at the top of the fourth quartile.

A graph of our unrestricted activities (in effect our operating position) over the last ten years looks like this:

Over those ten years, we had a sizeable surplus in 2014 due to assets sales as part of financial restructuring, followed by a breakeven year in 2015. We then saw seven successive deficits until we achieved a small surplus last year, thanks to increased conference and events activity and through generous support from Old Members committed to seeing us close this financial gap. The decade was not without its difficulties – it included the Covid pandemic and the financial impact of the Ukraine invasion. Without the support of Old Members we would be in a significantly worse position today. Looking ahead, we want to be able to balance our books, be more financially resilient, able to cope with economic shocks, and to secure the long-term future of the College.

In the short term we are managing costs while continuing to grow the conference and events business and to improve its profitability. In the medium term we are looking at moving towards a position where our recurring income supports our ongoing costs.

In the long run, it is increasing the endowment that will make the biggest contribution to securing the future of the College. It would help us to avoid the recurring deficits of our recent past, maintain the (sometimes tired!) estate to an appropriate standard, and provide improved support for students and academics.

Alice Amegah (2018, MSc Education) is an inspirational woman. As an Education Consultant with the World Bank, based in Washington D.C in the USA, she works to improve digital education, STEM, green skills, and entrepreneurship in Africa through sharing knowledge of what works in practice.

This has meant leading research on the supply of advanced digital skills by higher education institutions in Sub-Saharan Africa,  co-authoring a World Bank Report on digital skills, and co-preparing a green skills and entrepreneurship project for youth in Sierra Leone.

It is fair to say she is passionate about education and helping young people fulfil their potential, particularly after her experience at Worcester College. Alice arrived in Oxford in 2018 to study for an MSc in Comparative and International Education, funded by a Peter Helps Scholarship.

The initial research carried out in that year inspired her to found the Education and Aspirations Hub in her home country of Ghana, providing education and career guidance for young people with a special focus on getting more girls to choose STEM, technical, and vocational education. After completing a PhD in Education and International Development at the University of Cambridge, she was selected out of 4,000 applicants as a World Bank Africa Education Fellow. Today, she remains committed to empowering young people through digital skills, green skills, and opportunities for entrepreneurship. In line with her commitment to youth development, Alice was recently judged as one of the three finalists of the Raising Star category of the prestigious WorldSkills UK EDI Heroes Awards.

Since its foundation in 1714, Worcester College has benefitted immeasurably from the gifts made by Old Members, friends, and their families in their will. This tradition has shaped Worcester and made it the wonderful College it is today, from that first benefaction from Sir Thomas Cookes in the eighteenth century, shortly followed by Dr George Clarke's bequest to create the magnificent library. Legacy gifts have endowed fellowships, sponsored scholarships, and lifted students out of financial hardship. Everyone who lives and works here owes a debt of gratitude to those who came before them and decided to leave a legacy.

To recognise everyone who has kindly remembered the College in their will, we have created the 1714 Society, and on 17 April 2024 we celebrated the first 1714 Society Lunch with over fifty Old Members.

It was fitting that Librarian Mark Bainbridge was our first 1714 Society Lunch speaker, as the heart of our special collections remains Dr George Clarke’s 1736 bequest of books, manuscripts, prints and drawings.  Mark introduced us to some of the treasures which usually have to be kept safely in the cool and dark, including a copy of George Carleton's A thankful remembrance of God's mercy (1627), probably bound for Elizabeth of Bohemia, decorated with silver thread and seed pearls.

Thank you to all our 1714 Society members. If you are interested in leaving a gift in your will, please contact Millie Papworth at millie.papworth@worc.ox.ac.uk.